Transactional analysis

[lingua_franca]

Can anyone recommend any useful reading or share experiences with Transactional Analysis (TA)? I'm considering doing a CPD course in counselling skills and it involves an introduction to TA, which I hadn't even heard of until quite recently. What I've read so far has made me sceptical, and a quick hunt on Google Scholar doesn't turn up any research on efficacy, but I may be being overcautious. Most of the course looks very good, and relevant to my current role, but as I will have to cover part of the cost myself I want to be sure I will be investing in something 100% solid.

[alexh]

It's niche but legitimate. I think the fact it's niche means there's not a huge amount of research. Games people play is a classic. Our Dclinpsy, Oxford, has a couple of days teaching on TA during first year.

[nicolaannolive]

Hi, I have recently started looking at this also! Here is a link to some of the basic concepts of TA http://www.carolsolomonphd.com/web_pdfs/Transact.pdf. I have also found a book called counselling for toads: a psychological adventure which I have found quite helpful and enjoyable to read (especially if you like wind in the willows). If you are familiar with schema therapy and schema modes you will notice there are lots of similarities (as schema is an integrative therapy and uses many principles of TA). I hope this helps

[reefflex]

The other classic is "Im okay, Youre okay" by Thomas Harris.

There are a lot of parallels with aspects of Schema Focused Therapy as well.

[lingua_franca]

Thanks, everyone. I've decided to pass on this opportunity as I don't think it will add much to my skills that I can't get in other ways, and even though my place would be subsidised it's still pretty expensive.

Reefflex, the title of 'I'm OK, You're OK' is partly what made me ask if this was legitimate - it just sounds so cheesy and Oprah-esque, like the sort of poor-quality populist stuff you might get in the self-help section of Waterstone's. I need to try and stop making snap judgments over things like that.

[alexh]

Nevertheless, read "games people play"

[CurlyHair]

Games People Play is a great book, my dad (who was a Clinical Psychologist before he retired) always spoke about how useful he found TA clinically as it gives people a good narrative for understanding their difficulties - but I think the problem is that it has fallen out of fashion. Doesn't mean it isn't still interesting though!

[ola]

I would recommend book by Mark Widdowson Transactional Analysis, 100 Key Points and Techniques. All the above books are classical TA. In modern TA classical work will only account for a small percentage of knowledge and practice. Regarding research, there are some! Mark Widdowson is one of the people I know who researches effectiveness of TA, he is a psychotherapist based in Glasgow.