Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book is a practical guide to the use of transactional analysis in counselling. It is aimed at counsellor trainers and their trainees, as well as at practising counsellors who are interested in developing TA skills. TA is notable for its clarity of concept and simplicity of language. It offers an approach that promotes understanding and immediately catches the imagination. Yet underlying this surface appeal is a closely-reasoned theoretical structure. This book emphasizes powerful new techniques and concepts in TA that have been developed during the past two decades. Illustrating by means of an actual case-history, Ian Stewart describes the systematic process of counselling in TA. He traces the client′s progress from first contact and intake, through diagnosis and treatment planning, to contract-making and the implementation of the planned treatment sequence.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Part 1 The TA Framework
• Counselling with TA
• Planning the Route to Change
• Mapping the Structure of Problems
• Separating Past from Present
• Part 2 The Process of Counselling With TA
• Taking the First Steps
• Exploring a Childhood Life-plan
• Blocking Tragic Outcomes
• Making Contracts for Change
• Challenging Outdated Beliefs
• Making New Decisions
• Ending Counselling

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Stewart (University of Nottingham), a tutor in transactional analysis (TA) and a supervising examiner to the European Association for Transactional Analysis, has recently coauthored a textbook on the basic theory of TA (I. Stewart and V. Joines, TA Today, 1987). This present book is intended as a practical guide to the use of TA in counseling. With a focus on practical application, it includes only a brief introduction to TA and then provides in-depth coverage of selected areas of current TA which have the most to offer the practicing counselor. Two linked concepts provide structure to the presentation: treatment direction and treatment sequence, with an extended case history running through the book to illustrate practice and theory. Although the writing is succinct, the book succeeds in presenting TA as an important, interesting, and intelligible framework for understanding and promoting constructive psychological change. It is written primarily for counselors or counselors-in-training whose backgrounds have been in counseling methods other than TA and who are interested in adding TA resources to their counseling skills. It is also suitable for the general public. References; combined author and subject index. D. Sydiaha University of Saskatchewan

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Ian Stewart is Co-Director of The Berne Institute, Nottingham. He is the author of Eric Berne (Sage, 1992) and Developing Transactional Analysis Counselling (Sage, 1996), and co-author (with Vann S. Joines) of TA Today (Lifespace, 1987)