Demand Contracts
- Authors
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Anthony White
Western Pacific Association of Transactional Analysis
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- Keywords:
- contracts, introjection, permission, lying, dual relationship, bystander, game, enactment, psychoterapy
- Abstract
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This article is an examination of demand contracts, an idea originally presented by the author a few years ago. It seeks to further develop this idea of such contracts which often occur unstated in many therapy situations. Further clarify what a demand contract is, impacts on how it can contribute to client’s lying, permissions given by the therapist can how games and enactments can be played out in psychotherapy. This paper also demonstrates how client’s and therapist’s always have a dual relationship in their work together and how demand contracts play a role in the formation of such a dual relationship.
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- Author Biography
- References
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Berne, E. (1966). Principles of group treatment. Oxford University Press.
Blanchard, M., & Farber, B. A. (2016). Lying in psychotherapy: Why and what clients don’t tell their therapist about therapy and their relationship. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 29(1), 90–112.
Blanchard, M., & Farber, B. A. (2020). “It’s never okay to talk about suicide”: Patients’ reasons for concealing suicidal ideation in psychotherapy. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 30(1), 124–136.
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Curtis, D. A., & Hart, C. L. (2015). Pinocchio’s nose in therapy: Therapists’ beliefs and attitudes toward client deception. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 37, 279–292.
Curtis, D. A., & Hart, C. L. (2020). Deception in psychotherapy: Frequency, typology and relationship. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 20(1), 106–115.
Kernberg, O. F. (1992). Psychopathic, paranoid and depressive transferences. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 73(1), 13–28.
Martin, L. E. (2006). Lying in psychotherapy: Results of an exploratory study (Doctoral dissertation, Auburn University).
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White, T. (2021). Redecision therapy today: A redecision relational approach to transactional analysis. Deonis Plus.
White, T. (2023). Counselling for drug-related problems. In T. Hanley & L. A. Winter (Eds.), The Sage handbook of counselling and psychotherapy (5th ed., pp. 245–251). Sage Publications.
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- Published
- 2025-12-08
- Issue
- No. 14 (2025)
- Section
- Transactional Analysis in Other Domains
- License
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Copyright (c) 2025 Anthony White

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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I am aware that the Educational Transactional Analysis journal is published under a Creative Commons license - Attribution (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode).
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