What is Transactional Analysis?
There are many different types of counselling available to people; Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Person-centred are the two most common.
What about Transactional Analysis (TA) -where does it fit into the picture? At its most simplistic TA has a strong cognitive component which might make it close in approach to CBT but it is also a client centred process which makes it akin to Person centred.
However TA is more than just a hybrid of other methods. It has some unique powerful theories that are easy to understand and put into practice making it an effective method of counselling.
TA is a theory of personality developed by an American psychoanalyst named Eric Berne in the 1960’s. At its core are three core principals
Everyone is deserving of respect:
- It is my aim to provide a safe, accepting environment for you where you feel respected.
Everyone has the capacity to understand their situation
- The language of TA is easy to understand, there's no psychobabble; the ideas normally make sense to people giving them a useful tool to take away and think about.
Emotional difficulties are treatable given the correct approach.
- It’s not that TA is the correct approach but rather that as a TA counsellor I will adapt my approach to suit you, it is a flexible therapy where we can account for the individual rather than working to a prescribed approach.
TA is a contractual form of counselling where you and the counsellor negotiate a therapeutic contract; together you decide what you want to get from counselling and what you need to help you move forward.
It can be an empowering moment when you realise that you hold the answer to your problems and that you know what is best for you.
To help you gain that insight TA has three core theoretical concepts;
- Ego states
- Scripts
- Games
I will update the website with these key ideas during the year.
