STAGES OF A TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS GROUP

The following summary of the redecisional approach to TA groups is based on an

adaptation of some of the chief works of the Gouldings (1976, 1978, 1979; M. Goulding,
1987; R. Goulding, 1982). The core of the work in this approach consists of helping clients
make redecisions while they are in their Child ego state. Because the decision was made in
the Child ego state in its earliest form, the redecision must be made in the Child ego state in
the present. This is done by having members experience an early scene as if the situation
were occurring in the present. Merely talking about past events or understanding early
feelings and decisions from the Adult ego state is not suffi cient to push members beyond the
places where they are stuck. How the leader helps members get into their Child ego state and
make a new decision can best be seen by examining the stages of redecisional group therapy.
The stages described below have primary relevance for a closed group. TA groups are
often closed, but some groups are open and allow members to graduate from the group and
welcome new members into the group as it continues over time.
1. THE INITIAL STAGE
The first step in the group process consists of establishing good contact. To a
large extent, the outcome for group members depends on the quality of the relationship
the group leader is able to establish with the members and on the leader’s competence.
TA group leaders pay attention to the quality of the therapeutic relationship, for they
realize that the therapeutic alliance is central to assisting members in achieving their
goals (Widdowson, 2010). Even when the group leader has developed a working
alliance with the group, members sometimes avoid addressing their most pertinent
problems. Therefore, the leader attempts to get at the chief complaint of the member. It
is the leader’s responsibility to get the client to reveal what is not working in their lives.
Obviously, the trust factor in the group has a lot to do with the willingness of clients to
get to their chief complaint. It is incumbent on the group leader to provide the
necessary ingredients for sustainable change: a safe place, nurturance, adequate
structure, and support. The leader needs to encourage members to accept themselves as
they are, and at the same time invite them to think about specifi c ways they want to
change.
The next step in the process consists of making an inquiry into the member’s
actual contract for change. Typical questions are: “What are you going to change about
yourself today?” “In your fi nest vision, in what ways might you be different?” These
 questions communicate that change is possible immediately. Notice that members are
not asked to state what they hope to change or what the leader will do to bring about
change; nor are they asked what changes they want in the future. The emphasis is on
members taking action in the here-and-now to bring about change.
2. THE WORKING STAGE
After contracts have been formulated, the Gouldings’ approach to group therapy
explores rackets the members use to justify their life scripts and, ultimately, their
decisions (M. Goulding & Goulding, 1979). The aim is to expose the rackets of group
members and have them take responsibility for them. For example, a person with an
“anger racket” (one who is chronically angry) may be asked, “What do you do to
maintain your anger?” Beginning with recent events, the person is led back through his
or her life in an attempt to remember early situations involving anger. Often the person
is asked, “When you were a little child, when did you feel anger in the same way?” As
in Gestalt therapy, members are asked to be in these situations—to recall them not as
observers but as participants in the here-and-now. Members are asked to act out both
their own responses and the responses of other signifi cant people in the scene.
During this stage of group work, games are analyzed, mainly to see how they
support and maintain rackets and how they fi t with one’s life script. In this connection
much work is devoted to looking for evidence of the participants’ early decisions,
discovering the original injunction that lies at the base of these early decisions, and
determining the kinds of strokes the person received to support the original injunction.
Once the person becomes aware of the original injunction, he or she is in a salient
position to make a new decision about the injunction. For example, when George
discovers a “Don’t be you” injunction, he can redecide that “I will be who I am, not
who you want me to be.”
A major function of the TA group leader is to have the members take
responsibility for their thinking, feeling, and behaving. Members are challenged when
they use “cop-out language,” such as “can’t,” “perhaps,” “if it weren’t for,” “try,” and
other words that keep members from claiming their own power. The leader also creates
a group climate in which the members rapidly become aware of how they maintain
their chronic bad feelings by their behavior and fantasy. It is the therapist’s task to
challenge them to discover alternate choices.
The Gouldings take the position that clients can change rapidly, without years of
analysis. It is clear that TA groups can be short term, solution focused, and structured in
 such a way that members acquire skills in addressing current and future problems. The
Gouldings stress the decisional aspects of TA therapy on the assumption that when
clients perceive that they are responsible for their early decisions they also have it in
their power to change those decisions—and they can make these decisional shifts
without drawing out the therapeutic process. This approach emphasizes helping
participants reexperience early, highly emotional situations to generate the energy to
break through the places where they are stuck (M. Goulding & Goulding, 1979). Such
breakthroughs, according to the Gouldings, usually require that participants remember
and relive situations involving real parenting fi gures. Through the use of fantasy, in
which group members reexperience how their parents sounded, acted, and looked, the
therapist creates a psychological climate that enables members to feel the same
emotional intensity they felt when, as children, they made their original decisions. If
participants are to be successful in going beyond an impasse, the Gouldings stress that
they must be in the Child ego state and allow themselves to psychologically relive
earlier scenes. If participants remain in their Adult ego state and merely thinking about
new insights, the injunction will maintain its original power.
3. THE FINAL STAGE
Once a redecision is made from the Child ego state, the changes in one’s voice,
body, and facial expressions are obvious to everyone in the group. The group process
provides support for members who begin to feel and behave in new ways. Group
members are encouraged to tell a new story in the group to replace their old story, and
they typically receive verbal and nonverbal stroking to support their new decision.
Attention is also given to ways that members might devise other support systems
outside the group. It is also important for members to plan specifi c ways in which they
will change their thinking, feeling, and behavior.
The focus during the fi nal phase of group work is on challenging members to
transfer their changes from the therapy situation to their daily life and then supporting
them in these changes. Before members set out on their own, it is important that they
imagine how some of their changes are likely to lead to other changes. It is well for
them to prepare themselves for the new situations they will face when they leave the
group and to develop support systems that will help them creatively deal with new
problem situations as they arise.
Widdowson (2010) emphasizes that effective and therapeutic endings are a major
part of the therapeutic process. The grieving that is associated with endings is not a
single event but a process that needs to be revisited a number of times during the
ending phase of a group. It is important for group members to structure their departure
with appreciations and claim time to say meaningful good-byes.