Live and in Limbo: A Case Study of an In-Person Transactional Analysis Consultation

Abstract

This article presents a detailed case study of a single transactional analysis consultation session based on the supervisory processes first described by Eric Berne (1968/1977) and John O'Hearne (1972). The consultation process included the client directly in discussion about the ongoing therapy, including its successes and points of impasse. The consultant, the therapist, and the client each reflect on the results of the consultation.

Love, Seduction, and Power in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship

“…In my opinion, avoidance of what is uncontrollable is an inheritance that transactional analysts were glad to accept because in the transactional analytic literature there is an avoidance of the erotic and seductive dimension of the therapeutic relationship, except for a few publications over the past 12 years (Cornell, 2001(Cornell, , 2009Cornell, Shadbolt, & Norton, 2007;Hargaden, 2001). At the clinical level this produced a generalized lack of interest in this issue-in line with an orientation common also in other psychotherapeutic theories-and a tendency, as we shall see later, to enact seduction in dissociated ways through social control rituals that tame the power of desire.…”