The Transactional Analysis Review Survey: An Investigation Into Self-Reported Practices and Philosophies of Psychotherapists

Abstract

Since the creation of transactional analysis (TA) in the 1950s, almost 50,000 handbooks, theoretical articles, and personal perspectives have been published about it. However, the application of TA has not been systematically studied. The research described in this article involved an online survey titled the Transactional Analysis Review Survey (TARS), which consisted of ten open and 45 closed questions. Items were derived from the most frequently cited TA publications and focused on the psychotherapist’s perspective on metalevel reflection, a central clinical phenomenon, etiology of psychological problems, therapeutic mechanisms, and therapist competencies. Data were analyzed with thematic analysis, principal component analysis, and latent class analysis. The survey was filled out by 238 TA therapists, and most reported seeing TA as a therapeutic approach, a general attitude and view of the world, and their preferred model in their practice. According to their reports, TA focused on the client’s ego states and transactions, social functioning, and self-efficacy, which helped improve their psychological health, self-realization, and general and behavioral well-being. Clients’ most frequently reported problems were seen as caused by negative messages early in life (scripts), lack of development of mature coping mechanisms, transgenerational messages, life events, denial of existential givens, and genetics/temperament. Individuals were understood to have some choice in accepting or rejecting the negative impact of these messages and life events via behavior, emotions, and cognitive styles. TA was viewed as helping clients via the therapeutic work with their ego states, social functioning, and self-efficacy. The changes were facilitated by the therapist competencies of positive client-practitioner relationship, working at experiential depth in the here and now, etiological analysis, and providing treatment structure. Thus, TA seems to offer a coherent conceptual framework for psychotherapeutic practice. Further empirical validation of this framework is required.