In the 1970s and 1980s, redecision therapy under the guidance of Bob and Mary Goulding was very prominent in transactional analysis (TA) around the world. It was probably the most widely practiced form of TA at that time. However, that was now well over 30 years ago. Exploring what has happened to redecision therapy since that time is the goal of this article.

Development in redecision

In January 1981, a theme issue of the Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ) was published under the editorship of John McNeel (1981), titled “Ten Years Later, Ten Years of TAJ - Retrospective ’81.” In the editorial, he mused that TA appeared likely to survive. In the 10 years since Eric Berne’s death, the writing, theory development, and practice of TA had blossomed and evolved along with the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA). This was seen as a positive sign for the longevity of TA as a contemporary and widely used approach.

In that theme edition of the TAJ, Bob Goulding (1981) wrote an article titled “Challenging the Faith.” In it, he wrote, “So the cowboys keep challenging the faith. We cannot afford to say ‘but Eric said’ as if his picture would really fall off the wall if we stated that something he said was no longer valid. We keep changing and we keep growing” (p. 53).

He was agreeing with McNeel about the development and growth of TA at that time, suggesting that this approach had been able to stay vital and growing because it challenged the faith. In my opinion, it is this script directive in the life script of TA that meant it was still alive in 1981 and remains alive 55 years after Berne’s death. That script directive is: “It’s OK to challenge the faith.” This directive has been shown to continue in the TAJ for the past 55 years, ensuring the approach remains alive and vital.

Post Goulding redecision

However, time continues on with its inevitable and unstoppable march. It has now been over 30 years since Bob and Mary Goulding ceased their work on redecision therapy. Similarly, we must now continue to challenge the faith: We cannot afford to say “but Bob and Mary said” as if their picture would really fall off the wall if we stated that something they said was no longer valid.

It is this challenge to the faith that has driven this report. It attempts to illustrate how, over the past 30 years, some practitioners have challenged the faith of redecision therapy. Ultimately, it seeks to provide a baseline to understand contemporary redecision therapy.

Many people have written about redecision therapy in recent decades, making a complete compilation impossible. Instead, I have sought out the work and writings of a few individuals who have been active in developing redecision over that time. The reference list of these works can be provided on request, in the hope that they will offer insight into the development of redecision theory and practice post Goulding.

In seeking to articulate this challenge, I sought the cooperation of four prominent transactional analysts (and myself) who have written on redecision therapy post Goulding in the last 30 years. How have these people challenged the faith of redecision therapy? A special thanks goes to John McNeel, Vann Joines, Mark Widdowson, and Mil Rosseau for their assistance in beginning to compile a list of contemporary redecision therapy references. As stated above, this list is by no means complete, as many others have written on this topic in recent times. I invite those others to make their writings on redecision therapy public and known as well.

John McNeel

At the very core of redecision theory presented by the Gouldings is the idea of the early decision. McNeel (2010) challenged this cornerstone of redecision therapy by presenting the idea of two decisions that a young child makes: the despairing decision and the defiant decision. He proposes that initially, the child makes a despairing decision in response to believing the negative injunction proposed by the parents, taking on and believing the message is true. However, the child then makes a defiant decision in an attempt to disprove the parents' message and counteract the despairing decision.

Another significant departure McNeel made from the original theory was the change from injunctions to injunctive messages. This essentially questions the process of cure, or even what a cure is, in redecision therapy. The Gouldings originally proposed a short-term, solution-focused therapy that could change an injunction in one session of redecision (Goulding & Goulding, 1979).

McNeel shifted this single event of therapy to focus more on a process of acquiring a new belief that would neutralize the effect of the injunctive message. Healing from the trauma of injunctive messages became the new approach, as opposed to the idea of conquering them in one session. Redecision becomes a process of creating new choices that reduce the power of the original early decision or injunction. One does not seek to defeat the injunction but resolve it over time with therapeutic support.

In this model of redecision, the therapist is active in helping the person learn about their messages and build awareness of their script. The therapist then guides the person toward growth with the development of new behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Being vulnerable, building trust with a therapist, and allowing the therapist to lead them into new territory constitute the healing process in this case.

This is a major shift in thinking because it addresses not only the theory of redecision but the whole philosophy of human nature underlying the therapy. It moves away from the Gouldings' perspective, acknowledging instead that people are not islands and that it is natural for them to seek out others for assistance when needed. Working and living in groups and relationships is seen as healthy for healing and growing, contrasting with the view that individuals use only their own power to move out of their script to health.

Vann Joines

Surveying the work of Vann Joines, one is primarily struck by the amount of literature on redecision therapy and personality adaptations. The original motive for this focus seems to be that redecision therapy works well with some clients and not others, and Joines seeks to answer why the process can get "stuck" with certain individuals.

His hypothesis is that the issue lies in how the therapist approaches the client in redecision therapy. It is not so much about the client, but how the therapist views them. To articulate this, he adopts the taxonomy of personality adaptations, especially the work by Ware (1983), which focuses on target areas for treatment and areas to avoid.

This is an interesting way of "challenging the faith," which differs from McNeel, who actively questions the basic theory of redecision. Joines’ work on personality adaptations does not directly challenge the theory of redecision; instead, he offers an alternate way of understanding clients so that redecision therapy can proceed. He has created a diagnostic system that can be attached to the therapeutic process.

Like McNeel, Joines also questions the Gouldings' idea that redecision is a single-event therapy that can change an injunction. In his outline of the redecision process, Joines proposes that after the redecision has been made, the therapist must anchor the redecision, make a plan to implement it, support the new behavior, and build a new support system. This is much more than a single-event therapy.

Tony White

Just as McNeel and Joines sought to place redecision in the context of a wider therapeutic approach, I did the same by developing a redecision relational approach. This involves combining both the redecision and relational approaches to psychotherapy, allowing a one-person redecision therapy approach to be combined with a two-person relational approach. The therapist can switch between them when necessary.

As a result, we see that these three writers, independent of each other, all developed the same idea of redecision as a part of an overall therapy approach. This moves away from the idea that redecision is a single-event psychotherapy.

My initial writings on the development of redecision therapy offered an explanation of suicidality and self-destructiveness, especially expanding on the alternate suicidal (and homicidal) decisions that could be made. The Gouldings had addressed suicidality with the "Don't exist" injunction but never made any comment on homicidality. I addressed this using a variation of the "Don't exist" injunction to explain the psychological basis of homicide. Suicide is viewed as the "Don't exist (I)" injunction, while homicide is the "Don't exist (You)" injunction.

Suicide and homicide are presented as two similar psychological phenomena, varying only in the direction of their expression. More recently, I have also discussed the use of redecision therapy as a form of exposure therapy in the treatment of trauma. Furthermore, I explored what redecision can add to the deconfusion of the Child ego state and examined the redecision process as a form of hypnotic suggestion.

Mil Rosseau and Mark Widdowson

Mil Rosseau, Mark Widdowson, and others have developed redecision theory and practice, particularly in the area of executive coaching workshops. To my knowledge, this is highly unusual, as the vast majority of approaches to increasing personal growth and autonomy rely on a therapeutic setting, such as a therapy group. These writers use a therapeutic approach in a business context, stating, “People do reach cure in a business environment and it is far more than just ‘understanding what happened.’ They do regress, change the root cause and leave the workshop with profound and most sustainable redecisions” (Rosseau et al., 2014, p. 15).

This concept challenges the faith not only in the use of redecision therapy but in psychotherapy in general. It is not so much a challenge to the theory of TA; instead, the authors demonstrate that redecision techniques can result in therapeutic change for people in an organizational workshop rather than a therapy group. They provide conclusive results that this is the case. In my view, this is groundbreaking work, as it challenges the definitions of both redecision therapy and psychotherapy itself.

Conclusion

This commentary has shown some of the areas of redecision that have challenged the faith since the Gouldings presented their original ideas. It highlights the work of only five people, which immediately raises the question of how others have challenged the faith as well. One can only hope that others will share their contributions over time.

As stated above, a copy of the reference list is available on request. These references can provide a starting point for those who study redecision in their training, helping them understand where contemporary redecision therapy stands today.