 Hello and welcome to MIP TV and with me as always is Bob Cook who is doing the regular book review that people have taken to their heart so thank you for that. Today we kind of haven't looked quite a pivotal book it's by Eric Byrne, Founder of the CIA, Principles of Group Treatment first published in 1967 so after his seminal book The Games People Play. And you were telling me just off camera there's something in chapter 11 which is the first thing that Byrne has actually did. Well yeah, let me say, when he created TA really which is 59 and then in 1961 his seminal book which is first book which is transaction analysis, the psychotherapy transaction analysis and he put all his major four cornerstones in script analysis, games analysis, TA proper and there you go States, that was his first book. Then you got Games People Play, then you got another book about organisations and then in this book is Principles of Group Treatment. In chapter 11 he really talks for the first time about how you do TA, how you actually do it, not all the theories which he spent most of the other books talking about but actually how you do transaction analysis and as important how you do TA in groups. How interesting because you were saying earlier that TA really found its life in groups, it starts as a group process as opposed to an individual process. He was a psychiatrist and he worked at Carmel Hospital in San Francisco and very much so he started the first TA group ever of course and the purpose of that early TA in groups was to help the clients if you like, we're going to use that language, help them function better in adult by tracing and following transactions. In other words, how people communicate with each other. Yeah basically, how to stay an adult and not to go into the unconscious or to the parent he gets there. Yes. Yeah, fascinating. As you say in chapter 11 he goes to explain the how as opposed to the why, the practice as opposed to the theory. Yeah, yeah. An interesting thing in chapter 11. I find very interesting because I've been a TA therapist and integrated purpose of 40 odd years or getting on that away. But in this book in the chapter 11 he talks, he says this, to be a real TA therapist you must go to the board, that's the white board and teach at least three or four times in an hour session. Right, so this is the client. Is the therapist say, I'll go, Eric Byrne said, to be a TA therapist you must visit the white board, I don't know if there were white boards then, I'm sure about that. You must visit the board and you must write and teach the client about parent, adult, child games and understanding of the self through that model at least three or four times. I mean, that's really important because there will be a lot of students watching this. I know we get a lot of students watch this, who may be doing comparative therapies. And it really, it really gives the idea, you've kind of made that come alive, you know, Byrne certainly did, that TA is a taught model to some extent. To taught model. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And, you know, in CBT they have individualised learning plans. Eric Byrne, I think, was the first CBT therapist and he would give all his clients homework and he would go to the board at least, as I said, three, four, five times in an hour session and provide an educative part to therapy. Yeah, yeah. We still, we still really exist to this day, doesn't it? It's still, it's still the legacy of that still lives on. The TA therapist explained the model and the process of personality and then allow the client to kind of find a way within what's taught. Yeah. Because Eric Byrne's major principle was that he wanted to help the clients strengthen their adult eager state and to understand their psychological internal process. And the best way he said to do that in chapter 11 particularly was to go to the board and teach three or four times eager states, games, rackets, script. So they have, from their adult, a knowledge of when they're in parent, adult and child. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's so useful, Bob, because, you know, I think a lot of, a lot of people who look, think of therapy, think of it as, I think it's a number of levels, some people think it's the couch. Other people think it's, as they see, maybe on the TV with, and he's one therapist working with the client's frame of reference. But it's so useful to hear you talk about TA being a taught model, that educative, giving the client the tools to be able to see how they are in the world. Yeah. And this particular book talks about how to do it as opposed to the theory. That's right. And it concentrates particularly on how you do TA in groups because TA came out of groups, like I said, aid in communication. But most of all, the therapist would help the person know when they're in parent, know when they're in child, know when they are actually transacting in an unhealthy way and teach that. And teach it. Yeah. Like what you've just said, teaching it. Well, I think it's really, really useful to hear. Who would benefit from reading this book? Students. Students would really benefit from reading this because they would understand fundamentally how TA was taught in a classical way, how it was taught in the 1960s, where Eric Byrne was coming from. This is way before the idea of relationship psychotherapy that we're so engrossed in today. Eric Byrne was actually was a CBT therapist. He did talk about how to do it. He never talked about the relationship. I think he just assumed that you would spend time building up a rapport anyway. He was much more interested in healing person in one session, two sessions, three sessions, four sessions. But teaching people an understanding of an easy accessible model where they know where they're coming from. Well, it sounds to me like a legacy book. It shows the legacy of TA, gives students a real good grounding in the fundamental principles of it. And also, with that, gives them an idea of the arc of change that's gone through TA through the years, the relationship model contracting. Big changes. The fan of education. I'm really glad you put it that way. Because if people watching this video go away, I want them to remember that he was an educator as well as a therapist. Yes, it's something that sometimes gets lost in the translation and the idea that the kind of formative part of the theory was the key part of it as opposed to the restrative is very interesting. So as usual, we'll put a link in the bar below so you can inspect this book. And also, at the end, we'll give you a picture of the book. As Bob said, well worth visiting just for historical context and to see how the arc of therapy, TA therapy, has changed through the years. As always, Bob isn't being paid for this. This is just Bob sharing his love of literature and his enormous knowledge of the world of therapy. So as always, Bob, it's always a pleasure and thank you very much.