S7 E2: Richard Erskine Part I - Psychotherapy and Transactional Analysis

[Music] I define life script a series of unconscious relation powers that inhibit spontaneity and little flexibility in problem solving, health maintenance and relationship with people. So the symptoms of that then would be that common mental health issues that people occur, relationships with people. And difficulty in managing health issues, such as walk-in, excessive drinking, early-night-city, all-night-free, was a medical professional concerned about. And why does a person take good care of this? What kind of relationship problems do they have and can they solve problems in their life? This is three people in your head. [Music] In this episode we speak with Richard Erskin. Richard is the training director at the Institute for Integrative Psychotherapy, a clinical psychologist and an author of numerous books and articles on the practice of psychotherapy. We discuss Richard's early work in psychotherapy, how we came across TA in the 70s and how TA developed in those early years. It was recorded in September 2019 face to face and unfortunately being new to this, the sound quality isn't great and we only have 30 minutes of the interview. The material however is excellent. Richard also graciously agreed to a second interview, which you can hear in episode two. Welcome to Ireland Richard. It's amazing how the opportunities are meet you in person that might build things from Cambridge. We're all here together and it's really loving happy. Thank you. It's been fabulous driving down from Dublin with a great weather and we start the two wonderful gardens and walk on the beach. So here we are at the lovely drag today. That's awesome. We're really grateful that we managed to connect with this. You just happen to be passing through Ireland. We're very close to Ireland. It's a very nice and healthy, wonderful. So yeah, I suppose maybe if we start off with you by getting you to introduce a little bit about yourself, your background, where you come from and some of your work. But it's interesting. I never expected to be in psychotherapy profession. I did intend to be an Austrian path. I had a chance to go to school at scholarship and I discovered that I would not be set to be at now as a medic. I was so quick and I looked around how to protect myself and not going to be at now. I'm an acting special education teacher. Well, I spent 40 years in the classroom with what we call it. That time it mostly disturbed it's so she was not adjusted. But with me kids were really in trouble. A lot of the kids, their parents were drug addicts and alcoholics, came from violent situations. So I was doing a lot of therapy in the classroom really poor kids in the inner city. Then in the afternoon, lady meets I was building on that. I had much more middle class even more of your kids coming for what we call educational therapy. But then I was really doing a lot of play therapy with them and not much one wanted. Yeah, the parents wanted me to be doing that. So I would be able to practice around how to work with kids. And then you're like, you would say I got hired at university to teach child psychology and child development and child psychotherapy. So that's always been my specialty. You could sort of under the table. And I just written a very long article on child development theory as applied in psychotherapy. I think it should be published this coming year in the international journal, individual psychotherapy. That's not long. That's sort of my background. Great. And I suppose how was it then that you got involved in transactylenosis? Actually, it started with the shelter. Even before that, in 1967, because I was a child therapist, I was hired to do the therapist of a group of nurses who survived the mass murder. Well, I had a crazy guy. He got an interdormitory tied up in nurses, but she had some of them. And then he fled when we found the alarm. But all of the men who survived, regressed some of them or there. I would say some of them were the next building, but they were all traumatized. And they hired me. And I had two days, I mean, four days away, two hours of supervision on what I book I was doing the postman. And that was from Bob Neville, who big carolologist partner. And so I had a very good foundation, we had a client set of therapy, including trauma in that anger setting. Yeah, which was a therapy without methods. A therapy that really being present with them, or the practicing and unconditional positive regard. Yeah, yeah. Directed to mass. Yeah. And then when I come to Strasbourg, I was doing a training program in Chicago. So I joined that at the same time. For me, the English was bringing part-burn to Chicago. She was my neighbor in Hyde Park. So you were from the Chicago. From the three of them, Sarah, everyone. And I asked for, should I go with you? That's all that game stuff. Okay. So, look, except there's one chapter on advantages to games. There's a beautiful chapter about the psychological function behind playing games. It worked out for the advantages of games. Yeah. That I was interested in. Yeah. And I still admire that chapter. Yeah. I don't teach games much. I look at what's the dynamics leading up to some cross-strands action. What's the dynamics leading up to somebody shooting off of themselves or having somebody else? Yeah. Rather than identifying the game, confronting the game, trying to find some cross-up in the game. And what do you say about the sixths then? What you were doing was pioneering work. I don't know if I would be considered a pioneer. That point that early, because there were a few other people doing child therapy in this brand new. There was not much literature. There was not much literature on family therapy. And mostly psychotherapy, literature was psychobaginemic. Psychoanalytic. And writing, and then there was schist off therapy. And there was TA and some biogenics. But they were only there, so all of them. And TA was very new at that festival with them. So Fritz Perl said, "Don't bother to put them in workshops so I can go." So did you ever meet that? No, I did that. I was too poor. I couldn't afford to put a California coffee. But I did go to a workshop with Dick Cuffer. And he started putting these little circles on the board. And then suddenly I had a different understanding of what burn was getting at in games. People were like, "Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah." And so I got intrigued by the concept of ego states. So a lot of my early writings is trying to clarify what is an ego state and what's the different models. And why do we have all these different new points? And who wants to burn and reach me? Okay. By child. Yeah, about how a person is really stuck in the perspective of being a little boy or a little girl. Yeah. And what does he mean by parent? How it's really interjecting, taking in the attitudes, the beliefs, the behavior of your parent, and misidentifying it is your own. And then who is here now if they're not contaminated by being a kid or acting like father, mother, wife? So that got me intrigued. And then after those workshops, they were tougher, who was, "Shade you off as we never burn." He was a president by TAA. Interesting. And so he was my original sponsor for my clinical training. Very good. And he died and had just papers to go over. And had his words bring to each of our training groups the manuscript of what became, what do you say after you say, "Hello, okay, so we started working from that book and the workshops we did with the experiential exercises." And I got so intrigued with life scripts that that has been a major thrust of my own research and not scientific investigation, but a qualitative kind of research into life scripts. And what constitutes a script and what are all the different methods of therapy? Could I ask, for this podcast, it's going out to the public. Yeah, I might not be very easy to do this, but would you be able to explain briefly in a summary of what a life script is? So if somebody's never come across TA in that field? Actually, I just got in the ward last year for a series of ratings that I did. What I deferred life script is a series of ratings. of unconscious relational powers that it hid its spontaneity and it was flexible in problem solving, health maintenance and relationship with people. So the symptoms of that then would be the common mental health issues that people occur, relationships with people, difficulty in managing health issues, such as small brain, or excessive drinking, or the ACV, something that I've ever exercised, you know, all the things that a medical professional is concerned about. And why does it a person take care of themselves? Yeah, right. What kind of relationship problems do they have? And can they solve problems in their life? For example, the woman who I worked up, not long ago, was talking about how she could not write her examination. Every time she'd come off from work, she'd sit down to write, but her desk was a mess full of unopened mail and things, and she'd get 10 minutes into writing and go blank. And I started investigating, well, well, something like for you coming to school doing homework is a little bit of a headache. Mother, how could a house was a mess? She had to get her mother cleaned up, she had to do the cooking, she had to do the house cleaning. And there was that old pattern that she had heard that she actually forgot about, without some careful inquiry. And this is what it was on consciousness, because it was having a program and sat right off. Now, how these patterns formed? That span a whole debate in the literature. And each of the various schools of therapy has focused on various ways to inform. What I talk about in my articles is they're formed by physiological survival reactions. These are when there is ruptures in relationship that happened very early in life before there is lag mission. Now, the kids may have some works. Yeah, but before they have conceptual lag, which will they really understand things? So is that a raise of 0 to 6? No, I don't think so. Would you think that it's pre-birth as well, stuff that happens while the baby's in the moon? It can be certainly traumatized, but it's going to cross this end. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that we don't have any really good scientific evidence. Yeah, yeah, that. But we have a lot of anecdotal evidence. So that when that child is under stress, the body hangs up so the spirit is in the body. When you have an other period of time where the child has some words, some vocabulary, but they don't have concept, they don't understand family dynamics. Mom and dad are fighting, and the kids are, "Oh, that's my fault." Or if I'm really good, then daddy will be drinking. Or if I'm really helpful, mom will be depressed. So it's not like they made this decision, but they came to convoc use. Like one of my clients, she kept saying, "Oh, I'm a little guy here." And I thought, "Oh, what did you decide that?" Yeah, she looked at me and said, "I need to decide that out." And my family, girls, are no value. I'm two, number five. I had four other brothers, my father worshiped them. I came along my way job and said, "Help Mama." Well, time was a little guy. You I never decided that. That's normal. That's how it is. Unconscious relation patterns that occur as inclusive memory. Rather than the explicit memory, then you need a different kind of approach to circumference. Then you get the events that happen. That you might remember from age 10 or 12, or maybe as young as 8, or something happened in my decision. I'm never going to do that again. I won't cross people again. I won't take a risk again. I give up on school. And those are explicit decisions. That's another kind of therapy. And then we have script that's in projection, like Mary Davis. She was my infrejective. She said, "Unconscious, defensive identification." I made a better say, "Unconscious, self-protective identification." And then we have a positive thought, feelings, behaviors, and the significant other. That occurs in the absence of full relation of contact. So when that kid doesn't have a full relation contact, where their relation needs are not being yet. It kind of back you. So, "How?" This is something that sounds about taking in the attitude or the behavior of their contact. And that forms another purpose. So now if you look at the TA, there are different ways of working. You've got explicit memory. I deal for the redecision therapy. I may be using an empty chair and putting the other person in the other chair, talking to them, coming to the emotional expression, realizing what decision they made, and changing. Making an interecision. And Bob and Mary Goody, in their vocal redistission therapy, covers that very well. In my vocal integrative psychotherapy and action, that's about redistission therapy. When it comes to a explicit conclusions, then you need a relational therapy. That's not something that happens on a specific day. At a specific time, yes. But it's an accumulation. And then, after a event, from an uncertain environment, it's a long way. That's right. It's criticism, after criticism. It's neglect, after neglect. And the person just comes to convocations. Or I'm worthless, or I'm people capy-trusted, or life is suffering. So that's another way of working. And that's why you've got a lot of trans-actual anomalous focusing on relational psychotherapy. And some others are focusing on redistission. And people only go off. Yes. And then, the younger the neglect or the trauma, the more it's going to be embodied by the body. Or the more severe the trauma, even in later age, it's going to be embodied. So the 12-year-old is being beaten by his father. Yes. That script is going to be in the body tissue. Or a 13-year-old, 14-year-old girl would be molested by some neighbor. Yes. That script is going to be caught in her body. So I've pushed for a long time into a. and we have a bodily oriented therapy. Yes. That doesn't mean that every therapist is going to touch the client. So we'd be focused on what's happening in the body. What's the prescription? And it's. Where is the tense muscle? Yes. Then also something that I did pioneer in the last year, is writing about treatment of the parent ecosystem. Treatment of that interjected script. Now, how do we have the person to imagine being their parent and provide real psychotherapy for their image of their parent that they carry in their head? And their head is in remarkable changes in people's lives to that kind of thing. So we're talking about several different types of transnational analysis when applied in psychotherapy. And is that unique, Richard, from your experience in comparison to maybe older adultities? Because I'm thinking about CBT as the comb coming up. The national health service model now in many countries in Europe has the answer to all problems. And it's definitely our experience that that doesn't work for everybody. CBT is marvelous in if used in very careful measures and if bracketed by carrying therapeutic relationships. But a cognitive and behavioral therapy alone often gets immediate superficial results. But it pushes the problem often underground. Okay. There's a concept of the paradoxical theory of change. And that is the more the psychotherapist pushes for change. The more likely you're going to get an unconscious homestead reaction to stay the same. Okay, right. I'm not just very interested. But the person is driven to stay stable. So, now do I use behavioral methods? Yes. But I'm looking at them and I'm teaching them I use a diet shape. I teach about working emotionally. What I call the ABC's psychotherapy. Effect. You can deal with what you feel. How do you experience it? What's going on? Emotion. And then cognitive. What does the person believe? How do they make sense of it? Or do they believe about themselves? Or do they believe what others? Then you call them your wife. And then when they believe in what's produced, what is their behavior? And when they're doing that behavior, it feels like that affect what's happening in their life. So when I'm doing psychotherapy, I'm looking at affect, cognition, behavior, physiology, but always with the current relationship. What's happening between me and that person and then also what's happening between that person and the other significant relationships in their life. So yes, I think it's marvelous. Is it vastly authoritative? I certainly think so. What's missing is I love to teach cognitive behavior therapists how to work emotionally and with the body. Not only. Then I think we have a much more complete psychotherapy. Now transactual analysis does do that. Yeah. Integrative psychotherapy in the hands of some people does that. Some people they use to integrate it, I mean, mix a little bit of every techniques. Yeah. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about working within that diamond of cognition, behavior, affect, physiology, surrounded by the concept of relationship. And Richard, can you understand the history of what it was that transactual analysis got to that point of being so all in composing? Because it seems like what happened at least from my basic understanding of looking at things like that. People started to pull in other disciplines and other modalities and kind of said let's get all the best fits together. Do you feel like that's what happened? But yeah, certainly that's not a long interpretation. Okay. It might be a little simpler. So yeah, I think it's fortunate to have an older set of public because I was always the older one. I was going to ask, because even when you talk about when you were university the sixies up up, I don't know. I'm going to tell you what I asked. I was going to tell you what I asked. He didn't like Sacramento since he longer, Andrew, not never getting himself certified. He did also want to fight against me. I mean, he is attempted to deal with games. In those days, I was working in conjunction with the psychiatrist called Andrew Stuntz. And he, I made teaching to shop therapy. And now you have the classical, re-descision, interpretive, well, you have two different kinds of classical. You've got a classical sentence. That's what I'm going to be at. Yeah. And one, you calm down. Okay. And calm down. There's much more psychoanalytic. Okay. In terms of its style, yeah. And understanding relationship with clients. Whereas in San Francisco, there's more behavior. Burmarts said, "Hey, a bunch of young Turks." He called it. In young levels who have abandoned adversity learn behavioral therapy this is before called CBT. Okay. They're all behavioral therapy So it's called stiver. The head that is PhD from the University of Michigan. They behave a lot that And he influenced burn and somebody young people there Whereas how many of you had a much older someone are okay, so you have two different groups, vying for influencing the association. And this association is the. yeah, yeah, yeah. I talked about it early days up until about 1973, '74. Many people like Jackie Schiff. Yeah. Jackie Schiff was the most the oldest. That was, you know, the University of Michigan, was a book. And she was interested in Yeah, the child development and childhood childhood, but she did a lot of Encouragement for people to look at things from a development perspective. Yes, and that's where I live more than development theory beyond common C.A. that was us Probably not just from her, but there are people like Pam and me and I've always been Bringing in concepts from her child about many other inward shops But many have people like Jews and color could brought it in from an educational perspective But these were the days before 1976 or so Everybody in the association who was an active modern was the psychotherapist They're all psychologists and characters now There may be some people at Jackie Schiff who are social worker here and then there was a lot of pressure on expanding T.A. so that People in education could get served trained in certain foreign yet and people here and the business world could be trained and certified What did that what did that pressure come from? It's a really interesting not to pop this history. I was waiting for me. I actually came from a dining air and shift Jackie Schiff's yet, kids, yeah, they came from more a wax and they both bought an education not even a psychologist That time you had to be a psychologist or psychiatrist and they put a lot of pressure on the board of trustees. I remember them having a protest meeting And finally they were made special members All right, which in the beginning they seemed satisfied. Yeah, I know you're afraid of people came back and said no, this is demeaning Special members In a negative way so then they got certification of education and In organizational consulting a lot from the early days that the as-dison on the organization was a call of happy first 10 years Yeah, no, we went for about 10 years before they really had it And it's really okay any sort of occasion. Yeah, they seem to have a pretty damn As always if you found anything in today's episode interesting, please feel free to reach out You can visit our website which has lots of information and TA resources Transactionalanalysispodcast.com You can connect with us on all major platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and you can email us at three people in your head at Gmail.com Using the number three rather than the word if you haven't already please follow us on Apple podcast and Spotify and we'd be really grateful if you could leave us a review Thanks for listening