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To the Editors: I found Eric Berne's discussion of Peter Giovacchini's essay on “Characterological Aspects of Marital Interaction” [The Psychoanalytic Forum, Vol. 2, No. 1] most instructive in the bittersweet way of the world.
Transactional analysis is a conceptual standpoint which, in my opinion, is a useful angle of approach to human affairs. It may well be, as Dr. Berne indicates, that psychoanalysis is more suitable for describing intrapsychic processes and that transactional analysis is more suitable for describing social events. Each standpoint can complement and complete the limitations of the other in the same sense that the complementary wave-particle theories do in physics. No single conceptual system can, after all, embrace human affairs in its entirety.
But I am discouraged by Dr. Berne's blanket statement that psychoanalysis is insufficient as a therapeutic rationale for marital problems, and that transactional analysis, the rationale to which he personally subscribes, is sufficient to that end. I was not born yesterday and have heard that old song sung many times before, and indeed I have played that game many times before. It profits us nothing to say I am right and you are wrong. As Dr. Giovacchini so rightly pointed out in his response, the frame of reference of “The Forum” is by prior agreement psychoanalytic. It is printed right on the cover.
Dr. Berne's use of “The Forum” to criticize psychoanalysis and promote transactional analysis was a forensic ploy as old as the hills. And, ironically, it is the oldest game in the world.
Richard Hayes
Seattle, Washington