Some counsellors will be familiar with the work of Eric Berne and his seminal text: The Games People Play (1968) or I’m Ok, You’re Ok (Harris, 1967) and Staying Ok (Harris, 1985). Berne developed transactional analysis, based upon the ideas of Freud and Jung, but also developed an approach that is distinctly different, as he focussed on patients social ‘transactions’. Berne translated the relatively complex language used by Freud; where Freud talked about the three ego states as the id, the ego and the super ego, Berne translated these into the Child, the Adult, and the Parent which forms a key component in the approach of transactional analysis (TA). This article introduces TA, briefly, outlines evidence around TA in counselling and gives examples of the practical application of this pote... »