CONSTRUCTIVISM IN TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Dear Editor:

Reading Paul Kellett 's article in the January-February 2004 Script, I was reminded of the ITAA Congress in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1991, which had constructivism as a main theme. The spirit of the papers there could well be summed up by Kellett's concluding phrase, "Reality is an illusion created by language."

As a physicist, I (Hine, 1993) wrote to the TAJ back then to deplore the defeatist position of the constructivists in denying the existence of a real world common to all of us, just "when it looks as if psychologists and physicists are almost touching hands in relation to areas such as neural networks and artificial intelligence" (p. 47). Today, 10 years later, the hands do more than touch, as, for example, papers by Jim Allen , Bill Cornell , and others illustrate: Neural mechanisms have been identified that parallel mental activities described in transactional analysis. It is a pity that Kellett argues as if this progress had not occurred.

I am not competent to discuss contamination as a transactional analysis concept, but I can comment on the philosophical and scientific background in Kellett's paper. His starting point is "that there is no universal or objective criteria by which TA concepts (or any other) can be theoretically defined or measured within clinical practice" (p. 1). He proceeds to illustrate this position using a constructivist philosophy within a paradigm of "relativism" as opposed to "positivism." He contrasts these positions by comparing Newton 's and Einstein 's "stories" about the universe. In the former, people could agree on one objective reality of space and time in which everyone's observations (e.g., of time), would agree, these being "facts." This is a positivistic universe. Einstein, on the other hand, made up a "story" in 1905 of a relativistic universe in which measurements of time depend on the motion of observers: "Such individuals would no longer agree about what time it was, that is, they would not agree on an ‘objective reality' " (p. 2). Kellett concludes from this, and other scientific "stories," that there is a new paradigm of "relativism" in which "time, reality, and truth are relative and not absolute" (p. 2) in describing the world.

I contend that this argument and its conclusion are false.

Newton offered a picture of an objective reality, the same for everyone, that allowed valid conclusions on space and time as observed in the 17th century (i.e., with then current distances and velocities). Einstein in 1905 removed the limitation on velocities and provided a more precise objective reality, again the same for everyone, but now handling 20th century velocities (i.e., those involving light and high energy particles). In 1917 he extended this picture to include the effects of gravity (the "heavy objects" Kellett misplaces in 1905). This was general relativity, which my teacher, Viki Weisskopf , maintained should be called "Absolute Theory" because it gave a valid objective picture of the whole universe at larger than atomic scales.

What has happened in this progression of pictures of an objective reality to make it different from that given by Kellett? It is in the way words evolve, a topic that Kellett develops in the following section of his paper but in a different way.
In his example, he sees that Newton 's use of words like "time" lead in Einstein 's picture to apparent contradictions between different people's views of a situation. He concludes from this that there is no common, objective ground between people. He views words as defined within language: "The meaning of a word is its use in the language (Wittgenstein, 1953/1958, p. 43)." Kellett further asserts, "Language constructs meaning and reality" (p. 2), that is, words evolve following the whims of users.

The scientific view as exemplified in the Newton-Einstein history is that the meaning of words evolves as progress in physical research shows that old pictures are not perfect and that they and the words used need modifying or extending. I use the phrase "science is the empirical discovery of the meaning of words" to describe this process. To make Einstein 's picture present an objective reality, the words "space" and "time" must be understood to behave differently from the way Newton used them. They are now coordinates in a four-dimensional space-time in which each observer can relate his or her observations to those of others in a well-defined manner without contradiction. The observers describe a common reality seen from different viewpoints but can agree on what is going on and will agree with Newton in their everyday lives.

This is an example of the successful construction of a theory by successive approximations, stimulated and controlled by experiment, that does offer a description of a unique, objective reality that is useful, within its limits, for everybody. Sometimes this process breaks down; experiments may lead to discord rather than to refinement. At that point, very new concepts and words may be required. The obvious example is the breakdown of Newtonian mechanics at the atomic scale, where experiments forced the development of the concepts and vocabulary of quantum theory, which progressively offered a picture of that world that everyone could use, even if it did not look like our "obvious" everyday reality.

This process of construction of pictures of reality should not be confused with "the social construction of reality" used in social sciences. The words are the same, but their meanings differ. The reality—the "how the world works"—that most people assume in everyday life is constructed from a mixture of influences spanning old wives tales, political dogmas, vested interests, religions, and opinion polls—without the benefit of experimental testing, which is almost impossible in practice. We must live with it, but we should not import it into fields in which a more scientific procedure is possible. This is where I fundamentally disagree with Kellett's approach.

As I said earlier, I am not competent to discuss contamination in detail, but what I pick up from Kellett's discussion is that he avoids the idea that there could be an objective condition in the nervous systems of some people that leads to behaviour that can be labelled "contamination," and that this could be better described and treated by therapists as a result of continuing empirical research and discovery with consequent refinement of the terms used to describe it. If this reading is correct, the situation now is the same as the one I deplored in my letter 10 years ago, and I hope that others will not be discouraged by Kellett from seeking an objective world behind their words.

Mervyn Hine , Founex , Switzerland

REFERENCES
Hine , M. (1993). On reading the Stamford papers on constructivism: A physicist's reactions. Transactional Analysis Journal, 23, 45-47.
Kellett, P. (2004). The truth is out there: Constructing contamination. The Script, 34(1), 1-2.