The Place of Failure and Rupture in Psychotherapy

Abstract

This article explores rupture and failure within transactional analysis psychotherapy from ethical, cultural, theoretical, and clinical perspectives. The author offers a relational frame of reference, which views failure and rupture as inevitable and necessary in the therapeutic encounter. A relational therapeutic sequence is described, and a relational aspect is added to Berne's (1972) game formula and illustrated with a case example.

Failing to Do the Job

“…This situation, as unsettling as it was, could have been an impasse or period of enactment that could have served the treatment (Cornell, 2012; Cornell & Landaiche, 2006; Kantrowitz, 1996; Little, 2012; McLaughlin, 2005; Stuthridge, 2012). Contemporary therapeutic tales of impasses and enactments in the transactional analysis literature have often portrayed difficult moments in treatment that led to insight and transformation (Cook, 2012; Maquet, 2012; Murphy, 2012; Novak, 2015; Shadbolt, 2012; Stuthridge, 2012, 2015). But the crisis with Samantha proved to be much more catastrophic than informative or reparative.…”

A Life Yet to Be Found

“…This involves a particular availability and flexibility in challenging or revising the theories we operate from so that they provide support for our clinical experience instead of becoming an imposition of our own frames of reference. When this fails to happen and theoretical constructs are mistaken for the truth, “transactional analysis is in danger of becoming an intellectualizing, dogmatic exercise” (Shadbolt, 2012, p. 7).…”

Failure and Shame in Professional Practice

“…Indeed, the word shame often appears in descriptions of failures, errors, and ruptures (see Barrow, 2011;Bromberg, 2011;Elkind, 1992;Shadbolt, 2012). …”

“…This awkward, unpromising start proved, over time, to be of significance in her work with that client. Shadbolt (2012) also wrote about an apparently ordinary mix-up in a client’s appointment time and the intense emotional confusion that ensued, which eventually elucidated aspects of her client’s work that might otherwise not have come to light.…”

“…My interest in failure began over 15 years ago when I noted its correlation with reports of shame, my own and that of colleagues. Indeed, the word shame often appears in descriptions of failures, errors, and ruptures (see Barrow, 2011; Bromberg, 2011; Elkind, 1992; Shadbolt, 2012).…”