Intuitive agreements: The use of nonverbal contracts in transactional analysis using play therapy

Roger Day PTSTA (Psychotherapy), Certified Play Therapist

Abstract

Play therapy was developed as a way for people (mainly children) to solve their emotional problems through play. It is largely nondirective and uses few or no words. Transactional analysis is a theory of personality and a psychotherapy for growth and change. It is largely verbal and, as a therapy, involves open communication and the contractual method.

This article explores the link between these two apparently divergent therapeutic approaches. After an introduction, the article focuses on the possible place for contracts in play therapy using transactional analysis. The use of both verbal and nonverbal contracts is explored. Case examples are given of therapeutic contracts with children, several of whom exhibit autistic spectrum difficulties. A possible approach is explored for using nonverbal intuitive contracts between a nonspeaking child client and the therapist. A final case study explores ‘thinking without thinking’, and the use of nonverbal process contracts with a boy with behavioural problems.

Play therapy was developed by Virginia Axline in the 1940s and 1950s, who was influenced by the active nondirective approach to therapy of Rogers (1951). Her best known work concerned the boy Dibs, who she facilitated through nondirective play therapy in healing himself and discovering his remarkable talents (Axline, 1963). Less well known was her earlier work in which she outlined eight principles for such work. These include:

‘5. The therapist maintains a deep respect for the child's ability to resolve his own problems if given an opportunity to do so. The responsibility to make choices and to institute changes is the child's.

6. The therapist does not attempt to direct the child's actions or conversation in any manner. The child leads the way; the therapist follows’ (Axline, 1947/1989, 70).

A nondirective approach such as this has little or no place for therapeutic contracts. The nondirective approach remains the main emphasis of the two UK play therapy professional bodies, Play Therapy United Kingdom and the British Association of Play Therapists.

Other, more directive, approaches have become recognised by play therapists over the years since Axline’s pivotal work. For instance, Theraplay^TM was developed about 30 years ago based on attachment theory. It looks at the stage of emotional development where the child had problems and helps the child solve the problems from that time in a secure, warm and well-attuned relationship. The adult is in charge of the play therapy, beginning with individual work with the child, then gradually involving the parents in the sessions. As with the nondirective approach, Theraplay^TM does not have a particular place for contracts.

Yasenik & Gardner (2004) have sought to bring together directive and nondirective approaches through their Play Therapy Dimensions Model. Their model is based on four quadrants made up of the nondirective/directive continuum and the consciousness/unconsciousness continuum.

Quadrant 1: Active utilisation is conscious/nondirective. The child initiates play and the therapist enters and expands the play into the child’s conscious awareness.

Quadrant 2: Open discussion and exploration is conscious/directive. The therapist initiates and structures play.

Quadrant 3: Nonintrusive responding is unconscious/nondirective. The child initiates and completely directs the play. If the therapist joins the play it is at the invitation and direction of the child.

Quadrant 4: Cofacilitation is unconscious/directive. Initially the child directs the play. The therapist enters the play at the child’s invitation.

The model is used to help the therapist in planning sessions and for supervision. It does not account for contracting.

Transactional analysis is ‘a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change’ (ITAA). Stewart summarises the basic principles of transactional analysis practice as ‘contractual method’ and ‘open communication’ (Stewart, 1996, 13).

Eric Berne was the first to emphasise the vital importance of contracts, defining a contract as ‘an explicit bilateral commitment to a well-defined course of action’ (Berne, 1966/1974, 362). By implication, contracts for change are either verbal or written. Stewart observes that every outcome contract must have at least one action contract to support it. The reason, he writes, is that ‘words create experience. Thus, as the client formulates the words of an action contract, he must also internally create the experience of this change-promoting action’ (Stewart, 1996, 70, author’s emphases). Nonverbal contracts do not seem to be emphasised in transactional analysis literature.

Intuitive observation, on the other hand, is a vital part of transactional analysis history. Between 1949 and 1957 Berne wrote six articles on intuition, five of which gave the first ideas for transactional analysis (Cheney, 1971). Berne had observed servicemen returning after the Second World War and within minutes was able to intuit a considerable amount about each of them after asking a series of brief questions. Berne also emphasised cure if possible in the first session, referring to finding and removing the splinter affecting the person. This is probably based on intuition.

Other elements in transactional analysis also hint at the importance of intuition. Ego state diagnosis involves observing an individual’s behaviour, at the same time taking account of not only words but tones, gestures, postures and facial expressions (Stewart & Joines, 1987). Stewart further observes that ‘ego state clues can change from second to second’ (Stewart, 1989, 35). Similarly, Joines & Stewart (2002, 190) write about a shift from one driver to another ‘between one moment and the next’. Identifying and tracking ego state changes and driver shifts is likely to involve an intuitive element.

When a child comes for transactional analysis therapy, the decision about how the therapeutic contract is established is often based on Gillick Competence (House of Lords, 1985). In the 1980s activist Victoria Gillick, mother of 10 children (five of them girls) went to court to oppose doctors prescribing contraceptives to minors (under 16s). She lost the case and Lord Scarman ruled: ‘As a matter of law the parental right to determine whether or not their minor child below the age of 16 will have medical treatment terminates if and when the child achieves sufficient understanding and intelligence to enable him to understand fully what is proposed.’ It then became a matter for the doctor to judge whether a child under 16 was ‘Gillick competent’. Transactional analysts working with children will often use Gillick Competence to decide if a child coming for therapy would fully understand the therapeutic contract.

Assuming the child is not deemed Gillick competent, the contract is made between the referrer (usually a parent or carer), the child and the therapist. English developed the three-cornered contract (English, 1975), which Tudor calls the 'three-handed contract' (Tudor, 1997). Sometimes, with others involved (school, psychologist, etc), this becomes a complex multihanded contract.

Whether the child establishes the contract directly with the therapist or there is a three-handed contract, using transactional analysis in play therapy involves process contracts, which are 'made moment by moment during the therapy session as part of the interpersonal process in the here and now' (Lee, 1997: 94).

In this way the therapeutic process becomes 'organic and spontaneous. Each new question relating to the next desired behaviour or experience takes the meaning of the original statement but subtly changes its form so that eventually the meaning also changes' (ibid: 97).

Lee writes: 'The key to using process-oriented contracting with your clients is to keep the experience in the present and to keep asking questions that relate past experience to the present and to bring future goals into the present' (ibid: 104-105).

The therapist might observe the child placing items in the sandtray. The child verbally identifies them as family members. The item identified by the child as himself has his back to the others.

Therapist: ‘Would you be willing to move that figure to face the others in the family?’

Child: [Considers, nods, then moves the figure to face the others, then smiles.]

Therapist: ‘Has that make a difference?’

Child: [Excitedly] ‘Yes!’

Process contracting is usually assumed to be verbal. What happens if the child in play therapy is unable or unwilling to speak because of autistic spectrum difficulties or selective mutism?

Alin presented for therapy aged six. He had classic symptoms of autism, including poor eye contact, difficulty relating to others and almost no ability to speak words. The three-handed contract concerned learning effective ways to communicate with others. Alin was running round and round the room in an obsessional way but with a clear pattern to his foot movements.

Therapist: I see you enjoy rhythms.

Alin: [No response.]

Therapist: Would you like us to do a rhythm together?

Alin: [Stops and faces wall, sideways to the therapist. A tiny smile and a twinkle in the eye appears momentarily.]

Therapist: OK, you lead, Alin.

The rhythm initiated by Alin continues for some time, with therapist and translator tapping the rhythm on musical instruments. Then Alin stops and again smiles before moving on to another activity.

In this case the therapist observed the smile and twinkle in the eye and intuitively took this as an agreement to the proposed action.

Another Romanian boy with autistic spectrum difficulties, Ionuþ, presented for play therapy. At five years old he had no speaking ability, though his eye contact was good. The contract for his therapy was also about relating to others. He was fascinated by the sand in the sandtray, something unusual for children in Romania. Ionuþ spent several minutes picking up a handful of sand and letting it slip slowly through his fingers.

Therapist: Can I do the same as you at this end of the sandtray?

Ionuþ: [Pause]

Therapist: [Follows Ionuþ’s way of sifting sand through fingers for several minutes.] Would you like us to have fun doing this together?

Ionuþ: [Pauses with sand in his hand. No facial expression clues are given.]

Therapist: [Moves hand below Ionuþ’s handful of sand.] Ok, let’s do it!

[The process continues for several minutes with Ionuþ and the therapist alternating in pouring sand over the other’s hand. Suddenly, Ionuþ bursts into fits of delighted laughter. Implicit contract fulfilled.]

Istvan, age 10, is a boy with selective mutism whose family speak Hungarian rather than Romanian. He attends a state school where he is isolated because of his difficulty in speaking. The Romanian-speaking teachers cannot pronounce his given name and call him unusually by his last name. The contract for Istvan is developing his socialising skills.

Istvan: [Grabs therapist’s jumper and pulls him towards the inflatable punchbag.]

Therapist: You want to use the punchbag?

Istvan: [Continues to pull the therapist’s jumper until the therapist is touching the punchbag.]

Therapist: You want me to punch the punchbag?

Istvan: [Continues to hold the jumper. There are no visual clues about what he wants.]

Therapist: Do you want us to do this together?

Istvan: [Lets go of the jumper, moves around to the other side of the punchbag and the punching from each side begins.]

In this case there were no facial expressions to give the therapist a clue as to what Istvan wanted. The invitation to punch together was based on the therapist’s intuition, a moment’s decision that is difficult to analyse.

Intuition is defined as ‘an immediate form of knowledge in which the knower is directly acquainted with the object of knowledge. Intuition differs from all forms of mediated knowledge, which generally involve conceptualizing the object of knowledge by means of rational/analytical thought processes (and, hence, placing a mediating idea or concept between the knower and the known)’ (Wikepedia, 2007).

An example of an intuitive response is the phrase ‘pricking of the thumbs’. For centuries people believed that something bad was going to happen if they felt a pricking sensation in their thumbs. The second witch in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Shakespeare) uttered:

By the pricking of the thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

This phrase was echoed in the 1968 novel By the Pricking of My Thumbs, by Agatha Christie, and a phrase repeated regularly in Ellis Peters’ Chronicles of Brother Caedfael, the mythical mediaeval monk turned detective.

The notion of a pricked thumb came from ancient Rome. Palpitations of the heart, the flickering of the eye and the pricking of a thumb were all believed to be warnings of evil. An easier to understand explanation could be that they were indications of fear, the body responding with a ‘flight or fight’ reaction. That explanation doesn’t make intuition any less effective.

Malcolm Gladwell looks in depth at intuition in his book Blink, which he subtitles ‘the power of thinking without thinking’ (Gladwell, 2005). The J Paul Getty Museum in California spent 14 months investigating a 6th century statue known as a kouros before paying $10 million for it. Other experts later looked at it and gave their intuitive responses without knowing why. Words such as ‘fresh’ and ‘intuitive repulsion’ came to their minds. Later their intuition proved true when the statue was shown to be an elaborate forgery from the 1980s. Gladwell writes about intuition: ‘The power of knowing, in that first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves’ (Gladwell, 2005, 16).

Gladwell refers to ‘thin-slicing’ (Ibid, 31), the ability to listen to a feeling rather than merely considering detailed analysis. He discovered that the chances of a doctor being sued were more closely related to the doctor’s tone of voice and attitude to his/her patients than to malpractice. He describes top tennis coach Vic Braden’s ability to ‘read’ when a tennis player was about to make a ‘double fault’. To Braden it was a complete mystery why he had this ability to make a decision in the blink of an eye. Thin-slicing enabled him to understand his out-of-awareness decision.

How can play therapy using transactional analysis relate to intuition such as this? An example could be in agreeing a contract without words based on the therapist’s intuition and the child’s intuitive response. This could be compared with an improvised stage play, which ‘involves people making very sophisticated decisions on the spur of the moment, without the benefit of any kind of script or plot’ (Gladwell, 2005, 112-3).

A 13-year-old boy, Jake, who had severe behavioural problems, engaged in play therapy in between bouts in police custody. On one occasion Jake asked the therapist if they could play puppets together. A contract was made. The therapist reports:

Jake and I kept trying out different puppets, role-playing significant people in his life. At one point he had ‘Jake the Lion’ and my puppet was ‘Kev, the Nasty Stepdad'.

Suddenly, Jake had an idea.

'I want you to be Jake,' he said, handing me the lion puppet, 'and I'll be Kev.'

It was a couple of minutes later that I realised how significant this exchange of roles was for Jake. Jake's puppet became more and more vicious, tearing at the Jake puppet in my hand while the real Jake said, first quietly, then louder and louder: 'You're not going to get away. I'm going to hurt you.'

My puppet responded: 'No, Kev, Jake's been hurt enough. You're not going to hurt him anymore.'

Jake's grip on my puppet became stronger and stronger, and his voice grew louder, as he shouted the words: 'I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill you.'

I now realised how important it was for my puppet Jake to win this fight. Normally I conceded defeat when working therapeutically with a child, even though I put in a valiant effort. In this case, the fight between the puppets had become the actual therapy.

'No, you're never going to hurt Jake ever again,' I said very loudly, resisting Jake's efforts to rip my puppet from my hand.

At last, after a lot of noise and effort, my 'Jake' won and I held him up triumphantly, shouting 'Jake's the winner!' The real Jake, now collapsed on the floor with exhaustion, was grinning from ear to ear at the victory (Day, 2006).

The client and therapist both initiated process contracts at an intuitive level. The result was to help Jake find at last a source of strength stronger than the toxic influence of his stepdad Kev.

References

Axline, Virginia (1989). Play Therapy. London: Ballantine Books. (Original work published 1947.)

Axline, Virginia (1964). Dibs: In search of self. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Berne, Eric (1974). Principles of Group Treatment. Menlo Park, California: Shea Books. (Original work published 1966.)

Cheney, Warren (1971). Eric Berne: Biographical sketch. Transactional Analysis Journal, 1, 1.

Day, Roger (2006). Jake – Private Residential Care. Dissertation for play therapy examination.

English, Fanita (1975). The three-cornerd contract. Transactional Analysis Journal, 5, 4, 202-3.

Gladwell, Malcolm (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. London: Penguin Books.

House of Lords (1985). Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority [1985] 3 All ER 402.

International Transactional Analysis Association. Definition on the page headed ‘The ITAA’ in each issue of Transactional Analysis Journal.

Joines, Vann, & Stewart, Ian (2002). Personality Adaptations. Nottingham: Lifespace Publishing.

Lee, Adrienne (1997). Process contracts, in Contracts in Counselling, edited by Charlotte Sills. London: Sage Publications, 94-112.

Rogers, Carl (ed) (1951). Client-Centred Therapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Act 4, Scene 1.

Stewart, Ian (1996). Developing Transactional Analysis Counselling. London: Sage Publications.

Stewart, Ian, & Joines, Vann (1987). TA Today: A new introduction to transactional analysis. Nottingham: Lifespace Publishing, 39-49.

Tudor, Keith (1997). A complexity of contracts, in Contracts in Counselling, edited by Charlotte Sills. London: Sage Publications, 157-172.

Wikepedia (2007). Worldwide web (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki).

Yasenik, Lorri, & Gardner, Ken (2004). Play Therapy Dimensions Model: A decision-making guide for therapists. Calgary: Rocky Mountain Play Therapy Institute.

Roger Day is a transactional analysis psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor specialising in children. He is also a Certified Play Therapist. He and his wife, Christine, live in Oradea, northern Romania, where they train psychologists in practical skills with children and work with charities and government organisations.