Transactional Analysis and Relationship Psychotherapy: A Need for Renewed Interest and Contemporary Thinking

Abstract

Abstract The author reviews all articles on relationship, couples, and marriage psychotherapy and counseling published in the Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ) between 1970 and 2021 to determine whether transactional analysis has a substantive model of relationship psychotherapy. He synthesizes the content in search of a coherent, integrated, systematic approach to this practice and to determine whether it is informed by contemporary theory and practice. Since the 1970s, the publication in the TAJ of papers on relationship psychotherapy has steeply declined as the broader relationship psychotherapy field has become enlivened. Discussion focuses on the significant work needed to develop this area of practice.