Positive Psychology and Transactional Analysis

Abstract

This articles describes the author's encounter with two "positive" psychologies-trans-actional analysis and positive psychology-and some of the similarities and differences in their founding, evolution, and branding. Because transactional analysis has remarkable properties as a metalanguage, many positive psychology ideas can be considered from a TA perspective and translated into TA concepts. On the other hand, positive psychology may be able to provide research evidence for concepts from transactional analysis. This comparison highlights the contradictions deeply embedded within transac-tional analysis theory between a philosophical framework based on the empirical scientific paradigm of the 1950s, which focuses on "objectivity," and a more contemporary con-structivist philosophy, which focuses on "subjectivity." ______ History may view the twentieth century in ways that we cannot yet imagine. It is likely to credit this era with the development of a myri-ad of psychological approaches growing out of Freud's late nineteenth-century work on hypnotism and hysteria (from his studies with Char-cot, 1885-1886) and hysteria and dreams (from his work with Breuer as articulated in Breuer & Freud, 1895). Bragg (1998) has suggested that Freud had more impact on the world than anyone before or since. A longer-term view of the twentieth-century Western world already puts into perspective the fashionable ebbs and flows of psychological frameworks: humanistic schools arising out of experiences from World War II; cognitive and behavioral approaches gaining popularity alongside the technological developments of the 1960s and 1970s, as humans grandiosely considered that they might be able to control environment and society; a resurgence of notions of the unconscious, with a new focus on the interpersonal and thus intersubjective domain toward the end of the century, perhaps emerging in response to complexity theory and quantum physics-and that is only to name a few. It was said in my training that there are over 400 named psychologies currently in existence. And now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a collection of research and ideas loosely termed "positive psychology" (PP) is beginning to permeate not only some existing approaches, but also politics, practices within organizations and education, psychotherapy and counseling, and even popular culture. This impact is not unlike the one transactional analysis (TA) had in its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, and many of the ideas within positive psychology echo notions for which transaction-al analysis provides useful maps and metaphors. This article offers an overview of some of the developments and range of ideas within positive psychology and suggests links with transactional analysis. It does not attempt to critique coherently the positive psychology movement , although some of my signposts for doing so may be decipherable in this text. At the same time, this article juxtaposes positive psychology with transactional analysis in order to provide some critique of the latter. If transactional analysis is to continue to develop internationally in breadth as well as in depth, we need to pay attention to our strengths rather than put energy into our weaknesses and internal disputes about those. By attending to our strengths, we can continue to build on our excellent history of integrating ides from other psychological domains into central transactional analysis thinking. My Journey Noticing the increasing prevalence of the term "positive psychology" and how some of its ideas seemed to connect with transactional analysis, I attended and enjoyed the first British positive psychology conference in April 2007. At that meeting, there were some transactional analysis workshops presented by people who