 Hello, and welcome to TA Made Simple, a series of videos where myself and Bob Cook, a transactional analysis therapist, I always get that wrong, analysis therapist, a man trained in TA, talks about the aspects of transactional analysis. If you've stumbled on this video as a single video, find it in the playlist because this is one of a whole section explaining TA theory. And I think this is a particularly interesting topic we're going to look at today. It's about developing your identity as a TA therapist. Correct. As opposed to a client-centered therapist, or a gestalt psychotherapist, an existential psychotherapist, or any of these different brands of therapy. But what makes transactional analysis psychotherapist or psychotherapist stand out in terms of theoretical understanding, identity formination. And that's so about what makes us up as TA therapist, which is different. What are the philosophical assumptions that we follow besides the practical models? Yes, I think that's the interesting one. I'm going to start off, I'm going to make a guess here, Bob. I'm going to make a bit of a guess here. I think the first position is the TA has a tripartite view of personality, maybe? That's right. We'll start there anyway. The idea that the personality is split into three, tripartite, parent, adult, child. And as we've shown earlier in these videos, the person is divided into three, the parent, eager state, the adult eager state, and the child eager state. And all TA practitioners will have that model in their head. You're absolutely correct. And that's very different from, say, the client-centered position, which I've got this right, is a unitary model of personality. It is. It is in classic person-centered therapy. Configurations of self by Dave Mims would see us as having sub-personalities crucially surrounded by a circle. So we would have lots of different personalities, but you're right. We would be a unitary whole. Yeah, so it's very different. So all TA therapists, if they've been trained with this tripartite model, will look for what part of the self or what eager state the client's coming from when they walk in the room in terms of energy. And if you're classically trained, the idea is that the person needs to have more energy in the here and now, which is the adult eager state. And if you've not got much energy or has a fragile sense of self, then the treatment is going to be, first of all, helping the person be more in the here now and building up their adult eager state. Yes. And in a classic sense, that's what TA was all about, isn't it? Reinforcing or strengthening, you mentioned this before, strengthening the adult eager state, not getting lost in the past. Are the confusing and overwhelming emotions of the child? Yeah, the psychoanalytical study of the first three years of the infant, which of course, interestingly enough, Byrne had spent the last 16 years of his own self analysis. He wanted something quicker. So his idea was this tripartite model and strengthen the adult eager state. So it was, as I've said many times, almost like an early CBT therapist, highly educative, really, Eric Byrne was. And now, of course, it's changed and evolved in 50 years. But you're right, the tripart model is the first step, if you like. But if we look at some philosophical assumptions underneath this, I think the first one is that it's a humanistic model. So I went to the TA community website, and I put in philosophical, I was interested in the first philosophical assumption. So I'm just going to read out the first one. And it says, TA is a humanistic philosophy. Right. This means we focus on each individual's potential and stress the importance of growth and personal development. So they are, so TAs bang in the middle of the humanistic revolution of Carl Rogers in the early 1950s. Yeah. I mean, I guess the main difference would be about how humanism would be viewed in a person-centered way. This always confuses students, how come one's called humanism, one's called psychoanalytical. And I guess the difference there is that both the therapist view people as humans, they're not analogous as Freud would say, someone to be interpreted and studied like an animal in a cage. Yeah, that's how I, that's exactly how I see it, which takes us up to another philosophical assumption of a TA practitioner, which is the second one. Not that it wasn't on the website, but I'm going to give you my view of philosophical assumptions of transaction analysis. And that's open communication. Very different principle of open communication is very difficult from the difference from the psychoanalytical position of one-up, one-down and interpretation. So Bern really very much believed in open communication, adult-to-adult communication, and contracts and everything needed to be transparent. It wasn't about a one-up, one-down state of psychoanalysis. No, and I guess if we were to draw a stereotypical picture of this, this would be someone on a couch with someone with a bow tie, maybe a bid, talking in a full German accent, saying things like, I'm not going to do a German accent, I won't be pasteurising, tell me about your mother or that type of thing, writing notes, hiding behind a pad. TA is very much about a person-to-person interaction, isn't it? Yeah, and also contracts are very important in the sense of open communication. So both parties, client and therapist, are sharing their form of treatment, if you like, instead of this analytical sense again. Yes, it was a big departure, wasn't it, from what would have been Classical Freudian ideas. What else kind of formulates or helps the professional formation of a TA therapist, Bob? And this is a very big one. This is probably what most people, if they think of TA therapists, think about in the public eye, perhaps with social workers or teachers, and that's the principle of I'm okay, you're okay. You know, the principle of that people's behaviours might not be okay, but in its essence, people are born okay, and it is the environment around them, which may turn them into frogs, but as they work in the TA therapy, they can start becoming princes, but the actualisation for change is in all of us. And so people are born okay, and other people are okay, that humanistic principle, and I think that's a really important one. Yes, it comes from a position, doesn't it, that its behaviours that cause people difficulties, not the entirety of who they are. Separating the sin from the sinner is what I used to say to my therapist, because if you hold that philosophical assumption, I think you really can then open your mind to curiosity. You know, that's so important that we can, I spent most of my life moving away from assumptions or attempting to not, you know, to do that, and that's very, very hard. And if I can hold that, I'm okay, you're okay position takes a lot of doing, by the way, many of the clients I can see, my heart is much more open to the heart of the person sitting in front of me. You know, I think it's a really good position to come from. And I guess if you're coming from that position, they're more likely to open their heart to you. Yeah, correct, absolutely. Another philosophical assumption is that all humans have the capacity to think. You know, they all have the capacity to think and make their own decisions, if you like, and that's a really interesting one. We are brain dead, so we all can think, and it's about the promotion of helping the person to think again, and to be in the here and now, and reinforcing their adult, if you like. Yes, yes, this the idea that we're not fixed. There's a potential for change if people want to engage in it. And another philosophical assumption is around autonomy, spontaneity. You know, Bern talked about a lot about his transaction analysis, his early transaction analysis. Part of the treatment plan would be about that we can, discovering, evolving, enhancing the human's capacity for autonomy, freedom and change. Yes. Yeah, well, that's the whole, that's quite a West Coast America philosophy. Well, that's where it comes from, yeah. That's where it comes from, this idea that, you know, we're all different, we're all okay, we're a big tribe, but we are different people. It's quite a kind of social construct in there, isn't that? And of course, Bern lived on the West Coast, didn't he? He lived in California. Yeah, yeah. And he was part of that radical movement, if you like, that we talked about earlier. But those philosophies, those assumptions, which come from what you've just said there, are a great bedrock, if you think of relational psychotherapy today. Yeah, yeah. Well, they formulate what we call the Aizow relationship, don't they? You know, Martin Buber, who famously said Aizow, he used the term thou, because he didn't want to say I and you, because you see someone more than just another person. He wanted to use a biblical term to signify he saw them as a spiritual being more than just another person. Interesting. That's right. So if you've got those philosophical assumptions, when you sit down with the client in front of you, yeah, I think relational psychotherapy of today, if you want to look at it that way, it's far more likely to happen, because you've got a non-judgmental position. You've got a position of growth. You've got a position of seeing the person's actualization rather than their restriction. You've got a position of really working with the person towards transparent growth from an open communication, egalitarian position. Yes. Yes. And not to me, egalitarian is an interesting one, isn't it? Because, because, you know, it does, there's still, I think, some expertise in TA, more than that, perhaps the humanistic world, because ultimately it still is, to some extent, a thought model, isn't it? You'd be talking about parent, adult and child. We're in the humanistic world. We tend not to talk about the theory too much. It's all based in the relationship. Well, it's certainly more egalitarian than, as I say, Freudian psychoanalysis. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely it is. And it's an important change from those, if you think TA came out of the middle 1950s, but psychoanalysis was still very much, you know, popular. I know we've got the rise of humanism, Carl Rogers coming along and Fritz Perls. And we've got that, as you said, that sort of whole revolution. And TA does fit into that revolution. It's an important psychotherapy. And I know TA as perhaps split into different ways of thinking about change. But those assumptions that I've just talked about, you know, you're okay, I'm okay, everybody's got the capacity to change, to make decisions, to change are really important ways of fundamentally looking at the human being when they come in front of you. Yes. And I'm wondering, I'm going to be a bit controversial here, Bob. No, are you? Yeah, who are you, Bob? You can say that is fun. But anyway, I love you. Okay. I think that actually a lot of humanistic therapies, whether they're person-centered, Auguste Del, therapists, would embrace those ideas, I'm okay, and you're okay, they might not use that terminology. People have got the ability to change the non-judgmental approach. I guess the only difference would be the tripartite view of personality, which of course is unique to TA. And to some extent psychoanalysis, it's a slightly different tripartite view of personality. But I think it's pretty universal, to be honest, Bob, if I could be that controversial. I agree with it. Because once we go on to the theoretical model, that's different. The methods to do with inquire, achievement, involvement, onto some of the sort of, some people call gimmicks, but I think they're very powerful techniques like egograms, like understanding the drama, triangle, various things that are peculiar to TA, and then treatment planning with deconfusion, decontamination, etc, etc, then that, that, they're different. Gestalt has interruptions to contact and has its own methodology. So once we get into theoretical models and methods, they may slightly, well, importantly differ. But in terms of the philosophical or philosophical assumptions from the 1950s and that humanistic revolution, I hope they are very similar. They are. I mean, I guess one thing that separates the person-centered humanistic world from the TA humanistic world is where we work, you know, person-centered therapists work in, on the edge of awareness. In other words, we don't go into the subconscious process. So we work on the edge of awareness. Whereas it's my kind of understanding that in TA, there's, there's a kind of exploration of subconscious process, bringing the subconscious to conscious. Now you're in a really interesting divide, because Eric Byrne, classical TA there, he'd be 1961, talks about strengthening the adult. He talks about the paradigm state. He talks about the childhood case and educative processes. What are you talking about going into the unknown that you just talked about or the unconscious? He would send people off to Gestalt psychotherapists or send them off to psychoanalysts. So he, he actually, when he talked about his new TA, it was all about strengthening the adult ego status. Right. But how is that now in, in, in contemporary TA? Oh, now we've changed a lot. Yes. TA is simple. The last, you know, the last 14 videos, I've talked about all the different approach ending up with relational TA, which is really in some ways very psychodynamically based, though some people might argue against that. But we've checked many of these different splits, these changes, though you have a completely different field of transactional analysis today than of course in 1961, where the emphasis was very different. Absolutely. And I think one of the things I've come to appreciate over the years is that with psychotherapy, it really, it really is about looking at your whole life, whereas with counselling, it might be looking at aspects or difficulties of your life. And how to manage them in the present. And how to manage them in the present. And I think, I think that's a big dividing line, although I'd acknowledge that some person centered therapists may work with whole life development. But I think generally speaking, it was person centered therapy was developed as a more kind of growth model, working on what people could alter. Definitely. And so was transaction analysis. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I think you're right about these philosophical assumptions that come out of the humanistic revolution. Yes. It's interesting that, you know, we talked a little bit about existentialism in the last video. We talked a little bit about, you know, lots of different philosophers. And it's interesting that a lot of therapy is grounded in philosophy, as opposed to science. Yeah. The art is, that's where the, psychotherapy is where the arts and science come together. Yes. And I really, really think that's true. Yes. So if you're watching this and you're thinking, oh, well, you know, now I know what the philosophical differences are between person, as person-sensitive practitioner and a TA practitioner, well, that's our views. Yeah. That's our views. That's our views. But I think that they're pretty universal and they've been pretty grounded in literature as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm okay. You're okay. Look at unconditional positive regard. We could go on, couldn't we? We could go on forever. If you're wanting more of this type of video, and this is only one of a number, then go into the bar below and I'll put a link into the playlist. And you can see the entire playlist where we start, really, with just the TA structural model. And we've worked our way through in these videos right up to this here. Yeah. And the next one is, I just want to tell you ahead of time, TA treatment planning and diagnosis. There we go. Not to be missed. That is definitely a not-to-be-miss one, isn't it? So thank you for watching and we'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.