by Lucy Freedman | Sep 29, 2025 | Blog, General |
When I was invited to chair a discussion about an aspect of the conference theme for the 2025 World TA Conference in Montpellier, I decided to tackle the word “Legitimacy” as it affects TA professionals and clients worldwide.
I began by asking for input about what we mean by legitimacy and what is its value in our field.
Having started as a counter movement to psychoanalysis, the history of TA is that of being an outsider to what was considered legitimate in psychotherapy. Eric Berne gave two contrasting messages: we want TA to be accessible to all people, and we want transactional analysts to be seen as “real doctors.” Today, we have a journal that strives for recognition while fields of application multiply, each field with its own communities of standards.
In some countries and professions, being seen as a legitimate field of practice entitles transactional analysts to licensure, degrees, or other recognition, and in others it is simply a specialization to be combined with credentials earned in universities or other certifying agencies.
We began the discussion with comments by Emily Keller, a play therapist and play therapy supervisor, and Elvin Aydin Keles, a therapist who is serving as Director of Research and Innovation for ITAA. Among other topics, Emily spoke about the Certified Transactional Analyst designation defining legitimacy in TA circles, and Elvin brought in TA’s standing among other disciplines as identified by citations in related fields and journals.
A robust and varied conversation covered the following questions and many other reflections both internal and external to the world of TA.
Questions
What concerns about TA’s legitimacy are present in your country and / or field of practice?
How does legitimacy matter from the point of view of our clients and for people who are entering professional training?
What policies or practices increase or decrease TA’s legitimacy?
What can / should ITAA, EATA, other TA associations do to make TA legitimate, or more legitimate, in your field?
What forms does legitimacy take in different societies? Should TA be presented differently to be accepted in different contexts? How?
When do concerns about legitimacy block innovation? (For example, Eric Berne risked being ostracized to establish something new.) Are we seeing anything like that now?
What are your thoughts about legitimacy in TA as it relates to training, certification, literature, and service to clients? Please share your comments in the field below.
Lucy Freedman, MAT, CTA-P,E,O. President, ITAA Foundation
by Lucy Freedman | Sep 19, 2025 | Blog, General |
How to choose? Where to start? How TA can help.
Much of the distinction between therapists and coaches has resulted from licensing laws, third-party payment reimbursement systems, and credentialing regimes – all choices made by the provider and the type of business they want to run.
As often happens, the systems designed to keep people safe and standards high become slanted in favor of those at the top of the pyramid while chasing whichever markets appear most lucrative at the time. Counselors become therapists become coaches depending on what is most popular.
Packages that promise psychological transformation of the personality through their particular mental models offer tidy solutions to common neuroses and worries. These formulations do provide help in a miasma of social and personal concerns of living today. At the same time, they are invested in selling their solution as the quickest or most effective or most widely-used method, or in maintaining their legitimacy against other approaches.
How can a person seeking assistance distinguish what is the best kind of support for what they are going through? How can providers offer discernment about what kinds of clients and issues they can best serve?
The truth is that the client is a human being and their needs are not generic. The ability to make contact with another human being (not an AI trained program!) and sort out what’s going on is a valuable privilege that deserves clarity and profound respect. The provider’s ability to assess the type of issue and the proclivities of the client, without having a pre-defined solution, is what makes them worth the investment of time and money.
If you are not willing to invest time in determining the approach that is appropriate for you at this time, you take whatever the marketplace offers and it’s probably as good as any. If you are willing to explore with someone who has a range of experience and skill, you will be able to design the path together and create the milestones that matter to you.
Of course, everyone has filters that come from their training. This tells the client what kind of provider to choose – what models do we want to know the provider has available for working with us? The cost also varies by levels of licensing or certification, and what is covered, if any, by insurance.
The value of using a mental model such as transactional analysis (TA) is that it is based on contracting between the provider and the client in the context of a deep understanding of human development. There are no predetermined one-size-fits-all methods, but a thorough understanding of how we have become who we are and a range of change processes to fulfill our hopes and dreams.
In the contracting phase, the transactional analyst can suggest a combination of methods or can see a direct path to resolving the issue that the client brought in. If he or she is trained as a coach, therapist, consultant, or counselor, they can offer services from that background and make referrals to other specialists.
If I am trained as a coach, I don’t do a deep dive into toxic family patterns or third-degree early decisions. If I am trained as a therapist, I can recommend a coach for a career path or lifestyle change. As a consultant, I can tell when my client needs to work with someone about their family system, rather than taking that on during an organizational development project.
Many transactional analysts have practiced and been supervised in multiple areas of application so they may have the range to address a variety of issues. Their ethical requirement is that they don’t represent themselves as qualified in other fields.
The core material of TA will illuminate the presenting issues so that the provider and client both gain value from those insights which serve as a basis for further work in whatever direction turns out to be most beneficial for the client.
The relationship between provider and client is the central factor in determining the effectiveness of the engagement. One of the benefits of TA is that all work is done by contract, so that you know what you are getting. Based on the contracting process, the client is free to continue or conclude the engagement as agreed. It’s a representation of TA’s fundamental premise that people are OK and can make informed decisions for themselves.
Whether you call your helper a coach, therapist, counselor, or teacher, be sure that they know how to choose and use the right tools for the job at hand.
With love and appreciation,
Lucy
by Lucy Freedman | Jul 1, 2025 | Blog, General |
When the book, I’m OK – You’re OK by Tom and Amy Harris first came out it struck a nerve. People want to feel OK, and they want to feel OK about other people too. The question was, how to do that? Hierarchies and cultural biases say otherwise. Some people are more OK than others, no? The official line, at least in the US and other democracies, is that we are all equal. But psychologically and behaviorally, we enact one-up and one-down feelings and actions.
The wonderful thing about Transactional Analysis, or TA, is that it provides a roadmap to living in an I’m OK – You’re OK – and They’re OK lifestyle. Our work as Transactional Analysts is to weed out our not-OK feelings and beliefs, and grow our ability to accept ourselves and others.
Accepting ourselves doesn’t mean we don’t want to change. Yes, we are changing and growing out of learned patterns and ingrained social constructs so that we can enjoy the much happier feelings of OKness. We can avoid passing limiting beliefs to our children, our partners, and our communities. We can turn idealism into reality through empowering beliefs and behaviors.
To do that, we uncover the sources of our early decisions, get in touch with what’s possible today, and practice being OK with ourselves and others. Eric Berne, MD, whose book Games People Play was wildly popular, promoted the idea that we didn’t need to have a doctorate to understand ourselves and our psyches. He created TA with simple language that we can all understand and use.
OKness is a statement that all people are born with inherent dignity and worth. Whatever we experience and decide after that is a response to what we experience in our early years. Then we live out those decisions, even though our toddler selves had no idea there was a world beyond our families and that we would be capable of much more as we grew up.
TA covers everything from those early decisions to the games we play to reinforce them and the life scripts that have predetermined, often negative, outcomes.
OKness is about outgrowing the early limiting decisions, reinforcing our ability to honor our deepest selves as well as the value of other people, and creating the lives we want to live in the world to which we want to belong. The simple language of TA can be deceptive. It addresses life’s persistent questions and supports health for oneself and in relationships. It is useful at home, at work, and in community life.
One way to learn about TA and begin to apply it is to complete the basic TA Practitioner Course (TAP), approximately fifty hours of study and application, with support for using it in your life and in your profession. To learn more about becoming a TAP, click here.
by Lucy Freedman | May 2, 2025 | Blog, General Interest Articles, Member News |
SAD NEWS: As we post this we have learned of the passing of Jack Dusay. It was fortunate that he was able to join us for a portion of the elders gathering just a month ago.
A ZOOM GATHERING OF ELDERS
On March 22, 2025, more than thirty of us who have been involved with TA since the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s spent two hours sharing our journeys and reconnecting with each other. The original plan was to break out into smaller discussion groups, but it turned out that people’s stories were so interesting, we decided to stay in a large group for the whole time. While it’s too much to include everything here, the recording is available for those who would like to hear everyone.
People’s introductions to TA were widely varied; many were working in mental health or educational settings and it was usually a colleague who suggested they check out this new approach from Eric Berne, MD, in California. Some in the group, Carol Solomon, Jack Dusay, Pamela Levin, and Marian Weisberg, knew Eric Berne and were part of the San Francisco Social Psychiatry Seminars. They have all helped develop the theory. Marian talked about bringing TA to New York City and founding a group practice there. Jack thanked Carol Solomon for her leadership in creating the Eric Berne Archives at the UCSF Library.
A good number had been introduced to TA through Bob and Mary Goulding. John McNeel mentioned his initial encounter with Bob, considering him the smartest man he had ever heard, and said Bob’s belief in the effectiveness of psychotherapy in ending war resonated with him. John, Waldemar Gies, Felipe Garcia, Inger Acking, Reiko True, and Vann Joines were all students of the Gouldings.
Lucy Freedman came into TA initially via Jacqui Schiff and Harry Rose of the Reparenting or Cathexis School of TA, studied at Southeast Institute, and continues to be active in NATAA and the newly-established ITAA Foundation. Lucy, Felipe, and Gaylon Palmer, who is actively practicing in Sacramento, CA, all came into TA while working in public education.
Val Chang, a longtime practitioner and professor of Social Work, was invited to attend a conference by colleagues and then took her kids along and put them into a TA I’m OK, you’re OK Nursery school for three weeks while studying with Hedges Capers, whom she had met at the conference. Val was instrumental in developing the modules program in Jamaica that has evolved into the TA Practitioner curriculum.
Carla Haimowitz discussed her 50-year journey, including her influence from Claude Steiner, her involvement in the Northern California Group Psychotherapy Society, and her work with various groups. She also mentioned her parents’ study on the effects of Rogerian therapy on ethnic prejudice.
Many other TA trainers who have passed were mentioned as being influential, including David Kupfer, Muriel James, Aaron Schiff, Josephine Lewis, and Hedges Capers.
Abe Wagner was invited to his first 101 by Jonathan Weiss and has spoken in every US state and many countries, well known for his books The Transactional Manager and Say It Straight or You’ll Show it Crooked. Abe remembers both Emily Ruppert and Denton Roberts as major TA contributors during that time.
Laurie Weiss first came along as “the wife” before deciding that she would enter training as well. Both Jonathan Weiss and Wayne Hart described the life-changing interventions they experienced and many others spoke of how TA has enriched their lives. Phil and Bobbie Barry talked about working with different TA therapists along the way, while Thomas Griggs described going through the Master’s Program at Southeast Institute in the beginning of his career and now focuses on Leadership. Ed Gurowitz is writing and teaching about leadership as well, with a new book out this year, Transformation: From Potential to Practice.
People’s contributions to TA continue to grow, both in theory and in sustaining what is now the North America TA Association, formerly USATAA. Janice Dowson from Canada and Gloria Noriega from Mexico have long been active in both ITAA and USATAA, and both helped us change our identity to include the entire continent. Brenda Schaeffer’s book. Is it Love or Is it Addiction, was a bestseller, and now she is leading the association as General Coordinator. Waldemar Gies has become a central part of the NATAA Council. Cedric Wood has innovated on the concept of ego states. Vann Joines not only leads Southeast Institute and is one of the best-known authors in TA, he is also conducting courses online for large groups in other countries.
John McNeel continues to develop his work on Injunctive Messages, which he has presented several times in NATAA Educational Workshops. Felipe Garcia continues to serve on the Council which he initiated in the 1980’s. Jonathan and Laurie Weiss now teach Logosynthesis, which they learned about through Nancy Porter-Steele and Curtis Steele.
Robin Fryer started out practicing and studying TA while in graduate school, then helped organize conferences, and eventually became editor of the ITAA Script and TA Journal, both of which she still manages with care.
As we concluded, Jack Dusay, an early ITAA President and source of the widely-used concept of egograms, thanked Christopher Zimmerman, who helped him get on the call, and reminded us of the importance of simplicity as a principle of TA.
Much more was shared as folks greeted old friends and some even met new people. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming. A future meeting where we remember and honor those who are no longer with us was proposed, to occur in about six months. Much appreciation to Felipe Garcia, Abe Wagner, and Val Chang for organizing and leading this meaningful event, and to Vann Joines and Lucy Freedman for helping make it happen.
by Lucy Freedman | Mar 15, 2021 | Blog, Council News, NATAA News - Awards |
We are delighted to receive the news that the International Transactional Analysis Association has selected Janice Dowson as the recipient of this year’s Muriel James Living Principles Award.
Here is an excerpt from her nomination:
Janice has made significant contributions to transactional analysis, the ITAA, and the TA worldwide community. In doing so, and in her personal life, she has consistently lived the principles of TA, including demonstrating clear Adult thinking, joyful creativity, compassionate ethics, and a lack of gaminess in transactions.
She models egalitarian relationships and promotes an “I’m OK, You’re OK” atmosphere in both professional and personal arenas and has thereby improved the quality of life and development of individuals, groups, and the community at large. She has, in many ways, been active in the international advancement of the principles of transactional analysis both professionally and personally.
Although Janice’s many contributions would qualify her for other ITAA awards, this one is particularly meaningful because of Janice’s warm personal relationship with Muriel, including staying in touch and visiting her during Muriel’s later years.
In addition to the three primary nominators—Lucy Freedman, Charlotte Daellenbach, and Bill Cornell—the following ITAA members and friends are supporting this nomination: Inger Acking. Tom Burton, Leonard Campos, Richard Erskine, Felipe Garcia, Thorsten Geck, Robert Hempel, Gloria Noriega, and Reiko True.
Congratulations to Janice and much appreciation for all you do to support TA, NATAA, and ITAA!
