About the Webinar

In this webinar, Zefiro Mellacqua returns to Berne’s scientific appraisal of the emergence in the 1950s and 1960s of psychedelic science, on which Berne founded his unique conceptualization of psychic organs, ego states, cathexis, and his later, as well as preliminary, considerations of the farthest frontiers of transactional analysis, to which he gave the suggestive name of “regression analysis” (Berne, 1961/1975, pp. 224–231).Through a brief history of psychedelic psychiatry, Zefiro will introduce webinar participants to the most recent resurgence of psychedelic science and with that to a more contemporary, yet psychodynamically as well neurobiologically informed, reconsideration of some of the most fundamental ideas of transactional analysis theory and of their possible future applications in the field of psychotherapy and clinical psychiatry.

About the Presenter

Dr. Zefiro Mellacqua is the Medical Director of the Cantonal Psychiatric Clinic (CPC ) in Mendrisio, Switzerland. A medical doctor, psychiatrist, and Certified Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy) by training, he worked as psychiatrist and psychotherapist for the South London and Maudsley National Health Service Foundation Trust in London (UK) and as a consultant psychiatrist in Switzerland. He implemented the first home treatment team in Canton Ticino. Zefiro is also a clinical lecturer at the SUPSI University and USI Faculty of Biomedical Sciences in Lugano, Switzerland. He is the recipient of the 2024 Eric Berne Memorial Award.

Photo credit: courtesy of Chiara Micci/ Garbani

Warm Wishes

EATA & ITAA webinar committee