Tony White

 

I have always found it an interesting distinction between adversarial psychotherapies and the non-adversarial ones. The different types of therapies of course have different ways of conceptualising what emotional problems are and thus have alternative therapies to remedy those problems. 

 

For instance take the four main forms of Transactional Analysis listed below and the which part of the personality (ego state) that they tend to focus on.

 

 

Adversarial therapies have been around since time began such as with Freud and psychoanalysis. He posited that the conscious and unconscious were adversaries. That these two aspects of the personality were combative. The unconscious was constantly trying to force itself into the conscious and the conscious was trying to avoid that happening. 

 

He even came up with the idea of the defence mechanisms. These allowed the conscious to be defended against the unwanted unconscious material. Of course one only needs a defence if one detects some kind of attack. Clearly a very adversarial explanation of personality where we have one part of the personality continually putting up defences against perceived attacks by another part of the personality. There is no concept of harmonious coexistence in such a theory.

 

In Transactional Analysis theory this view is typified by the Redecision school of therapy. They say one can explain human emotional problems by the three degrees or types of impasses a shown below:

 

 

Type 1 - the P2 and C2 ego states are in conflict

Type 2 - the P1 and C1 ego states are in conflict

Type 3 - the P0 and C0 ego states are in conflict

In each the Parent is seen as inhibiting or chastising the Child and the Child is seen as fighting back against that - a combative view I think one could say.

The impasses are explained as:

 

 

Therapy techniques like two chair are often used in these theories of therapy and are directly conflictual in nature. One pits the potency of the inhibiting Parent ego state against the needs and wants of the Child ego state. The goal of the therapist is to facilitate the Child overcoming the Parent and thus psychological growth is afforded. A directly combative approach is suggested by the therapist to the client.

 

One problem I have with with these theories and thus therapies is they say that such conflict is normal and is indeed deeply embedded in our psyche and personalities. As such conflict is inevitable, thus one has a winner and a loser context. There is no win-win dynamic in such therapies. The therapist is directly stating to the client that conflict and a combative approach to problem solving is OK and really the way to deal with such situations. Direct permission to seek a win-lose situation rather than win-win is given to the client through the therapeutic relationship and really the entire structure of the therapy.

 

 

Alternate to these are the non conflictual theories and therapies. A good example of this is client centred therapy as proposed by Carl Rogers. He suggests that if a client is placed in a unconditional positive environment in the therapy setting then that person will slowly develop due to their inherent tendency to grow towards health. It lacks any combative component. The good part about this is that it also says to the client that you are OK as you are. In the conflictual therapies the therapist is saying to the client that one part of them is not OK. Indeed the client’s Child ego state may hear being told that part of them self is bad.

 

Also what are now called the positive psychology approaches tend to be of this vein, like Abraham Maslow and many of the Life coaching approaches. The gaol is not to change things in the client but to take their positives and work with encouraging those. Again there is much less focus on the negatives or pathology in the client. So in the very nature of the therapeutic relationship the client is getting the message that they are OK.

 

In more recent times some Relational Transactional Analysis approaches are also non combative in nature. Some may even be regarded as completely pacifist in their view. The act of even diagnosing a client is considered insulting the client or shaming them. Whilst I don’t fully agree with this I do understand what they are saying and I do see its place with certain clients as is described below.

 

Some clients have a large and very vitriolic internal critic or Critical Parent ego state sitting in the back of their heads. Some times these people can use therapy to further their pathology  by giving the internal critic a good work out every session. By the very act of coming to counselling and identifying their script messages, or the games they play, or their racket feelings they are thus getting confirmation from the therapist that there is some thing wrong or bad about them. The counselling is simply used to provide further evidence for the Critical Parent with which to flagellate the Child within.

 

 

However back to the very non adversarial approaches where one is reluctant to even diagnose a problem. To do so as I said before is seen to insult the client and they would see this as interfering in the relational or the relationship between the client and therapist. They would then argue quite rightly that it is the therapeutic relationship that is usually seen as the thing that has the most curative powers and thus one wants to avoid disrupting it as much as one can. Weather making some kind of diagnosis does insult the client and thus disrupt the relational is a matter of debate but one does want to avoid disrupting the relational.

A further interesting point is that these approaches can not really be called psychotherapies. They cannot actually be a therapy. As soon as one engages in some kind of therapy then that automatically implies that there is some difficulty or problem that requires remediation. If there wasn’t then there would be no need for any therapy in the first place.

 

This leaves one a quite an interesting juncture. Two people can get together and investigate the relational contact between them where there is no therapeutic goal. It is simply a matter of investigating and understanding the relationship. So it is not therapy and it is not ‘just’ a relationship. A new entity or one could even say a new organism has been created. I am still looking for someone to have such relational contact with.

 

 

Graffiti