The Personal and the Political

Abstract

This is the keynote speech from the TA Cumbrian conference that took place on 25 February 2023. It concerns the personal legacy of social, economic, and political contexts as lived through the lives of previous generations. It is delivered through a radical and relational lens and draws on past and current thinking about alienation. The author makes reference to features from her father’s life that have come to hold significant meaning for her.

Keywords:

• Alienation
• legacy
• intergenerational trauma
• India
• partition
• colonialism
• transactional analysis

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Karen Minikin

Karen Minikin, MSc (TA Psych), BA (Hons) Counselling, Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), Certified Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), (she/her) currently works in West Somerset and is Program Leader for TA training at Iron Mill College in Exeter. She is a member of the leadership advisory team of the Black and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN) and a coeditor for the Transactional Analysis Journal and Psychotherapy and Politics International. Karen can be reached at 11 Fore St., Wellington, Somerset, TA22 9NE, United Kingdom; email: [email protected].