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by Ian Stewart and Vann JoinesPreface
In this book, we introduce you to the current theory and practice of transactional analysis (TA).
We have presented the material in a way that will be useful to you whether you are learning about TA on your own or taking part in a taught course. If you are an independent reader meeting TA for the first time, we hope you will appreciate the book's informal and conversational style. We have used examples liberally to illustrate points of theory.
If you are reading the book as background to an 'Official TA 101' course in TA, you will find coverage of the full '101' syllabus.
TA today is international. We hope that the readership of this book will also be international. With this in mind, we have chosen language and examples that will be familiar to people all over the world.
The exercises
When we are teaching TA courses, we run frequent exercises along with the taught material. Each block of teaching is followed immediately by a relevant exercise. We find that this is the most effective way of letting students practice and reinforce the theoretical ideas.
In this book we follow the same pattern. Exercises are incorporated in the text. Each exercise comes immediately after the related theory. To get most benefit from the book, do each exercise as you come to it.
We signal exercises by a printers' 'blob' and a change to a different typeface.
We suggest you keep a loose-leaf notebook in which you can compile your responses to the written exercises, together with the other thoughts and ideas you bring to mind while reading the book. This will help you learn TA in the most effective way possible - by using it for yourself.
- When you see this style of print, you are reading an exercise. Do it as soon as you come to it. Then go on to the next block of teaching.
What this book is and is not
When you have read this book through and completed the exercises, you will certainly know a lot more about yourself than you did when you started. You may also find you can use this knowledge to make some changes in your life which you had been wanting to make. If so, congratulations.
But this book is not intended as a substitute for therapy. If you have substantial personal problems, you are advised to seek out a reputable therapist who can give you the expert personal attention you need.
TA therapists encourage their clients to learn the ideas of TA. If you decide to enter TA therapy, you can use this book as a source of that learning.
If your wish is to provide TA therapy or services to others, this book will likewise be useful to you as your first introduction to the basic ideas of TA. But this basic knowledge does not qualify you to offer professional help. To be accredited as a TA practitioner, you have to complete prescribed hours of advanced study, practical experience and supervision. You must pass the examinations set by TA accrediting organizations. We give more details of these in Appendix E.
Our theoretical approach
The material we present here represents the broadly accepted mainstream of present-day TA theory. In a basic text, it would not be appropriate to explore areas at the 'cutting edge' of TA theorizing, areas that are still controversial. Yet TA today is very different from the TA of ten years ago. There are some important concepts, now at the very heart of the TA mainstream, that Eric Berne had never heard of by the time he died in 1970. One of our main enthusiasms in writing this book is to present these new ideas to you. Berne was an innovator above all. We think he would have applauded the way in which TA practitioners have continued to innovate.
There has also been a less desirable current of change in TA thinking and writing, dating from the earliest years of the discipline. We mean the trivialization of some of TA's original and most fundamental ideas.
Berne wanted TA to be accessible to everyone. He chose to use simple words to describe his thinking. Though the words were simple, the ideas were complex and subtle.
As TA attained the dubious status of a 'pop psychology' in the 1960s, some writers took advantage of TA's surface simplicity to present it in an over-simplified version. TA has not yet fully recovered from the damage done during those years. Despite the fine work of TA writers and practitioners over two decades, the image of TA as a superficial cook-book psychology has proven hard to shake off.
In writing TA Today, our objective has been to correct that false image. We have aimed to describe TA theory in its original subtlety and depth without sacrificing any of the clarity or simplicity in language which Berne prized so much.
This is true above all of the foundation of TA theory, the ego-state model itself. In his original work, Berne emphasized again and again that ego-states had a time dimension. Parent and Child were both echoes of the past. Adult was a response to the here-and-now, using the person's full grown-up resources. All three of the ego-states entailed thinking, feeling and behaviors. There is a world of difference between this and the later, trivialized version of the model which proclaims: 'Adult is thinking, Child is feeling, Parent is oughts and shoulds.'
In this book, we return to Berne's original formulation of the ego-state model. We have used it as a consistent base for the explanation of other areas of theory.
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