Transactional Analysis is a form of therapy that focuses on the 'transactions' that occur between two people. It is a method of understanding ourselves and others. What makes someone do and say the things they do? what makes me keep behaving in ways that seem destructive or unhelpful to me? Why are we attracted to some people and take an instant disike to others?

Transactional Analysis is a great way of understanding ourselves. The best known model of TA is the ego state model (see diagram) This splits personality into 3 distinct parts, Parent, Adult and Child. Sometimes we behave, think and feel as the adult we are in the present moment, sometimes we behave, think and feel as the child we were once and sometimes we behave, think and feel in the way our parents did. We are not usually aware of this movement between ego states, but we move through them all of the time and it is noticable that often our Child ego state and our Parent ego state are in disagreement and we experience internal conflict. An example of this might be, when you wake up, "I really would  like to stay in bed" (Child ego state) some other voice urges you to "get up and don't  be so lazy "(Parent ego state) often there can be a voice of reason that might say "stay in bed for 5 more minutes and then get up, because there are things to do and you will feel happier."( Adult ego state) We can all recognise these internal arguments within our selves, part of the process of TA is to separate the different ego states to gain insight and control over our behaviour.

The idea of a 'life script' is another main TA concept, the theory being that we all create a script for ourselves and our life journey during childhood and according to our circumstances and the way we are cared for as a child, will be the themes and tenants of our scripts. The decisions we make about the world become unconscious drives and operate out of our awareness, yet compel us to behave in certain ways, the theory being that our drive is to 'prove' our life script and therefore confirm to ourselves that we have indeed made the right decisions in life.  An example might be, a child who has not had constant, loving parenting may decide that no one is trustworthy and continue on into life with this script belief, it is a major imperative in this person's life to meet people and situations that confirm this script decision not to trust anyone, because the reality is too painful to look at, that it was one's own parents who were not trustwothy or loving. TA therapy, seeks to dismantle script and by bringing these self limiting and destructive patterns into awareness make them available to change. So change in therapy is a move towards autonomy away from unconsious complusion.

These are just a few of the theories about TA and there are many other ways of understanding self and others contained in TA theory, ie. games, rackets, discounting, injunctions, drivers, symbiosis and many more. (see interesting links page.)

3 great permissions; to love, to change and to do things well. Eric Berne