 Hello and welcome to MIPP TV, the TV station for Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy and I have with me tonight Bob Cook, the founder of MIPP and he's going to be talking about Co-Creative Transactional Analysis, a book written in 2014 by Keith Tudor and Graham Summers. Summers? Summers, excuse me, Graham Summers and we're going to put a picture of that up now so you can have a look at it and we're going to put a link in the bar below so if you're interested in the book you can click on the link and go and investigate it maybe by it. And just to be clear this isn't a sponsored video, this is just Bob sharing his love of this particular book. Would I be right in saying that Bob? Yeah my love of transactional analysis, our transactional analysis has evolved since Eric Byrne's day, Eric Byrne started to create TA in 1956. His first books were on Intuition and this book really is an evolution of transactional analysis. It's one of the books which has taken really transactional analysis in the 21st century. It's a wonderful book, I really like it. It concentrates on the thread of relational transactional analysis. In other words it looks at the co-created relationship between two people, therapist, client. And if you concentrate on the relationship then you will work towards an effective cure. The relationship is the key at worst to cure in this sense. So it almost sounds like there's an acknowledgement that the relationship is a primary part of the model or the theory or the treatment plan. And this book really concentrates on that element. And of course Keith Tudor is well known, he's come up quite a few times, certainly in my teachings through the years. He's been advised in the person-sensitive community. So I'm wondering if I get that sense that he's transferred that into TA, would that be right? Yeah I think so. It's certainly centering on the idea of the relationship as all important. If you go back to Eric Bernstein and his first books, Transactional Analysis and Psychotherapy, which are reviewed here. I think it was the first book I've reviewed. This is the fifth book I've done. Now if you look at Eric Bernstein's books, Transactional Analysis and Psychotherapy 1961 and then you look at games people play in 1964. And you look at the theory of principles in 1967 and then what you say after you say hello in 1969. Eric Bernstein didn't really centre on the relationship that's been figure in the idea of psychotherapy. He developed a lot of techniques, a lot of really good models like the parent-adult child model, functional, structural. Talked about games, drama, triangle, strokes, discounts, transactions. But he didn't really have a figure, well he didn't really I think concentrate on the relationship between a therapist and client. Which is a co-created process being figure to cure really. When you talk about co-creative, I've often heard you speak of this before. And it might be worth just expanding on that. Co-creative, it almost feels like there's two people in a relationship and they create it between them. Would that be right? So here I am talking to you Roy. So if I suddenly said to you, do you know what Roy? I've had flu for the last three days, which is true by the way. I'll suffer from flu at the moment. That transaction would impart information to you and would probably evoke in you a transaction back. Now that might be coming from TA terms, parent, adult, child. But we would co-create a dialogue. We'd co-create the space between us. Just follow that through a moment. Look at the theory that the past affects the present. And that we are enacting in the present our past dramas. Are you with me? Yeah. We hope that. We'll get a different answer. So I don't know what your history is about illness. But say you have a script belief that you should get on in life, be strong, don't look at illnesses, and that you've got to really just ignore illnesses. And you will have a script decision about that. So your transaction back to me might not come from the child in your state. It might come from the parent in your state. I hear that you've had a bit of flu, but pull yourself together, book yourself up. You're not dead yet, that type of thing. Yes, that's right. So you're enacting out a script belief or a real core belief from your history. And so in the co-created relationship with me and you, a way I transact has an impact on you. And then you transact back in the co-created place between the two of us. And we may or may not enact out your script from your history. Yeah. So it's helped to realize the way someone reacts to that initial I've had flu, which is an adult transaction. The response of that could either come from a very parental place, which I've just done, or a very childish place. He's like, oh, that's terribly frightening. And, oh, I bet you're feeling awful and you need four days off work and that type of thing. So we're playing out in the here and now, or enacting out in our co-created relationship, processes from the past. Yes. Yes. That's really what we mean by co-created relationship. But what happens in the therapist room with the client is a relationship today in 2017, which will have its etiology or its oranges way back in time. Yes. So if we can deal with the relationship in the here and now, perhaps maybe in a different way or have a different outcome, we may then in that process have some healing through the new relationship. Yes. So a reaction such as, I'm sorry to hear you have not been feeling well. I wonder what you're doing about it. That type of thing would be a very much of an adult response, wouldn't it? Yeah. And then how I react back to that might be one of disbelief that someone could actually say this transaction in a certain way, or it may be typical to my history. According to my script belief systems. So it's through the relationship with therapist and client that we can have a different healing in the present. Yeah. And also I'm hearing, and it sounds really interesting, Bob, from something that comes from a person's centre position, is that the reaction to what someone says can set the tone of the relationship and the power in the relationship. So if you're the client who said I've had flu and you say, oh, you'll sort of, you'll be all right. You take a few pills or, you know, go around the block or whatever. It sets the tone, doesn't it, and the direction of the relationship. And that can be, I would imagine that could be quite dangerous if it's done without any thought or kind of sense of self from the therapist. Right. Now here, hitting on a really big point here, because I think when we talk about using the relationship in a co-created way, we need to have some clinical thinking. It's not just about past timing or self directing a relationship in a way, which may be a one up, one down position. This is about clinical thought in the relation. Another way of looking at this is that the clinician is reworking the transfers in the here and now in the service of the client. So they're reworking, they've been thoughtful of their own history of this. Their responses is purely based on the best outcome for the clients and doing the right thing for the clients. Right, in the service of the clients. Correct. And you know, it takes quite a lot of skill to work in this relational co-creative process. It takes a lot of, you know, higher sophistication. And most important, it takes the therapist knowing themselves well. Yes. Yes. So this is about self-awareness, isn't it? Yeah, because if you don't know yourself well in this particular model, you won't know where you begin and where the client ends or where the client ends and you begin. And you could end up in a symbiosis emerging and actually a counterproductive process. Yes, you get into a symbiotic relationship, couldn't you? Where there could be a co-dependency either way, I would imagine. Yeah, yeah. So it takes, you know, it takes a real lot of therapy, knowing yourself for you to work well in this process, I think. It's a wonderful book, by the way, because it goes through the origins of Eric Byrne, goes through the concepts that Eric Byrne brings forward and brings to you right up to date, you know, in terms of relational thinking, relational theory therapy in the 21st century. Yes. So, I mean, the very data of the book 2014, it's maybe two, three years old. It's got two quite big voices in the world of counselling psychotherapy. So it sounds to me, I've not read the book myself, but from what you've said and the chats we've had about it in the past, it seems to me that this is bringing the thinking up to date, maybe adding on to the work of Byrne who was a technician. Yeah, definitely. And it would really appeal, I think, to client-centered therapists. Oh, that's interesting. What brings you to that place, Bob? Because it's actually, it's about following the client in a congruent way. It's about being attuned. It's not about going back into someone's history in a regressive way. It's going with the client in here and now. It's not about using techniques, not using about analysis. It's about bringing the work into a phenomenological place in the actual clinical office, which is where I think client-centered work has its origins, really. Yeah, so I think that's where it has its efficacy as well. That's where the model would say the work's done. But in TA, of course, it relies on the technique, on the model of the mechanics of it. So yeah, hey, what you're saying, Bob, a useful book for maybe person-centered therapists who want to read about it from maybe a slightly different handle than the traditional person-centered books. That last sentence is really interesting because what you just said then about TA, the mechanics, models, etc. If you go back to Eric Byrne's day in Classical Transaction Analysis, 1961 to 1971, that is certainly true, what you've said. However, this book is focusing very much on the relationship between therapists and clients. And reworking the transference in the service of the client, not necessarily bringing techniques in, like I said, to try to discounting matrix, the script theory, or those techniques you just talked about then. This is much more about the co-creative relationship between the therapist and the client being the way to healing, not the techniques. Right. So the emphasis really is on the relationship. Yes, not the analysis of the relationship, not the analysis of the relationship, but the co-creative relationship that occurs in the client's room. Sorry, the therapist's room. And that's a really important point. This is solely to do with the relationship and the co-creation between the two people, the therapist and the client, being the road to healing, not techniques, not theory, what happens in the room. So it sounds to me this book is a book for clinicians, for students. It sounds to me like to some extent it's modality free because it focuses on the relationship and how to build a relationship. That's really right, Roy. And I just want to take that step further, which is it isn't theory free in the terms of the co-creative transaction analyst will have that whole parent-adult child model, those theories of Eric Byrne, the evolution of transaction analysis through redecision therapy, through shift approach, integrative approaches. They're there. They're not saying that heritage isn't there. But what I am saying is that the primary focus is in the co-created relationship, not the theory. Yes. Yes, it's building the relational depth, isn't it? And building that trusting connection. Wonderful work. Wonderful world. And who wrote that book, Relational Death in the client-centred world? Well, you're putting me on the spot now. Yes. That would be Mick Cooper, wouldn't it? And Dave Moons. Yes. Yes. I love the term relational death. But this book is concentrating on the relationship, not the theory. It doesn't mean that the therapist hasn't got the theoretical heritage. But what is important is the co-created relationship above the theory. Yes. Yes. I think that's a really important point. Well, I think that's a great point. I really like it. Yeah. I think that's a good point. My passion. Yes. It is your passion, Bob. And anybody who's seen you teach would know that. So to end this review, if anyone's interested, the book is called Co-Creational TA, 2014, Keith Tudor and Graham Summers. And it's a book that, as Bob Cook said, would suit students of transactional analysis but students of counselling in general may be worth taking a peek at it from a different perspective and just seeing what relational psychotherapy means and relational depth means in another modality. So Bob Cook, as always, a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Roy.