What is Transactional Analysis?

Transactional Analysis (or TA) is a psychotherapeutic approach that models our personality, thinking, feeling and behaviours using PAC( Parent, Adult, Child) model. According to this model, our personality essentially consists of three states: Parent, Adult and Child. In simplistic terms, the Parent is in charge of values, tradition, what is wrong and what is right. The Adult is the executive, rational part and the Child is the emotional part. According to this model, the transactions between the individuals then can occur between each one of these parts or ego-states and be directed to one of the ego-parts of the other individual. One of these parts can also be talking to another part within the same individual, which is experienced as the inner dialogue by so many people. That inner dialogue can be the dominant trait of some people’s inner life, especially when the inner dialogue stems from a critical Parent and can be very toxic. The good news is that once that inner dynamics is identified it becomes easier to spot and work on attenuating its strength. Using the TA concept of ego-states can be very powerful when working with anxiety or depression as well as eating disorders.