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Article

The Transgenerational Script of Transactional Analysis

Pages 196-204
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
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Individuals and families manifest in their behavior their ancestors' influence even without having met them. This is the result of unconscious communication that runs between family members from one generation to another. Organizations also experience such dynamics because they have scripts based on their founder's personality. Based on biographical information about Eric Berne and recent discussions about his script, the author analyzes the transactional analysis transgenerational script. The author aims to understand the way his script may be affecting the development of transactional analysis organizations, to improve dissemination of transactional analysis as it is understood and practiced today, and to further efforts to obtain the academic merit that the theory deserves. The purpose is to modify the narrative of the transactional analysis script by becoming conscious of the fundamental role that practitioners have in the way they teach, discuss, and transmit this theory. The author suggests that transactional analysts can reconstruct the limiting part of this script and, at the same time, reinforce the positive part. That process will facilitate the recognition of the value of Eric Berne's contribution to humankind.

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Gloria Noriega

Gloria Noriega, Ph.D., is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy) and the director of Instituto Mexicano de Análisis Transaccional (IMAT) in Mexico City. She is also a past president of the ITAA and the winner of the 2008 Eric Berne Memorial Award. She can be reached at Agrarismo 21, Col. Escandón. México, D.F.C.P. 11800; e-mail: . This article is an edited version of the keynote speech given by Gloria at the ITAA Conference in Lima, Peru, on 5 August 2009. A version was also published in Spanish in Revista de Análisis Transaccional y Psicología Humanista (the journal of the Asociación Española de Anélisis Transaccional or AESPAT in Madrid, Spain) No. 61, pp. 228–237, 2009.
 

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