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Pages 9-13
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
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The author, through telling how he came to transactional analysis, shares a puzzle about how, and under what circumstances, decisions come together to shape stories about human destiny and personal biographies. His story proposes that the most important events in our lives are decided within and by transactions larger than the individual, that in psychotherapy, as in everyday living, the shaping of experience is itself narrative. He reports on a meeting with his former psychotherapist that depicts a way the stories of psychotherapy turn psychotherapy into a narrative. The narrative of psychotherapy enfolds in itself stories that may become the context for an indefinite number of stories.

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Author information

Graham Barnes

Graham Barnes became a Teaching Member of the ITAA in 1973. He lives in Sweden and is licensed to practice psychotherapy by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare. He teaches psychotherapy, supervises psychotherapists, and advises corporate leaders. Since 1979 he has been commuting regularly to the fanner Yugoslavia to teach. He is head of the School of Psychotherapy Cybernetics in the Department of Psychiatry, Medical Faculty, University of Zagreb, where he is also visiting lecturer. He is the author of the recently published book, Justice, Love and Wisdome: Linking Psychotherapy to Second-Order Cybernetics.