Interview: Zoran Milivojević, transactional analyst

Transactional Analysis - good for everyone

In a capitalist society an individual unfortunately must take care of many things in life himself, including the way he feels. However, people more and more come to realize the importance of emotional and social intelligence in their social lives and in the future, they will realize that they must be emotionally literate


By MILENA STOŠIĆ (milena.stosic@wavemagazine.net)
from Niš, SERBIA
Translation: JELENA DOSTANIĆ


Zoran Milivojević is a renowned transactional analyst and international lecturer, perhaps familiar to a wider audience as the author of bestsellers Emotions and The Formulae for Love. He was the first in Eastern Europe to reach the highest level of training for international supervisors and educators of the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA) as well as of the European Association for Transactional Analysis. Dr Milivojević is the president of the TA Centre ATAS - an association that gathers transactional therapists in Serbia alongside those who are still in the process of education and those interested in this field of psychotherapy, based on the teaching of Eric Berne. In his books, Dr Milivojević writes about love, marriage, parenting, drug addiction, psychological games and emotions and on this occasion for the WAVE magazine he speaks about the transactional analysis, his choosing it as his specialty, the Dodo bird verdict and finally, about the importance of being emotionally literate on the occasion of celebrating one century of Eric Berne's birth - the founder of the transactional analysis.

- I have chosen transactional analysis since it seems to me that it has the broadest conceptual approach - it deals with what happens within individuals, with all matters defined by psychoanalysis but with people's external reactions as well. It means that it also has that social element. It seemed to me that it made a fairly good framework for integration of different psychotherapeutic interests I had - Zoran Milivojević explains his choice.

Is it the best possible approach?

- The attitudes of psychologists who do research in psychotherapy are equivalent to what we call the Dodo bird verdict, meaning that all types of psychotherapy are in fact different pathways leading to same results and that same methods will not work for all patients or even all therapists. Both choose methods depending on their character traits. Nowadays, it is considered inappropriate when somebody says "Mine is the best" because everything is prone to criticism and no method has the arguments for being the best or the right one. For this very width of the conceptual approach and for it allowing great flexibility when it comes to techniques, I have chosen the TA.

After all, it is good for everyone?

- Transactional analysis is a very broad field, and that is in some way a problem, because the identity and boundaries of a school get lost in that width. Nevertheless, it is very good for what we refer to as character traits or personality organization. It has the story of a life scenario and for that matter it suits everyone who wants to check their way of thinking. For that reason, although it was launched as a psychotherapeutic school, today it is more and more present in the fields of counseling, couching, corporate training, as a means for making people more successful in what they are doing. That is how many things have become part of the "general understanding". For instance, the concept "I'm ok, you are ok" or Karpman's drama triangle - the victim, persecutor and rescuer.

How much has this analysis been improved or changed since Berne's original concept?

- It was a misfortune for TA that Berne died when he was 60 years old. One of his major books What do you say after you say hello? was published two years after his death. Consequently, his students scattered and the unsolved matter of who would become his successor remained, so the TA developed in different directions. Despite being interesting, none of those directions took the lead, which resulted in the TA having some kind of an identity crisis today.

To which extent is the TA developed in Serbia?

- Students of psychotherapy worldwide are often not interested in schools or fields of study that were popular some twenty or thirty years ago, such as the TA. Nevertheless, in the TA centre we keep the transactional analysis up-to-date with contemporary conceptual methods, starting from the narrative therapy to constructivism, etc. We constantly integrate them into the TA by changing some basic assumptions and thereby, we keep it modern. We believe in it. Not only do we teach it, but also in some way we live by it and for that reason we are very convincing in conveying that model. That is the reason why our association has around 800 members, which is quite a number having in mind that the international TA association has 1600 members altogether. It means that we alone make the half of the international association, despite being a rather small country.

It means that the TA is rather popular in Serbia?

- Yes, it is, but so is our interpretation of it as well.

What future do you predict for the transactional analysis? Is it realistic to expect this kind of education to be introduced in schools?

- I don't believe it will become a part of the educational system because the country does not care about the happiness of an individual. In a capitalist society individuals, unfortunately, must take care of many things in life themselves, including the way they feel. However, people more and more come to realize the importance of emotional and social intelligence in their social lives, thus there is a growing tendency among people to acquire various abilities and knowledge through different educational courses. I believe that in future it will not be important whether something is transactional or not, but that in stead, though different models and concepts people will come to realize and accept the fact that they must be emotionally or psychologically literate in order to better understand their surroundings since life is becoming more complex. All the technologies created by psychotherapy would become part of the life couching, various groups, workshops and that is actually the goal - to help people live well and feel good.


Links:

www.tacentar.net
www.psihopolis.edu.rs
www.milivojevic.info



(Published: 12.06.2010.)