 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show, behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to the next episode, episode 93 of The Therapy Show behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones and the wonderful Mr. Bob Cook. This is our episode, Bob. This is all about transactional analysis, how to use TA in the therapy process. Yeah, I thought it was important we did one because even though we allude to what we were both trained in, which was TA, to have a podcast, I think, exclusively even if it's only half an hour on TA is important because we're both transactional analysts. You know, we're both psychotherapists and the model that we're trained in is transactional analysis. So we're often called transactional analysts. And often I keep away from saying this on holiday when somebody says, what do you do? And I say, I'm a transactional analyst. They have no idea what I'm talking about. They usually say something that doesn't even come from a typing pool or something. So most people don't know what it means, but it is basically psychotherapy. It's basically around how the past effects are present, but it does have its own personality model. And I trained in, I trained for 16 or 17 years in TA. And I then went on to train in integrated psychotherapy, which has TA at its base as well. So TA is very much a model of choice for me. And there's many, many things I like about it. And of course, you've, you trained as a transactional analyst and I know it's a model you like a lot. It's my grounding for everything. I know in the last episode of the podcast, we were talking about curiosity and, you know, I'm open to all different types of psychotherapy and therapy and counselling and CBT and hypnotherapy and everything. But I always come back to TA. It's my foundation. So we both think TA and I thought, well, how should I start to talk about this podcast? And one way to look at this is you can call yourself a transactional analyst. Yeah, you've trained in the major theory of personality, which in TA is ego states. And we know about paradox child. So that's a fundamental block block that we're going to talk about. If you know about what we'll talk about later, transaction analysis, if you know about games, that's repetitive patterns. And if you know about script, you can call yourself a transactional analyst. And if you go on any TA, you know, two day course, for example, perhaps a one-on-one, it's called first prerequisites of TA, where you'll learn some of the major concepts, you'll learn those four concepts first, probably. And if you did a whole four for your training the first year would be very much about learning. Parent, adult, child, and how to use it, how to use that theory of personality, how to explain that to clients, and then games and scripts that follow from that. So it has its own theory and in many ways has its own language as well. Yeah. And it makes sense, Bob. That's the thing with me. I know I've spoke about it a lot. I'm a very logical person, but it just makes sense to me. So if you have to explain what TA then was, and I'm quite happy afterwards in two or three minutes for the people listening, how would you explain it? So if somebody said to you, well, what is transaction analysis, Jackie, you know, on holiday, and if you have to find it. People ask me that a lot. First off, I say I'm qualified in transactional analysis. I'll say I'm a transactional analysis psychotherapist. And it's a lot harder to say than what it is to do. The first thing that I always say. And then I know when they say, well, what's that? I say it's analyzing transactions. Because to me, that's the basic of it, you know, how we interact with each other and those sorts of things. And the parent, adult, and child just makes sense to me. I know I change dependent on the situation and the people that I'm with. You know, when I was doing my training, I was in child a lot of the time because the people that were training me in my eyes were very parental. You know, they were of a higher status symbol than what I was. I didn't know anything and they knew everything. So that transaction was completely different to the peers in the room that I was with where we would probably, well, I would be more adult to adult. So it's exploring that connection and communication with other people. Yes, it is. I think that's analyzing transactions is probably a good way to start when people ask you what is, you know, what's the, what is transaction? Now, as you can say, well, basically, you know, trained is a psychotherapist and it's looking at analyzing transactions to aid more effective communication. Yes, yes, that's the key for what end it is. Yeah. And I think that's a lovely way to start. And, you know, I always, often, if I start that way, would also help people understand there's internal and external transactions. In other words, yes, you're correct. Analyzing transactions so we can have more effective communication. Yeah. And particularly analyzing external transactions. So I say, how are you and you say, I'm very well and I'll say back to you. Well, you haven't found me for a week, have you? You know, what, where have you been or whatever it is and you say X and I say B and then we have a hopefully effective communication. So it's when that goes wrong, though, and where communication, you know, gets blocked or communication breaks down that people come to therapy. Yeah. First of all, they try to solve it themselves. Of course, you know, for many reasons, they might not come to therapy, but they might get to a place where they get exhausted trying to resolve the communication problems or they've got to a place where they just have given up or they've got to a place where they don't know where to look next to and or they get to a place that in, you know, in relationship, these repetitive processes keep happening and communication ends up breaking down in many different forms. So a transaction analyst will, you know, analyze those external transactions just as you've said, but that, you see, I think there's another step and that is that the internal transactions, in other words, what I mean is the transactions that you speak to yourself, the narrative that you say to yourself every moment of the day from the time that you get up for the time you go to sleep, you talk to yourself. Absolutely. And those internal narratives and those internal transactions inform our external transactions. Yeah. So as well as analyzing the external transactions, we need to analyze the internal transactions which inform the external transactions to look at how communication is broken down, not only with other people, but with ourselves. Yeah. And for me, one of the things, you know, that transactional analysis has helped me is I was completely oblivious to those internal transactions and dialogues that I was having that weren't in my consciousness a lot of the time. That's right. And I think for most people, it might be the same. You know, I might see four or five assessments a day. So let's go through a few. Somebody comes in and said, I say, why have you come in? I said because I'm depressed and I can't move away from depression and I get incapacitated, I can't function very well. And therefore I can't go to work and also in relationships, you know, they're not healthy. So I need to solve my depression. Besides other things, the first thing I need to find out is what is what are the transactions or what do they say to themselves that keeps that depression going? And how come they don't say other things that will help the depression go? Usually the narrative that they are saying to themselves which causes depressions is attacking narratives. Things like I hate you. You're useless. You never get things right. You're a waste of time. Here we are again. That's what I mean by that. They usually have, they usually very hard on themselves and they have that type of narrative in some way which keeps the person depressed. That's what I mean by looking at how the internal communication keeps the external process going. Yeah. Okay. Next person comes in. So you've talked about that. Next person comes in and says, you know, I've come here because I'm so anxious. Yeah, I'm so anxious. I spend my day worrying and excessively worrying and I want to be perfect but I can never actually get there and I worry all day and I find the anxiety creates a knitted knot in my stomach and I just have to, I have to resolve this and, you know, I'm so anxious it leaves me exhausted and I have no time for relationships. And whenever I'm in relationships I'm always worrying if I'm getting it right for the other person and therefore that leaves me in a really exhausted position and the relationship breaks down. And I must resolve this. Yeah, that's all external picture on painting. First question. And when you feel anxious, what do you say to yourself? What's the internal transactions that are going on? Usually, either way hard on themselves, they usually get into a process of overthinking. Yeah. And what I mean by overthinking is that they continually try and gain control of the situation by overthinking, over-detailing and catastrophisation, which they get caught up in, catastrophising. They're all attempts to control the relationship. At the same time, they are usually have a negative set of transactions. So a transaction analyst will be looking at how the, not only the external transactions or the bigger picture, but how the internal transactions keep this negative position going. And what they need to do not only looking at the trauma and usually the stuff underneath it, but find a way to be kind on themselves and find a way to talk differently. Yeah. So that's what I mean when I'm saying, you know, we talk about analysing transactions as a TA therapist, analysing the external and the internal. And probably, you know, Jackie, that is one of the most important things I like about TA because if we can help people have a more healthy internal transactions with themselves, rather than stuck with the negative transactions, then not only will people change, but their communication will be far more healthy. Yeah. Yeah. And it's an exploration. You know, a lot of the time new clients come to me and they kind of want answers. They want to be told what they need to do as opposed to, I don't want to say working it out themselves, but just that's not what it's about. No, it isn't. And because we got trained in TA, we're trained in a specific theory of personality, which is the idea that people are from different parts of themselves, according to different situations. And for colloquial easy language, Eric Burn who, you know, was the event of TA, talked about these three parts. One is the parental part, which we carry around. Yeah. And it's a younger self, which is our child. And one of it is adult, which is in the here and now. And it's a good model, I think, an accessible language to explain very complex phenomena in quite an easy way. And simply because everybody can identify with having parental processes, being parent, being a nurturing parent, being a judging parent, carrying internal messages in our heads, which are very similar to perhaps parents, everybody can identify with a younger part of themselves, which we can call child in this model. And everybody can understand building up a resilient adult in the here and now. So you've got an accessible way to be able to, you know, think about what's happening with the person. And usually when they get stuck in one part of themselves and aren't able to get access to the other parts. Yeah. And often I teach clients, by the way, what I've just said to you in two minutes, I teach in a couple of sessions or even a session. And I don't know many, if ever, clients don't identify and understand that. Yeah. And they find it very useful in a way of thinking about why they get stuck in a certain place and are very judgmental to themselves, or they still get stuck in their younger traumatic self, and they're not able then to access an adult part of themselves because they're still stuck in four or five years ago or something. People understand that. Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is very clear. And it was a big revelation to me, you know, yes, I can kind of get the parent, adult and child and how it all works and everything. But then the add on to that is that you've got your parent, adult and child as well and how they communicate with each other and, you know, the internal dialogue that you've got and I've got a completely different as far as my parents and your parents. And it's just how we all interconnects. Fascinates me. Yeah. And I think if we can think about parental messages and think about the younger self and thinking about how that might sabotage a person being in here and now and unable to perhaps get resources to access resources to be more healthy. Yeah. It's a useful way of thinking. It's a useful way to think about that the past affects the present. Yeah. The decisions we made in our younger self in response to our internal or external parents. We often carry out today, even if those decisions are still outdated. Yeah. I'm not working for us. Yeah. So analyzing external internal communications, thinking of the past affects the present, thinking of what I said, a tripartile, tripartile model or a three part model of the personality. It's a useful model, I think, the psychopath is, you know, in a, in a, in an aiding how people communicating better and understanding themselves better. Yeah. And, you know, I know you mentioned it at the beginning, but replaying patterns of behavior and habits and that sense that oh, here we go again. Do you know what I mean? In relationships, I'm never going to be in a relationship like this again. And then, you know, not that far in the distant future, we end up backing a similar relationship or in a job that we feel unfulfilled in or a hundred and one other things we replay patterns of behavior. Yeah. And probably that's one of the most important things to, you know, people to understand that unless the third is called script and TA and we develop a plan or a way of getting by in our younger self or earlier days, based on our relationship between our significant other people or lack of significant other people, family or not. Then we make decisions about ourselves and the people in the world. And that's the way that becomes a plan, the way that we see the world. And then we pick people who fit into that plan to get on by. And it's a way of surviving in the world and coping. And that's okay if nothing goes wrong, you know, if that's a good plan, not bad way to get the world. The problem comes when we move away from our parents or we grow up and we move into other relationships or other positions or, or whatever. Often the decisions we made way back in our original childhood or younger self is outdated and it needs to be updated. And so the idea of script, which is a TA policy, so a TA way of thinking of things, the idea that the script is formed earlier in childhood and we need it can often be, he's aware of coping then, but become, but may become unhealthy if we just carry that out. Then we need to help the person look at those scripts and how they may or may not be healthy now and how they can actually put a new show on the road. So I like the idea of script, I like the idea of parent-adult child and I like the way the idea of analyzing internal and external transactions. Yeah. Like the idea of what you also talked about, which is sometimes called in TA games of repetitive cycles that people get caught up with, which is part of our life plan. Yeah. Which were coping mechanisms, but don't work so well now. Yeah, the thing that fascinates me is that often with the script and the game playing, well all the time basically, is we manipulate things to get the outcome that we think we want when that outcome actually isn't any good for us and we try to avoid that outcome, but yet somehow we've initiated it and made it happen anyway. That's the bit that blows my mind with transactional analysis. Well, if it was the way that we survived and it worked in that earlier template or that earlier younger self to get by in the family of origin, we had to be that way and it worked to sort of extend that we got by or we defended against trauma or whatever it is, then why wouldn't we keep to it? Yeah. But that I can remember feeling so frustrated and oh my god, I can't believe that I'm actually perpetuating this. It's me that's doing this. It's not an outside event. It's not other people doing it to me. I'm creating this myself and then I get excuse my friends pissed off when I've created it. What's that about? We do it to keep that plan going. Yes. Yes. I would make this a good one. We do it for a sense of predictability so we know where we are and where the people are in this plan. Yeah. We do it because it gives us a sense of identity of who we are. Yeah. I understand it all now, but I can just remember when the penny dropped in my training that this is what we all do and it's like why would we do that? It's a protection mechanism. We survived and it worked 100%. Yeah. People come to you when it doesn't work so well anymore. Yeah. And they want a different outcome. Yeah. And the other thing I think with transactional analysis that I love having been a foster carer is that we can update our script. We can put another show on the road and that for me fills me with hope for people that haven't had the best start in life. Oh, yes. Absolutely. And going back to the beginning of this podcast and I really like the way you started it was analysing communications and that led me to say analysing internal transactions. Just the idea that when we get out of bed and we can feel pretty pissed off when we might even feel depressed or we can get out of bed and we're feeling anxious. We can get out of bed and feeling the world's against us. Then just the idea that we can change to another part of ourselves and talk to ourselves in a different way which has been positive means that we can change our state of being. Yeah. Do something about it so that the rest of the day is better. Yeah. And that we have a choice in that. It doesn't just happen to us. Yeah. It doesn't just happen. Yes. It has made it happen. Yeah. That's why this is why we can't resolve things in successions. We need to really understand that part in the whole place and the script that took on board which was necessary to cope XXX and we can actually do something about this and put you on the road but we need some help with it. We need somebody who will witness the journey we're going to go on to be with us and to help us in the change in a way. I don't mean in that sense of infantilising people or doing the thinking for them and all those sort of things. I mean being there in terms of support and protection and trust and authenticity and help them witness that change in the transformational journey they're going to go on. That is really, that was the word that was on the tip of my tongue is to have a witness on the truth, whatever the truth is. I think that's really, that makes me quite emotional when I think about that. Yeah. And to, I like the bit you just said there, their own truth to allow them to get to the opportunity to get to their own truth and be a witness in that whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. And that's powerful. It's extraordinarily powerful. So I've learned many things in TA but you know, another thing I want to send is podcast. You can meet many TA therapists and they may know lots of the things we're talking about here. But, you know, you might then want to ask, well, what type of TA therapist are you? And people train in different styles and different interpretations and have different beliefs in TA, even though what I've just said, if they believe in script egos, dates, transaction analysis and games, you can call them selves a transaction analyst. But I think the style that a TA therapist comes from, hopefully, I hope that being a relational TA therapist, where you put the relationship at the heart and you put curiosity, authenticity, genuineness, being a witness, accompanying somebody on their journey, letting them have the opportunity to get their own truth, that style of relational transaction analysis is really an important one. No, I mean, you get TA therapists who may believe change happens in successions. You might get TA therapists who believe in many different types of styles of TA therapy. But I think I'd like to put relationship at the heart of TA. Yeah. In other words, relational TA or TA where relationship is an important figure. Yeah. You said the centre of it. It has to be really. Well, no, I don't suppose it does have to be, but it feels comfy that it is somehow. Yeah. As well as understanding, you know, parent adult child personality model, scripts, games. So as understanding that theory, which makes it easier as a hallmark with contracts, which I haven't talked about contractual theory. That means that you have a way of thinking. But unless you also have a way of relating, which has a sense of humanity and heart in it, then things can go very differently. Yeah. And again, you know, talking about the different styles that there are, you know, and different schools in transactional analysis and, you know, it's quite broad. We all bring our own uniqueness into it. So we've got our own personal style of being a transactional analysis as well. Yeah. We have our own style of being a transactional analyst. That's true. And that's something that's unique to each of us. And we make a different connection with the client. A client could see five or 10 different transactional analysis psychotherapists. And I would imagine they will each practice in a completely different way. In terms of style. Yes. Yes. The basic fundamentals are the same. Yes. Yeah. And I think that it's a good model. Yeah. It's a useful model. I mean, I do, what you used to do, I don't work clinically that much anymore. I would always teach people, I'd call it educative therapy, if you like, within the sessions. I would teach them the sort of, you know, personality model, talk about repetitive games and scripts. So we had a common language to go on this journey with. I think that's one of the things that I love about it. And to me, that is transactional analysis. But I'm not sure whether that's just because I was trained by you and you use that or whether that's standard in transactional analysis. But I love the fact that, you know, we're at the same level in the room. The clients and me, they have that information, the same as I have that information. And hopefully it makes sense to them like it makes sense to me. It's not like I've got a secret book that nobody can see inside. Yeah. I mean, if you go back to, like, if we go back to the beginning of TA and its originator, Eric Burn, he, he, he, it was very, very important to him when he created transactional analysis and all the principles we're talking about, that people came from the therapist and the client were on the same page. Because he came from a world of psychoanalysis in the, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, where the analyst was the expert, expert interpreting, you know, what the client bought. And Eric Burn wanted a completely different picture for that. The picture you've just painted, where the clients and the therapist are on the same page, and both come from an okay position, not a one down position, one up down position. So that philosophical process of transaction analysis, I hope lies in the heart of all transactionalists. Yeah. Yeah, I hope so too. But we're not experts, we're actually with somebody to witness and how, witness their journey. Yeah. It may help them on the way and help them look at their scripts and understand themselves more and give them the tools to be different in life. And at the same time, we're both on the road of humanity. Yeah. Yeah, that's something that I say to clients in the early days, you know, is that we kind of just throw everything in the middle of the room and then we pick it up and we just get curious about it. And we explore it together. And if it's working, that's brilliant. And if it's not, then we can choose to do something different with it. And that's kind of how I see it. It's just unearthing and exploring. Yeah. And we have the concepts we talked about, you know, personality models and things we've just talked about, that's to aid us. And hopefully a common language which we can both share to help understand where we're going really, if you like, in this whole process of change together. Yeah. And I love change now. I didn't used to like change. I like things to stay the same, but now I think change is empowering. And it's unfortunately, unfortunately, we change anyway, we're constantly changing and evolving, we can't stay the same. But there was a part of me that liked to keep everything the same because then it was safe. But yeah, embrace it. Change is good. Yeah. And there's some great books around. There's many, many, many, many books written on transaction analysis. So I hope perhaps the podcast listeners might hopefully through this podcast might, you know, might be sort of like, oh, well, interested in some of the things we're talking about. Yeah. Because some of them are, you know, like the ego states and the pack system, to me, that's, that's quite, it's out there. A lot of people know about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there are some of it that, you know, we know about anyway. But the other, I, yeah, I'm biased, but I do, I do like it. It's my foundation for everything. Yeah. Well, good. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my craft and my first love on this podcast. And I hope some of the listeners might get enthused to think about some of the things we talked about. Yes. And feel free to ask us questions or comments or anything you can get in touch with us. Yeah, definitely. So what we're going to be looking at in the next one is the cultivation of empathy for effective therapy. Again, I think we've touched on this in the past. But it is one of the key things that we need as a psychotherapist, I think. Well, without it would be a bit lost, I think. Yeah. Because we wouldn't, we wouldn't be able to reach our clients. Yeah. So it deserves a podcast on its own. It does. It does. Okie dokie. So until next time, Bob. Look forward to speaking to you. Have a good week. And you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.