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Article

Understanding the Power of Injunctive Messages and How They are Resolved in Redecision Therapy

Pages 159-169
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
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This article summarizes the theoretical findings of six previous articles (McNeel, 1999, 2000, 2002a, 200b, 2009a, 2009b)and looks at redecision as a process, with particular emphasis on understanding the power, influence, and impact of injunctive messages as well as the way in which they are resolved. It is posited that there are two, rather than one, central decision to each injunctive message: a despairing decision and a defiant decision. The defiant decision (which is the person's best attempt at health) creates an observable coping behavior that becomes the observable evidence for the diagnosis of specific injunctive messages. The redecision to each injunctive message is presented as a process of acquiring a new belief, and a resolving activity is described as a practice to strengthen the new belief. Furthermore, a new internal parental voice is shown to be a necessary antidote to the previous internal parental influence. Finally, a tool is offered for self-diagnosis of various injunctive messages using internal responses (labeled “bitter” or “healing”) to the injunctions. Twenty-five injunctions are described in terms of five categories: survival, attachment, identity, competence, and security.

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John R. McNeel

John R. McNeel, Ph.D., is a Certified Teaching Member of the ITAA. He trained with Bob and Mary Goulding in the early 1970s at Mt. Madonna and joined thefaculty of the Western Institute for Group and Family Therapy in 1975. His dissertation, Redecisions in Psychotherapy: A Study of the Effects of a Weekend Group Therapy Workshop, was the first to study systematically the Gouldings' work. John was editor of the Transactional Analysis Journal from 1980–1983. He has taught the concepts of redecision therapy extensively within the United States and internationally. Currently vicepresident and a founding member of the Redecision Therapy Association, he is a psychologist in private practice in Palo Alto, California, and can be contacted at 467 Hamilton Avenue, Suite 5, Palo Alto, California 94301, U.S.A.; email: .
For over a decade the following individuals made remarkable contributions to the work described in this article: Penny McNeel, Nina Miller, Ruth Thurlow, Mark and Susan Faurot, Joanna Greenslade, Ellen Deker, Rebecca Dekker, Susan Tipton, Maria Luisa de Luca, Carla Maria de Nitto, Lucia Frattero, Maria I'Scoliere, Mary Kay Bigelow, Diana Pearce, Lorraine Priscaro, Cathy Martin, Joyce Lauterback, Judy Justin, Joe Shaub, Mariel Pastor-Simanson, Penny Fletcher, Andrew Whaling, and Robert Lloyd. (The original series of six articles that were the basis of this article were dedicated to Dr. James Edward Heenan, 1925–1998, “a redecision therapist of penetrating perspicacity, the kindest humor, and infinite sweetness.”)
 

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