Transactional Analysis or TA is a great way of understanding yourself and how you relate to the rest of the world. It uses simple concepts to help you understand your personality. People use it in many ways, to understand themselves or their relationship dynamics. Some people use it in schools, or even to change an entire organisation. It can go deep into childhood or stay in the here and now to explain your behaviour, thoughts and feelings.
TA was devised by Dr. Eric Berne, a psychiatrist. Initially it was a way to work with people suffering severe disturbance, he then went on to make it into an accessible system for exploring and understanding personality and how people relate to each other. TA is commonly used in individual or group therapy, working with children or whole schools, in couples counselling and a variety of settings. A key feature for many TA therapists is that they are able to share their method with their clients because it is easily explained. People find they can use it to de-escalate unpleasant emotional responses or defuse arguments.
It is a humanistic and compassionate theory that I have also used to explore childhood issues, loss, obsessions, compulsions irrational responses, unwanted feelings,… and sex.
My training was based in this model of understanding personality with other psychological approaches included to form what is known as an integrative style. Other models and approaches are explained briefly on this website to help you understand how I might work or how you might choose to work with me. I still enjoy the simplicity and thoroughness of TA.
Here are 3 youtube videos by Theramin Trees which animate some basic TA concepts. Books on TA cover a huge range of topics, too numerous to mention.