To Find/Make Meaning:
Notes on the Last Permission
by James R. Allen and Barbara Ann Allen
Abstract
This article extends and complements the
work of Jacobs (1987) and English (1979) on
autocratic power by expanding on the last
of the permissions outlined by Allen and
Allen in 1972: the permission to fwd or make
meaning. Three areas are covered: (1) the
relationship of the stories by which we live
to how we fwd/make meaning and construct
reality; (2) the use of strategic transactions
to induce others to accept our reality and the
stories we invent for it; and (3) two languages
of moral development - the language of
justice and the language of care. Exploring
these areas offers new connotations for such
basic TA concepts as decision, empower-
ment, and autonomy.
Weare pleased to contribute to this special
edition of the Journal devoted to the subject of
autocratic power. In 1972 we published an ar-
ticle that outlined a loose hierarchy of permis-
sions people need to receive and ultimately to
give themselves. In that and subsequent work
(Allen, 1976; Allen & Allen, 1984) we ad-
dressed various related issues such as positive
and negative permissions, apparent dangers in
making changes (so-called "witch-mother ce-
ment"), and problems in the order the permis-
sions are received. The last permission we
outlined was "permission to find or make
meaning." Although we did not elaborate on
its complexities then, it seems appropriate to
do so in the context of this issue.
Like the other permissions, the last one
seems necessary throughout life, although it
takes different forms at various stages of life.
Each permission dominates a certain period in
the life-cycle, but it is also necessary in some
rudimentary form before that period and dur-
ing subsequent stages. This article briefly ad-
72
dresses the following: (1) the relationshipof the
last permission to the stories by which we live;
(2) differences between finding and making
meaning and their relationship to radical con-
structivism; (3) similarities between therapeutic
techniques and the manipulative transactions of
those who would impose their "reality" on
others; (4) the relationship between psychother-
apy, torture, and brainwashing; and (5) some
differences between the moral language of
justice and the moral language of care.
The Stories by Which We Live,
and The Lure of True Belief
We all have personal stories. Berne (1972)
brought together previous thinking, added his
owl! clinical observations, and developed the
concept of script. Once we decide who we are,
what other people are like, and what happens
to people like us in the world, we have gone
a long way toward explaining the universe. Un-
fortunately, this also allows us to realize these
expectations by selectively collecting confirm-
ing information and ignoring discrepant
information.
Families have their stories, "hot topics," and
expectations. For example, family members
may find themselves acting out roles and in-
teractions that replay dramas that originated
with their ancestors. Groups and nations also
have stories, triumphs, and periods of shame.
Sometimes, as in the case of an Oedipus, a de
Gaulle, or a Kennedy, individual, family, and
national stories converge.
Perhaps no one is more miserable than the
person who has outlived his or her script or
story - the man condemned to die of cancer who
lives on, the woman dedicated to mothering
who sees her last child leave for college.
Nietzsche once remarked that a person who has
a reason to live can endure almost anything.
Perhaps this explains our need to construct
Transactional Analysis Journal
 TO FIND/MAKE MEANING: NOTES ON THE LAST PERMISSION
a story for ourselves. When this fails, we fall
into terrifying despair. Consider the tragedy of
Macbeth at the point when he expresses his
hopelessness about life: "It is a tale / Told by
an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying
nothing" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene
5, lines 28-32).
It is a relief that, when confronted with
knowledge of his doom, he can go to his death
with fighting words. It can be comforting, even
healing, to feel that one's individual story is
part of a larger drama, such as the designs of
the Gods, the archetypes, or the dialectics of
history. Unfortunately, each of these stories
also limits our possibilities and can sometimes
be actively destructive.
Rational behavior depends on the ability to
predict the immediate future based on informa-
tion received from the environment. In times
of rapid social change, our accuracy plummets,
and we learn to become less trustful of our
repetitive, preprogrammed decisions. To com-
pensate we need to process more information.
However, since there are constraints on our
ability to do so, we suffer "decision -- stress. ' ,
At such times, a leader with a clear simple
world view (story) is appealing. Leaping into
the comforting paradigms of prepackaged
political or religious certitude is one solution.
An alternative, antinomian solution is to con-
centrate on what is known, the self and the
now, whether sought through direct intuition
or mysticism.
One of the most enduring, most helpful, and
most destructive stories is the myth of Paradise.
It became religious belief in Israel and thus a
doctrine in Judaism and Christianity. As Greco-
Roman culture was assimilated into the church,
Christianity was enriched by Hellenic stories
of the Golden Age. During the later Middle
Ages, Paradise ceased to be mere myth and
became the ideology behind some remarkable
movements such as Chiliasm (the expectation
of the imminent return of Christ to reign 1000
years), the Crusades, voyages of discovery, the
Flagellants, the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit,
the Taborites, and the Anabaptists (Lantemari,
1963). These movements appealed most to peo-
ple on the fringe of society, the amorphous
masses which could find no recognized place
in the social system (Cohn, 1961; Lanternari,
1963).
Revolutionary Chiliasm did not die with the
Vol. 17, No.3, July 1987
Middle Ages, but has continued an active if
largely subterranean existence. As the religious
belief in Paradise waned, it reappeared in the
literary form of Utopia and in the political goals
of many reformers. It was resurrected briefly
among the Ranters during the English Civil
War and again during the French Revolution.
What was once proclaimed the' 'will of God"
may be transformed into "the natural heritage
of the Aryan race," the "dialectics of history,"
the newest psychological program for tran-
scendence, or once again, "the will of God"
in the spiel of the latest TV evangelist.
The greatest wave of such excitement in the
European Middle Ages was precipitated by the
major disaster of that time: the Black Death.
It is clear that society can offer people no pro-
tection during such a disaster. Perhaps our
twentieth century equivalent is the vague feel-
ing that somehow our economic, political, and
social systems have spun out of control and now
control us. Tomorrow it may be our own
plague: AIDS. A hope of safety, for rebirth,
mother-yearning, and a quest for early mother-
child relationships may underlie this quest for
Paradise. If so, then it may be our human fate
to treasure it forever in the recesses of our
Child ego states.
The first wave ofrecent cults (early 1970s)
in the United States drew on Eastern religions.
These were followed by neo-Christian,
political, and therapeutic groups as well as
various others based on communal living,
spiritualism, flying saucers, and the occult. By
1980 there were an estimated 2500 to 3000 such
cults (Singer, 1980). Whatever their outward
forms, they all seem to share two purposes: to
raise funds and to recruit new members. They
are usually characterized by an authoritarian
power structure and two sets of ethics -- one
for members of the cult and another for out-
siders. Generally they are led by a charismatic
I leader who promises members some sort of
special survival and a story by which to live.
The histories of the Native Americans of
North America provide other examples of this
process. Following their disastrous contacts
with white people, Native Americans became
the "chosen people" of several movements
which resulted in bloodshed and additional
defeats. The hopes of the Dreamers ended with
the capture of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce
some thirty miles from the Canadian border.
73
JAMES R. ALLEN AND BARBARA ANN ALLEN
The Ghost Dance died at the battle of Wounded
Knee. These movements expressed a yearning
to restore a way of life that was fast disappear-
ing, to be rid of white people and to see the
return of the buffalo and the departed spirits.
Their defeat sparked the next revival: the move-
ments of Handsome Lake and peyotism which
emphasized accommodation to white people.
Finding and Making Meaning:
A Radical Constructivist Alternative
Children are actively taught by their caretak-
ers what to pay attention to and how to inter-
pret their surroundings. As they grow they have
more choices for making meaning of the world.
However, this raises a deceptively simple ques-
tion: How do we know what we believe we
know?
This subject occupied pre-Socratic philoso-
phers, and it is gaining increasing recognition
by therapists today, in large part because of
concerns resulting from work with families. A
growing body of new knowledge suggests that
what we call reality is actually something we
construct (Von Foerster, 1973; Watzlawick,
1984). Unaware that we construct this reality,
we believe it exists independent of us.
Although we may agree intellectually with
theoretical physicists who hypothesize that
there is no certain relationship between cause
and effect, that space curves back on itself, that
there are only degrees of probability, and that
time does not necessarily run from past to pre-
sent to future, these worlds are unimaginable
in terms of our own experience. In 1973 two
major papers appeared. First, Von Foerster
(1973) presented his now classic lecture On
Constructing A Reality. He demonstrated that
the environment we perceive is our invention
and concisely refuted the argument that this is
nothing but the fallacy of solipsism or the belief
that no reality exists outside one's own mind.
In addition, Rosenhan (1973) published an ar-
ticle in Science titled "On Being Sane in In-
sane Places." With elegant simplicity he
showed that certain psychiatric diagnoses create
rather than define pathological conditions. Once
a diagnosis is made, a reality is invented in
which even so-called normal behavior is seen
as disturbed. The process acquires a momen-
tum of its own, and the outcome is a self-
fulfilling prophecy which even the patient even-
tually accepts as reality. Although this study
74
was not without criticism, who knows how
many of our social, personal, and political con-
texts operate in a similar manner?
The term constructivism is increasingly used
to refer to the inquiry into how individual,
social, scientific,and ideological realities are in-
vented as the consequence of our search for an
"objective" reality. However, constructivism
is incompatible with traditional thinking. As
different as our competing scientific, philosoph-
ical, and therapeutic systems have been from
one another, they have shared one assumption:
that an objective reality exists and that, there-
fore, certain theories and ideologies fit it more
accurately than others.
Constructivism suggests that the last permis-
sion should be "to make meaning" because we
can construe several alternative realities from
the same facts. If we come to see the world as
our construction, a number of conclusions fol-
low. First, since we cannot know whether our
world view (including our therapeutic orienta-
tion) fits reality better than does someone
else's, it behooves us to be tolerant. Second,
we are responsible not only for our actions, but
also for the reality we create. We are totally
responsible and totally free, the architects of
our realities as well as our scripts. This is true
autonomy. We are not only script free, as Berne
(1972) suggested, but free of the traditional
confines of reality. Perhaps this is the mean-
ing of the famous paradox in the first chapter
of the Tao Te Ching: "The Tao that can be ex-
pressed is not the real Tao; the name that can
be named is not the real name" (Waley, 1953,
p. 5).
This is a useful antidote to the human tenden-
cy to treat difference as a battleground for self-
esteem rather than as an opportunity for
growth. "We differ" often becomes "One of
us must be right and one wrong," or "I can
be right only if you are wrong." In this frame-
work, life is treated as a zero-sum game in
which the winner's gain is assumed equivalent
to the loser's loss. When people are divided into
"good" and "bad," however, both lose their
humanity. The stage is set for the great Drama
Triangle (Karpman, 1968) of Persecutors,
Rescuers, and Victims and their various sup-
porters, as English and Jacobs describe in this
Journal.
If one assumes he or she possesses the one
True Reality, the Ultimate Truth, other posi-
Transactional Analysis Journal
 TO FIND/MAKE MEANING: NOTES ON THE LAST PERMISSION
tions become heresy. It is interesting that the
Greek word hairesis, from which heresy is
derived, originally meant choice, not adherence
(often obstinate) to a belief contrary to estab-
lished dogma.
In the beginning, as Jacobs (1987) points out,
the ideologue may believe in the teachability
of the unbelievers. However, because they so
often prove obdurate, the next step may be the
leader's self-authorized use of violence. This
can set up a curious paradox: The very attempt
to stamp out opposition validates its existence.
Manipulations (Therapeutic and Otherwise)
and the Imposition of One's Meaning and
Reality on Others
Change can be facilitated through two main
kinds of interventions: action and manipulation
of meaning. Because actions occur within a
context, therapists can promote behavioral
change directly by prescribing new behaviors,
i.e., through directives, whether straight (such
as rituals) or paradoxical. Such prescribed
behaviors allow patients to create new mean-
ings through new patterns of behavior. New
meanings can also be created through redefin-
ing problems (Mellor & Sigmund, 1975), punc-
tuation, reframing, positive connotation, inter-
pretation, confrontation, explanation, teaching,
deconfusingthe Child (Berne, 1966), Parent in-
terviews (McNeel, 1976), facilitating redeci-
sion (Goulding & Goulding, 1979), and the
multilevel communication of metaphor and
symbolism. Thus we help the patient construct
a new "reality" in which new experiences and
new options may be found. When the patient's
"reality" is similar to our own, we say he or
she has gained "insight"!
In order to examine strategies used to induce
others to accept one's version of reality, it
seems useful to study the interventions of a
master from another culture, another level of
system, and another time. Gandhi was such a
master (Allen, 1985, in press), and he seems
a good choice because he was not an autocrat,
but rather is regarded with reverence by most
people. It is our hope that this examination will
lead to a closer study of the strategic transac-
tions used by other charismatic leaders,
autocratic or not, to change how people view
themselves, others, and the world. This is an
area which, with the exception of Haley's The
Power Tactics ofJesus Christ (1969), has been
Vol. 17, No.3, July 1987
largely neglected. Although there are major dif-
ferences between therapeutic and religious or
political strategists (e.g., politicians and reli-
gious leaders usually belong to the system they
hope to change and tend to have clear plans for
its future), their successes suggest that they
have much to teach us.
Gandhi's Strategic Interventions in 1930: At
the stroke of midnight, January 1, 1930, the
Indian Congress party raised the flag of a new
nation and ushered in the struggle for in-
dependence from England. All across India
people looked to Gandhi to signal the next
move, but he did nothing. Suddenly, after
weeks of deliberation, the answer came to him
in a dream. He decided to lead a small band
of marchers to the Indian Ocean to gather tax-
free salt. This brilliant choice exposed the en-
tire British Empire's injustice in preventing the
Indian people from taking a cheap and neces-
sary substance from the shores of their own
land by making the manufacture and sale of salt
the monopoly ofthe state, which built a tax in-
to its price. It was a small tax, but for poor peo-
ple, an oppressive one.
On March 12, 1930 Gandhi set forth leading
seventy-eight disciples, whose names he had
previously published in his newspaper, Young
India, for the benefit of the police. Villagers
festooned their path and sprinkled water before
them to settle the dust. Day after day the strange
picture of a little old man marching down to
the sea to challenge the British raj dominated
the world press. The procession grew in num-
bers and became a triumphal march. It was as
if Gandhi was saying, "I am about to give a
signal to the nation and to the world."
After a slow but newsworthy trip, the party
reached the Indian Ocean on April 5. Western
readers probably did not appreciate that the
band arrived on the anniversary of a British
massacre of Indians. They could, however,
understand that Gandhi was marching in God's
name. Some compared the march to Jesus'
journey to Jerusalem, and to dramatize the ef-
fect, his followers found a donkey to follow
behind him.
Throughout India people began to gather and
sell salt. Salt has many symbolic meanings: It
comes from the sea, the mythical giver of life;
it is used for the ceremonial affirmation of
mutual bonds; and in a hot country it is neces-
sary for survival.
75
JAMES R. ALLEN AND BARBARA ANN ALLEN
Strategically, Gandhi had trapped the British
in a clever bind. Although he had written be-
forehand to the Viceroy of his plans, neither
the English nor his own associates (such as
Nehru) had understood the power and mean-
ing of what he intended. Now the English could
no longer ignore him and the widespread civil
disobedience he set in motion without giving
him incredible power. On the other hand, they
could not suppress him and his movement with-
out conferring upon him the mantle of martyr-
dom and placing themselves in the role of out-
rageous oppressors. In either case, they in-
creased his power.
The British reacted with the greatest police
round-up in the history ofIndia. Gandhi himself
was imprisoned, but never again could British
control be framed in terms of the "white man's
burden" or the "civilizing mission" of a
beneficent Britain. The internal psychological
"maps" of the British, the Indians themselves,
and people throughout the world had been
changed forever.
Just before his arrest, Gandhi had drafted a
letter to the Viceroy describing his intention to
raid the Dharsana Salt Works. In Gandhi's
place, Mrs. Naidu, the poet, led some 2,500
volunteers to the site. Row after row of workers
walked up to the police who clubbed them and
kicked them in the genitals. Women carried off
bloodied bodies until they themselves dropped
from exhaustion. Still the workers came for-
ward, row after row, Moslem and Hindu alike,
with heads held high, even in the 116 degree
heat. United Press correspondent Webb Mil-
ler's description of the event was dispatched to
over a thousand newspapers worldwide.
By prescribing the symptom, by going with
and even encouraging British "resistance," and
by exaggerating the "one down position" of
the masses, Gandhi effectively nullified what-
ever moral superiority the British imagined they
held. Rabindranath Tagore summed it up in the
Manchester Guardian of May 17, 1930:
"Europe has completely lost her formal moral
prestige in Asia. She is no longer regarded as
the champion throughout the world of fair deal-
ing, and the exponent of high principle, but as
the upholder of Western race supremacy and
the exploiter of those outside her borders."
Gandhi, the prophet of nonviolence, had de-
feated the greatest military power in the world!
Just as a therapist seeks to influence a patient's
76
associations, Gandhi changed the associations
of millions. He altered the rules of the system
and introduced new ideas, new patterns of
thinking, new maps of reality. The old home-
ostatic mechanisms could no longer work.
Through his strategic interventions, Gandhi
changed repetitive sequences of transactions
between the British raj and its Indian subjects
and the world views of both.
The Strategic Uses of Doctrine: A mass
movement's strength comes from the readiness
of its followers for self-sacrifice and united
action. Leadership, doctrine, faith, and pro-
paganda are the tools of unification and a way
to induce readiness for self-sacrifice. The pro-
cesses by which this unification and the
readiness for self-sacrifice are produced are
key.
To transform a country it is not enough to
stir up discontent or to demonstrate the reason-
ableness of the changes one envisions: One also
needs to sow and nourish hope. Hoffer (1951)
points out that when a leader sets out to in-
culcate these tendencies, followers usually have
to give up a great deal in the form of individual
possessions, individual judgment, privacy, and
family ties. This encourages estrangement from
the self. Typical characteristics of the self-
estranged people who form mass movements
include credulity, a readiness to attempt the im-
possible, a depreciation of the present, and a
facility for make-believe as well as a proneness
to hate, a tendency Gandhi could not control
and which led to great tragedies in India.
People intimidated by their surroundings do
not think of massive changes. However, those
who initiate vast upheaval generally feel they
possess some irresistible power which gives
them faith in the future. Lenin and the Bolshe-
viks had faith in the power of the dialectic.
Those who began the French Revolution had
faith in the omnipotence of reason.
In its early phase, a mass movement appeals
to those who wish to be rid of an unwanted self.
People look for rebirth or at least some degree
of hope, pride, sense of purpose, and worth by
identifyingwith a good, if not holy, cause. Only
later does such a movement attract people
interested in a career. Thus it is useful for the
would-be leader to provide followers with a ho-
ly cause which substitutes for the faith they do
not have in themselves. This is another way of
stating the English-Jacobs' position about the
Transactional Analysis Journal
 TO FIND/MAKE MEANING: NOTES ON THE LAST PERMISSION
role of the leader in helping individuals change
their existential positions.
Satyagraha or "Truth Force" served as such
a source of belief for Gandhi. Although Gan-
dhi has served as a model for many activist
movements in Africa and the West (including
the United States' civil rights movement) and
many of his techniques have been widely
employed (burning registration cards, organiz-
ing tax refusal, sit-down strikes, and deliberate-
ly violating regulations inhibiting free speech),
the religious and political theory behind these
techniques, unifying them in Satyagraha, is
much less familiar.
Satyagraha has meant different things to dif-
ferent people. Gandhi coined the word from his
native Gujarati. Satya means that which is, that
which never changes, and can be translated as
Truth or Love. Agraha means firmness, a po-
tent and viable source of energy that belongs
to all. In practice, Satyagraha is a method for
conflict resolution, an attitude of nonviolent
love which frames relationships, and an obsti-
nate firmness in clinging to truth. It is difficult
to resist a movement that has the benevolent
purpose of saving one, and even more so when
it seems to represent some next step in human
development.
A doctrine's effectivenesscomes not from the
sublimity of its meaning, but rather from its
certitude, its embodiment of Truth. Thus it is
important, as Hoffer (1951), points out, that
it be vague and, if not unintelligible, at least
unverifiable. The key religious concept
underlying Gandhi's politics was Truth. The
working out of "Truth Force" has much in
common with the modem psychotherapist's un-
derstanding of the unconscious as unclear and
numinous, but powerful and real. Unlike the
traditional Western concept of truth as some ex-
ternal objective actuality divorced from the
people involved, Gandhi's concept of Truth
reflects active behavior expressing whole-
hearted commitment.
If we are connected to a great historical pro-
cess (story), we are more likely to sacrifice our
transitory selves for the eternal self we imagine
we are creating in the thoughts of others
through our heroic deeds. Glory is largely a
theatrical idea. There is no striving for it with-
out a vivid sense of audience, including the
generations to come. Emblems, flags, uni-
forms, parades, and ceremonies are the dramat-
Vol. 17. No.3, July 1987
ic props that mask the overwhelming reality of
life and death and unite people in a sense of
belonging to some great historical process. Peo-
ple are no longer isolated individuals, but part
of a group with a memorable past and a brilliant
future.
Non-Violence as a Strategic Technique:
Many Western reformers adopted Gandhi's
technique of nonviolence, advocating it for its
own sake (a phenomenon similar, perhaps, to
using paradox for its own sake). Gandhi used
it strategically and under very specific condi-
tions (where it would be effective) and against
a specific adversary (who could be counted on
to respond in a certain way). As he stated,
"Where there is only a choice between cow-
ardice and violence, I would advise violence"
(Nanda, 1958, p. 14). This is not advocating
turning the other cheek; it is advocating non-
violent but active and provocative resistance.
It is a truly strategic approach.
The Strategic Use of Symbolism and the
Charismatic Life: Traditional schools of psy-
chotherapy have elucidated the analysis of pa-
tients' symbolic production and communica-
tion. However, Gandhi, like Milton Erickson
and his followers, used symbols as therapeutic
tools to communicate and effect change. Gen-
erally we as therapists are not fully aware of
how much we respond to symbols because the
process is unconscious.
As a master symbolist, Gandhi used even his
own life to enhance and extend his charisma.
He projected the identity of a Hindu holy man
and guru. As Nehru (1980) put it, "Indian
mythology is full of great ascetics who by the
rigor of their sacrifices build up a mountain of
merit which threatens the domain of some of
the lesser gods and upsets the established
order" (p. 85). With such a metaphor readily
available, it was easy for the masses to inter-
pret the confrontation between Gandhi and the
British empire as the struggle between Good
and Evil. For Westerners he stirred up
memories of early saints, even of Christ
himself, and adopted symbols that reinforced
such identity: the loin cloth and fasting.
The Loin Cloth: Gandhi's endorsement of the
loin cloth had several important effects. It
struck a blow against the British empire's eco-
nomic imperialism, setting an example for
others to boycott imported cloth. It suggested
self-sacrifice and lack of concern for the vani-
77
JAMES R. ALLEN AND BARBARA ANN ALLEN
ties of the world. In a country where few could
afford adequate clothing, it established a bond
with the masses. When he wore it to meet the
King at Buckingham Palace, he defied the cus-
toms of the British court. Winston Churchill
remarked that he was "revolted by the nause-
ating and humiliating spectacle of this one-time
Inner Temple Lawyer, now a seditious fakir,
striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceroy's
palace, there to negotiate and to parlay on equal
terms with the representatives of the King-
Emperor" (Fischer, 1980, p. 215).
By wearing cloth he made himself, Gandhi
made spinning dignified. Through this humble
chore, he linked members of his Congress Party
with a common daily rite. The cloth, cotton
khadi, wrapped the humble and the small in a
common swath. His little wooden spinning
wheel became the symbol of his revolution, a
peaceful challenge to Western imperialism and
a return to the distant past through which he
believed he could lead the masses to a more
authentic present and future. Thus Gandhi pro-
jected himself as a saint (even while decrying
the burden of Mahatmaship) who identified
with the masses and with whom, in return, the
masses could identify.
The Darshan: At first encounter the Indian
custom of the darshan, a blessing used by
various Hindus that consists of viewing an em-
inent person, baffles Westerners. The collec-
tive glow of happiness that comes from being
in the presence of a great person has been cod-
ified in India into a ritual. Gandhi's mere pres-
ence was enough to stir the hearts and hopes
of thousands. Westerners are generally reticent
to recognize this process, even though it oc-
curs daily in the presence of rock stars and cult
figures.
From a therapeutic perspective, a person's
distress can be conceptualized as a web of pat-
terns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and
of attitudes, relationships, and contexts. Even
a small change in any of these alters the pat-
tern and may lead to increasing changes. Such
relational, attitudinal, and contextual changes
can apparently result from the mere presence
of a charismatic figure.
For example, Gandhi's 1948 New Delhi fast
at Birla House galvanized the world. He under-
took this last fast on January 13 to encourage
India to pay 550 million rupees to Pakistan.
Characteristically, he broke the fast by receiv-
78
ing a drink simultaneously from a Moslem and
a Hindu - and the Indian promise of payment.
It seems fitting to end this section by recount-
ing one event that epitomizes Gandhi's
therapeutic talent, including his use of sym-
bolism, multilevel communication, and indirect
suggestion; his ability to express almost
unlimited implications in a simple gesture; his
gently, teasing affability; and his respect for his
opponents, whom he hoped to transform. While
in prison after the Great Salt March, Gandhi
was invited to the Viceroy's palace to negotiate
with the King-Emperor's representative. When
asked to take tea he refused, but he did accept
a cup of hot water. Taking a small packet of
illegal salt from the folds of his shawl, he put
a pinch into the water saying simply, "To re-
mind us of the famous Boston Tea Party" (Nan-
da, 1958, p. 201).
Psychotherapy, Torture,
and Thought-Reform
It is deeply disturbing to realize that a third
of the world's nations today - right wing and
left - use torture routinely. The purpose is
generally not to extract information as it was
in the past, but rather to change victims, to
make them more amenable to public trials, or
to incapacitate them so they can no longer act
as leaders, or effectively challenge the system
and its ideology. There is distressing similari-
ty in the techniques these regimes employ, as
if there is a worldwide torture-information in-
dustry, complete with seminars, workshops,
and supervised training.
Torture has become a twisted, destructive
version of psychotherapy. Rather than em-
powering the client, the torturer degrades the
victim psychologically, weakens the victim's
sense of self, sense of competence, initiative,
and sense of reality so that the victim will plead
guilty to absurd charges in a kangaroo court,
beg to be destroyed, or at least cease to be a
leader others will follow.
Although the modern torturer has available
a "multi-modal treatment plan" that encom-
passes the biological, psychological, and
sociocultural spheres, two aspects of the proc-
ess deserve particular attention:
1. ScriptInduction - A woman who is repeat-
edly raped by one or more tormentors or
who is sexually violated with electrical
devices while being told "No man will
Transactional Analysis Journal
 TO FIND/MAKE MEANING: NOTES ON THE LAST PERMISSION
ever look at you" and" You will never be
able to love again" is having a script for-
cibly imposed upon her. A person given
a suggestion while in an altered state of
consciousness produced through physical
debility, pain, and fear may be more like-
ly to accept it. Fear is not unknown as an
hypnotic induction technique.
2. Introjection ofthe Persecutor - Many tor-
ture victims describe the shame they con-
tinue to feel, often as if before some in-
visible audience. This apparently arises
from introjecting rather than identifying
with the torturer and develops out of the
symbiosis the torturer creates. As an in-
troject rather than a more integrated iden-
tification, the torturer continues to exert his
or her presence as an unseen observing au-
dience rather than by becoming an inter-
nal source of guilt.
The term brain-washing, adopted from the
Chinese revolutionary universities, actually
translates more accurately as "thought-
reform. " It is the product of systematic social
influence, a much less extreme form of chang-
ing the victim's reality than torture. Its goal is
not to destroy the personality, but to change the
victim's belief systems. Thought-reform de-
pends on the victim's being non-informed. The
person does not notice changes in his or her
behavior because all activities are arranged by
those who control the social and physical en-
vironment. The response to criticism is that the
critic is defective and the system correct. This
description of brain-washing also describes the
process of child-rearing and, in some cases, the
process of becoming a wife in a patriarchal
society, although many would not consider this
autocratic. People in small communities may
have similar experiences as may those in
isolatedgroups such as therapeutic communities
and the groups of therapists who allow no in-
put differing from their beliefs.
The ideologue's premises must be accepted
as absolutely true. Thus, Pravda (January 13,
1974) had to condemn Solzhenitsyn because,
although others had attacked past Soviet errors,
he charged that Soviet legal violations resulted
from the very nature of socialism, not because
of an idiosyncratic aberration from appropriate
Communist practice. For those in autocratic
power, everything that contradicts the ruling
ideology must be destroyed. Yet the more ac-
Vol. 17, No.3. July 1987
tive this process, the more powerfully the sup-
pressed return. As Jung pointed out, every
psychological extreme contains "secretly its
opposite or stands in some sort of intimate and
essential relation to it" (1952, p. 345).
The Nurturing Parent and
the Morality of Care
Beginning with Freud's (1929/1964) theory
tying the formation of the superego to the
resolution of the Oedipus complex, and exten-
ding through Piaget's (1932) studies of
childrens' conceptions of the rules of their
games and Kohlberg' s (1981) description of six
stages of moral development, our models of
moral development have been built on male ex-
perience. Freud's assertion that "the first re-
quisite of civilization is justice, the assurance
that a rule once made will not be broken in
favor of the individual" (1929/1964, p. 141),
reflects the assumption that the world consists
of separate individuals whose claims fundamen-
tally conflict but who can find in morality a
mode of regulating conflict. Thus justice is
equated with morality; laws replace brute force.
However, these assumptions have been
challenged recently by growing knowledge
about female development. Gilligan (1982), for
example, documents another kind of morality,
a morality of care and connection.
In the recent trial of General Ramon Camps
of Buenos Aires, whose secret prison cells were
chambers of torture and death for thousands of
Argentine desparaceidos or ' 'disappeared
ones," the court concluded, "Any person be
he civilian or military knows that if he kills,
tortures or robs a defenseless person, he is com-
mitting a crime. Obedience is very important,
but not more important than legality" ("Tim-
merman's Torture," 1986). This statement is
consistent with Kohlberg's (1981) model of
morality which equates equality with justice.
Level four is given precedence over level one.
From a very different perspective, Martin
Luther King addresses similar issues. In reply-
ing to clergy who criticized his breaking the
law in the name of justice, Martin Luther King
wrote from his Birmingham jail cell:
I am in Birmingham because injustice is
here. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and
not be concerned about what happens in
Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere. Weare
79
JAMES R. ALLEN AND BARBARA ANN ALLEN
caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality tied in a single garment of
destiny. Whatever effects one directly,
effects all indirectly (1984, p. 87).
King justified breaking the law in the name of
justice, but tied his responsibilities to a caring
which develops from understanding the connec-
tions between people.
Thus, as Gilligan (1982) suggests, there ac-
tually may be at least two different moral lan-
guages: the language of rights that protects
separation and equality, and the language of re-
sponsibilities that sustains connection. In trans-
actional analysis terms, one seems to be a man-
ifestation of Critical Parent, the other of Nur-
turing Parent. However, such an analysis neg-
lects the important role of those Child ego states
associated with empathy. In addition, both these
expressions of moral development, as well as
empathy, could be conceptualized as manifesta-
tions of integrated Adult.
In his later years, Erik Erikson (1976) has
emphasized care-giving and identified caring
as a virtue and strength of maturity. This should
spur us to search further for its antecedents in
the Nurturing Parent and certain empathic
Child ego states. It is surely in these areas that
autocrats fall short: in empathy, compassion,
and in recognizing the interdependence of
human life and the contextual nature of psycho-
logical truths. It is also in these areas that we
might question those who support autocratic
regimes. Undoubtedly it is easier for corpora-
tions or government agencies of developed na-
tions to deal with centralized, autocratic author-
ities in third-world countries than with ever-
changing parties.
Conclusion
The concept of a hierarchy of special permis-
sions is deceptively simple, but its many faceted
implications are often unappreciated. In the fif-
teen years since our original paper, little has
been written on the subject. Consequently, we
are delighted to offer some general ideas re-
garding one of them, the permission to find/
make meaning, as it applies to the topic of au-
tocratic power. Each of the other permissions
could be similarly developed.
Because of the importance of real or poten-
tial abuse of power, knowledge, and commun-
ication strategies, it is important to examine the
factors that can contribute to the rise and con-
80
tinuation of autocratic regimes, whether in na-
tions, groups, or families.
What can be learned from all of this in terms
of TA as a theoretical framework? As a system
of thought, transactional analysis can become
a "True Belief," whether pursued with right-
eousness and certitude or trivialized as the
"TA-cha-cha-cha" packages which were, at
one time, so popular and lucrative. Because it
is a system of thought, TA cannot prove its own
truth from within itself. Indeed, the real world
manifests itself only where our constructions
break down. Unfortunately we must attempt to
explain these breakdowns through the very con-
cepts we used to build our imperfect theory.
Perhaps more than other therapeutic systems,
however, TA empowers us with the possibili-
ty of modifying old realities and constructing
new ones. This is the power behind the con-
cepts of decision and redecision.
Perhaps it is time to reexamine our basic con-
cepts, even to reenvision transactional analysis.
We have the information to enrich and expand
our thinkng about such basic concepts as
"script-free," "autonomous," "decision,"
"redecision, " the role of the Nurturing Parent,
empathic Child ego-states, and the permission
to find/make meaning.
James R. Allen, M.D., is Chief ofPsychiatry
and ChiefofStaff, Children's Medical Center,
Tulsa, and Clinical Professor ofPsychiatry and
Behavioral Science, University of Oklahoma.
He is a Certified Teaching Member, Instruc-
tor and Supervisor. Please send reprint requests
to Dr. Allen at Children's Medical Center,
5300 E. Skelly Dr., Tulsa, OK, U.S.A. 74135.
Barbara Ann Allen, M.S. w., M.P.H.,
Ph.D., is in private practice in Tulsa, and a
Clinical Associate Professor ofPsychiatry and
Behavioral Sciences, University ofOklahoma.
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Call for Nominations for 1988

Eric Berne Memorial Scientific Award
Deadline: December 31, 1987
ITAA members are invited to submit nominations now for the 1988 Eric
Berne Memorial Scientific Award. The deadline for receipt of nominations
is December 31, 1987.
Established in 1971 to honor and perpetuate the memory of Eric Berne's
scientific contributions, the award is given to the originator of a scientific
concept. The contributions must be published in a professional bulletin, jour-
nal, or book at least one year prior to nomination, and must be judged to
be a contribution to TA.
Each recommendation must include a one- to three-line statement show-
ing how it qualifies as new theory and is thus eligible for the award. Please
also include the nominee's name and the publication reference.
We welcome and encourage the nomination of worthy candidates for this
award.
Margery Friedlander, TAl Editor

Vol. 17, No.3, July 1987 81