ABSTRACT
The relational approach to transactional analysis (TA) has developed over the last 30 years and is now a well-established approach within TA. As opposed to more goal-oriented, behavioural forms of TA, relational TA therapists consider the deeper processes of change occur when the therapist and client pay attention to the emergence of these unconscious processes on a moment-to-moment basis in the dynamics between therapist and client. Relational TA is guided by eight principles which were originally agreed upon by the founding members of the International Association for Relational TA. These are the centrality of relationship, the importance of engagement, the significance of conscious and non-conscious patterns of relating, the importance of experience, and the significance of subjectivity and of self-subjectivity. The principle also include the importance of uncertainty, the importance of curiosity, criticism and creativity, and the reality of functioning and changing adults.
