Thanks to the Link Centre and onlinevents for hosting another workshop. Booking is available on eventbrite.

Outline

What do we do when we notice the “whack-a-mole” pattern emerging in therapy? This is the pattern of a client making progress on certain issues, only for new issues to emerge, as if to replace the old ones. Transactional Analysis (TA) provides one way of thinking about this pattern by suggesting it occurs when we work on resolving “contamination” (a cognitive issue) but miss out on tackling “confusion” (a pre-cognitive issue). This distinction can be useful for both clients and therapists, not least because it helps make sense of approaches that, on the surface, don’t seem to relate to the “headline” issues the client is bringing.

The workshop will:

• introduce some client case studies illustrating the whack-a-mole pattern
• explain the TA concepts of contamination and confusion in a friendly way
• talk about how the client’s “confusion” can also get the therapist confused and in this way keep the whack-a-mole pattern going
• discuss the pros and cons of sharing the concepts of contamination and confusion with your clients
• explore practical ways of breaking out of the whack-a-mole pattern

SELF-SELECT FEE

The self-select fee is a radical inclusion policy to open learning for all colleagues. The guide price for this event is £20.00, however, we appreciate that income varies greatly in different locations and circumstances. Please contribute what you can to help us maintain inclusive professional training.

Thanks to the Link Centre and onlinevents for hosting another workshop. Booking is available on eventbrite.

Outline

We’re all familiar with clients appearing to make mountains of molehills and molehills of mountains. In Transactional Analysis (TA) such exaggerations and minimisations are called discounts. This workshop will focus on practical ways of working with clients who are missing out on the life they would prefer because of the impact of discounts. Along with therapy room techniques, there will be some friendly theory to make sense of why discounts can be so stubborn and how reducing their impact sometimes requires getting deep into clients deepest fears.

The workshop will:

• work through case studies of clients who ‘exaggerate’ their problems and ‘minimise’ their power and in other ways are caught up in ‘discounting’
• show how some friendly Transactional Analysis theory can help therapists and clients better understand the what leads to discounting
• look at practical ways of working with discounts that can help to reduce their negative impact on clients
• look at power relationships and how the idea of discounting can be misused – sometimes the client isn’t discounting but other people/forces are, e.g. the therapist, a partner, a boss, society in general.

SELF-SELECT FEE

The self-select fee is a radical inclusion policy to open learning for all colleagues. The guide price for this event is £20.00, however, we appreciate that income varies greatly in different locations and circumstances. Please contribute what you can to help us maintain inclusive professional training.

This is part of the Working Together series from EATA / ITAA. The event is free, but ticketed:  OKness and the Paradox of Change tickets on Eventbrite.

Clients, learners, and organizations, in coming to TA professionals for help, often believe that they are “broken” or do not deserve to flourish. And as TA professionals, we can sometimes unwittingly send or reinforce that message—that yes, they are not OK, they are broken, that they are somehow getting things wrong.

It is hard to change when the starting point is that “there is something fundamentally wrong with me.” It is easier to change—if change is what is wanted and is something for which there is agreement and permission—when there is an underlying basis of self-acceptance.

Getting help can feel paradoxical when the starting point for it is, in some fundamental way as indicated in TA, that we are all OK as we are. However, being OK does not necessarily mean there is nothing I want to change and that I do not want professional assistance.

Matthew will discuss this tension and other ideas that are sometimes referred to as “the paradox of change,” illustrating it with examples and reflecting on how TA and other approaches can respond to it.

Many clients creatively come up with an idea of what it is to be an adult when they are still very young, e.g because their life situation demanded they take on responsibilities that belonged to those looking after them. Unsurprisingly, such ideas of what it is to be an adult are often self-limiting. But they can be very persistent, preventing the person from developing a less self-limiting and richer conception of adulthood. Working with this type of issue can be difficult, as the client often appears (to themselves and to the practitioner) as more able and more sorted than they actually are.

Using a series of client case studies the workshop will look at:

• spotting when clients are operating with a version of adulthood that was invented by them when they were a child helping clients understand that how they are being an adult now is just
• one way of being an adult and that they are alternatives they might prefer
• creative ways of working with a client to figure out the kind of adult they’d like to be
• gentle ways of helping let the person let go of the child’s version of adulthood, while honouring the protection and service it has done for them in the past

This workshop will be recorded and you can use the ticket function to pre-purchase the recording before the event. This will be useful for colleagues who are not able to attend the event live and also for those who attend the event live and want to watch again.

or: How to Move Beyond Unhelpful Hoping

You can book on to this event via: Eventbrite – Letting Go: How to Move Beyond Unhelpful Hoping Workshop

About this event

Many of our clients are desperate to solve problems such as how to: feel loved, feel safe, feel good enough, or feel worthy to take up space in the world. We may witness them repeating old ways of trying to solve these problems, ways that have never worked and that we have good reason to think never will. Such clients can swing back and forth between unrealistic bids to solve these problems and despair at their failure to do so.

As therapists, we might wonder what could happen if they let go of the thoughts and feelings, they use to frame both the problems and the potential solutions.

In this workshop will explore:

• case studies of clients who organise their lives around unhelpful hoping, i.e. seeking to solve problems or answer questions in ways that keep failing
  reasons why “therapist-knows-best” approaches, e.g., telling the client to be “more realistic”, are often doomed to fail
• working with clients on “letting go” of old ideas about how to solve these problems – ideas that strongly feel like the only possible route to solving them
  finding ways to bear the disappointment / sense of loss / confusion that can go along with such a “letting go”
• the idea of clients coming to their own conclusions about themselves, the world, and others, through making “decisions” based on their own expertise and authority, as opposed to deferring to the (apparent) expertise and authority of others.

We will draw on some theory from Transactional Analysis, including script and re-decision, and also touch on ideas from existential therapy. No prior knowledge of these theories is required.

Practical Details

You can book on to this event via: Eventbrite – Letting Go: How to Move Beyond Unhelpful Hoping Workshop

This workshop will be recorded and you can use the ticket function to pre-purchase the recording before the event. This will be useful for colleagues who are not able to attend the event live and also for those who attend the event live and want to watch again.

This workshop will be hosted on the Zoom meeting platform where we will use our camera and microphones to interact with each other as a group.

To support practitioners in this time of extraordinary circumstances we are offering access to this group for a self-select fee.

The self-select fee is a radical inclusion policy to open learning for all colleagues. The guide price for this event is £20.00, however, we appreciate that income varies greatly in different locations and circumstances. Please contribute what you can to help us maintain inclusive professional training

I ran a workshop on The Drama Triangle on 10th January 2022 as part of the Link Centre‘s CPD series. You can get a video of that event from the Link Centre. I was delighted to be asked to do a follow workshop: The Drama Triangle II: Exploring New Angles. The workshop will be standalone, so no need to have attended the January one. But  it’s will complement that, so if you did come in January there’ll be lots of new stuff and only a small amount of overlap / revision.

You can book on to this event via: Eventbrite – The Drama Triangle II – Exploring New Angles

I ran workshop as part of the Link Centre’s CPD series on Monday 10 January. A video of the session is available from the Link Centre. And there is a part two workshop coming up in May 2022.

• Eventbrite – The Drama Triangle

The Drama Triangle makes sense of repeated patterns we get into with other people where we become caught up in the role of either Rescuer, Persecutor, or Victim. In this workshop we will look at how to use The Drama Triangle in the therapy room. How can it help clients make sense and move out of problematic patterns? We’ll also look at a key development of the theory, The Winner’s Triangle.

Like any powerful tool, The Drama Triangle, can be harmful as well as helpful. So, we will also explore how labels such as Victim, Persecutor, or Rescuer can be used – sometimes unwittingly – to box people in or to silence and oppress them.

In the workshop participants will:

• be introduced to the Drama Triangle and The Winner’s Triangle

• learn some practical ways of using the triangles with clients

• explore some connections with the Transactional Analysis concept of “discounting” and it’s complement “accounting”

• discuss risks that come with the use of The Drama Triangle and its language of Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor

The workshop will mix teaching with a breakout session for participants to explore their reactions to the ideas and try them out in some short exercises.

No prior knowledge of The Drama Triangle will be assumed.

I’m looking forward to contributing to the online day of this year’s North East Transactional Analysis Conference. I’m going to be doing the closing session of what looks like a great day. In my session I’ll be exploring some ideas about frames of reference – or “our maps of the world”. I’ll be building on some of the material in chapter 16 of Talking It Better and also relating it to some of the other workshops on the day.

Closing Plenary: Maps and Gaps – Putting the Concept of Frames of Reference to Practical Use

Matthew Elton, Diploma in Transactional Analysis Counselling (CPTI. Edinburgh)

When our clients have different maps of the world from other important people in their lives, how can we help them manage the tensions that will arise without either pathologising others or themselves? Frames of reference can be so all encompassing that it’s hard to see outside of them. And even when we can intellectually see beyond them, in a theoretical way, this is not always enough. We’ll explore some practical techniques for helping people reflect on their own and others’ maps of the world and to both intellectually and viscerally see beyond them.

• Details of the Day#1 (November 6th) online sessions