Transcript Neuere Hirnforschung und TA-Theorien

Current brain research and
TA theories
Analogies, challenges and
practical implications
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Elbing, TSTA
Key questions
• From which position and with which
attitude do we transactional analysts
look into brain research?
• What can we assume as a basis?
• Where do TA concepts and brain
research findings correlate, where do
they challenge each other?
• What does that mean for TA practice?
Positions on brain research
(1)
• “Given the importance of synaptic
transmission in brain function, it should
practically be a truism to say that the self is
synaptic. What else can it be?” (Le Doux, 2002,
in: Hine, 2005, p. 40)
• “In summary, therapy can be regarded as a
change of neuronal networks” (Allen 2003, p.
158 – translated).
• “Ontogenetically, the I in its multifarious
features is a late product of the brain” (Roth,
2004, p. 37 – translated).
Positions on brain research
(2)
• “The traditional understanding of science,
which is geared towards natural sciences, is
not sufficiently suitable for the science of life.
[...] (The) felicitous concepts (of TA) are
works of art. They therefore defy reduction to
a closed theory that would be traditionally
acknowledged as scientific.” (Klöcker, 2002, p.
23 – translated).
Positions on brain research
(3)
“The danger of moving uncritically towards
science, medicine, and economics must be
avoided, and what must be accepted is the
challenge of appreciating those scientific
acquisitions for the field in which they are valid,
in as much as naturalism is part of the
necessary criteria for therapeutic intervention
but is far from being sufficient” (Scilligo, 2004,
in: Tosi, 2008, p. 119).
Positions on brain research
(4)
• “(…) different psychological disorders
often cause similar changes in information
processing (...). In this respect,
psychological disorders definitely have
neuropsychological effects, but they must
be considered from a different perspective
than neurological diseases.” (Lautenbacher
& Gauggel, 2004, p. 3 – translated).
My positions on brain research
• An equation or immediate correlation of
psychological processes (and thus the TA
concepts that describe them) and brain
processes is at least precarious from a
scientific theoretical point of view.
• And it would very much hinder a mutual
fruitful dialogue at eye level.
• But this constitutes a chance for the future
of TA.
Sound starting points (1)
• Optimism regarding change and
development are corroborated and
differentiated by brain research.
• New assessment of the time factor
for sustainable learning processes
Sound starting points (2)
• The key role of relationship and
bonding for learning, change and
development is corroborated by
brain research.
• “The following is important for every form of learning:
learning takes place where there is positive
experience (...), positive experience per se consisting
in social contacts. (...) Shared activities are probably
the most important ‘booster’. This immediately
illustrates the biological roots of the therapeutic
situation.” (Spitzer, 2004, p. 53 – translated).
Analogies and challenges
The brain is the result of its utilisation
(biography).
Knowledge is not passively acquired but
actively constructed.
The autopoetic subject in
Transactional Analysis
• The concept of decision in TA
– Survival decision
– Active script confirmation: baits,
rackets, racket/script system, miniscript ...
– New decision
• Aspiration
Learning in early youth is different from
learning as an adult in that experience and
learning processes leave far more solid and
durable traces in the brain of a child than in the
brain of an adult.
The brain is plastic; its plasticity decreases
with increasing age but does not go down to zero.
The modern script concept
• BABCOCK & KEEPERS 1976: Plasticity, lifelong
reorganisation
• ENGLISH 1977: solution-orientation, human
necessity, meaning-making (PIAGET, KEGAN)
• CORNELL 1988: constructivist perspective in the
lifespan – sense and meaning
• ALLEN 1999: coherent script
• MOISO & NOVELLINO 2004: lived-out, continuously
and interactively created stories
preconscious
repressed
Understanding of script as pathological
BERNE 1961,1972
script draft
(protocol,
“predisposition”
due to first traumatic
experience)
palimpsests
.
.
as open for development
FRIEDMAN & SHMUKLER 1992
matrix structuring transitional space
(
Winnicott)
GOULDING & GOULDING
1976 re-decision
ALLEN & ALLEN 1988
permissions to decide
ENGLISH 1977
solution-orientation, human necessity,
meaning-making
(
PIAGET, KEGAN)
script proper
understanding of the script proper as path.
adjustment
compromise formation
adaptation
ERSKINE 1991, 1998
coping, modern
concept of defence,
not necessarily
unconscious; life
script as macro
expression of
transference
BABCOCK & KEEPERS 1976
plasticity, lifelong reorganisation
CORNELL 1988
constructivist perspective
in the lifespan – sense and meaning
ALLEN 1999
script apparatus
whole
coherent script
constructionist
neuropsychological
narrative
MOISO & NOVELLINO 2004
lived-out, continuously and
interactively created stories
lifespan
© Ulrich Elbing 2005
Remembering in terms of re-calling the
same thing again and again does not
exist.
Remembering means activating
cognitions in ever new contexts. “Each
act of remembering changes the
retained content by implying a new
context.”
Annette Scheunpflug, 2001
Each re-calling of memories (‘ecphory’) entails a
new storing (re-encoding) process, by which the
re-stored, ‘old’ information is consolidated but also
modified and adapted to the present.
Dialectics of repetition and
change in TA
• “Dialectic potential” in the concepts:
– Game benefit
– Degrees of script addiction
– Script system as an ‘unheard-of’ story (Thomas
Weil)
• Problem: on/off-model behind the
concepts of game pullout, script pullout,
decontamination, script reinforcement
and confrontation
Memory systems and news
of the unconscious
• Explicit and implicit memory
• Unconscious:
– Unsymbolisable memory contents
– Suppressed and unsuppressed contents
• De-pathologisation of the unconscious
• New definition of the I  It relation
The unconscious and TA
concepts
• Unconscious communication (Novellino,
2005)
– Psychological level: unconscious construction of
associative links
– The psychological level cannot be made
conscious deliberately
– Contents: narrative about a third outside the
therapeutic relationship
– Objective: message about contents that are
unacceptable on the conscious level (among
others, about the therapeutic relationship)
The unconscious and TA
concepts
• Ego states:
– Adding the physical aspect to thinking,
feeling and behaviour (Thomas Weil)
– Ego states as carriers and expression of
conscious and unconscious relationship
history (Maria T. Tosi, 2008)
TA concepts interesting for
brain research
•
•
•
•
Ego state changes
Process of decontamination
The little professor
Racket feelings
Practical meaning
• Learning to listen in a new and different
way
• Caution: discount! Or: the unconscious
is busy
• A new way of dealing with the
unutterable and understanding (or
wanting or having to understand)
• Exercise is good for you...
Theses for discussion (1)
• TA can regard itself confirmed by brain
research (as other procedures, too).
– What can the dangers of a naive joy of
confirmation be?
• Brain research helps to further depathologise TA concepts.
– What do the findings on learning and
remembering mean for concepts such as
script, games, contract?
Theses for discussion (2)
• TA will have to integrate new facts.
– What does the more recent understanding of
the unconscious mean for concepts such as
decision, transactions, transactional rules?
• Trusting perception and describing it
thoroughly has been and still is an
important key to the development of new
TA concepts.
– Which phenomena do I know and perceive that
don‘t fit the established TA concepts (well)?
Literature
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Allen, J.R. (2003). Neurophysiologische/entwicklungsbedingte Grundlagen von
TA. Zeitschrift für Transaktionsanalyse 20(2), 146-162.
Hine, J. (2005). Brain structures and ego states. Transactional Analysis Journal,
35(1), 40-51.
Klöcker, N. (2002). Die TA im Spannungsbogen zwischen Wissenschaft und
Kunst. Zeitschrift für Transaktionsanalyse 19(1), 5-24.
Lautenbacher, S. & Gauggel, S. (eds) (2004). Neuropsychologie psychischer
Störungen. Berlin: Springer.
Novellino, M. (2005). Transactional psychoanalysis: Epistemological
foundations. Transactional Analysis Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2, 157-172.
Roth, G. (2004). Wie das Gehirn die Seele macht. In Schiepek, G. (ed.)
Neurobiologie der Psychotherapie (p 28-41). Stuttgart: Schattauer.
Tosi, M.T. (2008). The many faces of the unconscious: A new unconscious for a
phenomenological Transactional Analysis. Transactional Analysis Journal, 38(2),
119-127.
Spitzer, M. (2004). Neuronale Netzwerke und Psychotherapie. In Schiepek, G.
(ed) Neurobiologie der Psychotherapie (p 42-57). Stuttgart: Schattauer.
Thank you for your
attention!
Contact: [email protected]
Positions on brain research
(3)
• ”The danger of moving uncritically towards
science, medicine, and economics must be
avoided, and what must be accepted is the
challenge of appreciating those scientific
acquisitions for the field in which they are
valid, in as much as naturalism is part of the
necessary criteria for therapeutic intervention
but is far from being sufficient” (Scilligo, 2004,
in: Tosi, 2008, p. 119).
TA concepts
relevant/interesting for brain
research
•
•
•
•
Ego state changes
Process of decontamination
The little professor
Racket feelings