Event Archive

Event Archive

Institute of Transactional Analysis Conference, Keele University, Saturday 10th April 2010

“How to Cure” How Eric Berne Practiced Transactional Analysis – and “How does this impact on the way we conceptualise cure in 2010”?
Based on the Wonderful Book, “How to Cure” by Southey Swede, and Eric Berne’s fantastic quote, “There is only one paper to write which is called ‘How to Cure Patients.’” Mark Stipanovsky and Quentin St Clair explore what do we actually mean by cure?

How does this affect the way we interpret Transactional Analysis theory and just as importantly, how do we measure cure? Using positive psychotherapy exercises and expanding on their previous work around “Authentic Joy” you will learn how to bring the awareness of happiness into the therapeutic relationship without discounting the importance of anger, sadness or scare. Our Purpose is to explore how Eric Berne practiced Transactional Analysis (according to Southey Swede) focusing on the concept of cure.

We will be asking participants how do they communicate “cure” to clients and how does this affect the way they practice.

We will also be looking at different theories of emotion and how these perceptions and expectations actually affect the way we practice psychotherapy, synthesising this awareness with positive psychology. And of course our main aim of the workshop is to share some authentic joy with our participants and some techniques to take away to practice and strengthen joy and happiness for both clients (and therapists).

The theme of the ITA conference this year is Realising Berne’s Vision: TA and the Wider World. In 2010 the TA World will be celebrating 100 years since the birth of Eric Berne. ITA is no exception and our conference in Keele will provide an opportunity to celebrate how TA has grown from Eric's original ideas and used his inspiration to take concepts such as autonomy, open communication and decisional development into the four fields of TA and beyond. Our keynote speakers Gloria Noreiga and Rosemary Napper (President of ITAA) represent the world wide TA community and will be setting the scene for a conference that focuses on how the ideas and concepts created by Eric Berne have so many exciting potentials for the wider world. The workshop programme will reflect this and include speakers who use TA in new and exciting ways, sometimes to enhance and develop other approaches and theories. The social programme will have a truly celebratory feel offering opportunities for all styles of networking and partying.

Authentic Joy and the TA-OK Rating Scale

In the Berne centenary year it is easy to see ourselves at a pivotal point in the development of Transactional Analysis. One of the core values that Eric Berne put forward was that he wanted to ‘cure’ people. In these commercially and financially driven times emphasis is very much on results and ‘cure’. Looking backwards we see the span of Berne’s original work, built on by many great thinkers and as we turn to look at the next 100 years and wonder what TA will become we need vision and a practical focus, just as Berne had when he formed the core theories of TA.

Mark Stipanovsky and Quentin St.Clair have a habit of asking simple questions and also suggesting simple answers though sometimes the results and implications are complex.

We looked at the definitions of authentic feelings and noticed there wasn’t one for Joy so we suggested one. We looked at the perceived effectiveness of CBT and created a tool, the ChoicesMap, to help our clients and ourselves with day-to-day and therapeutic decisions to bring about change. We looked at the research supporting CBT as a central part of the UK government’s mental wellbeing initiative and invented the TA-OK rating scale to help us and our clients understand what getting better meant for them and to measure if we were achieving it.

Building on their work delivered at the ITA conference in Nottingham in 2009 and expanding on their upcoming workshop at the Redecision Conference in New Orleans Mark and Q are ready to deliver an experiential workshop to help us and our colleagues understand better what cure really means and to contribute to the next 100 years of TA with simple effective tools.

For more details on the conference please seewww.ita.org.uk

Links to other websites:

www.jumping joint.co.uk
www.noprimadonnas.co.uk
www.markthehypnotherapist.com

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