Co-creative TA

Domain III · Humanistic, existential & experiential · Graeme Summers, Keith Tudor · 2000 · United Kingdom

What it is

Co-creative TA is not a manualised treatment. It is a theoretical and relational approach within transactional analysis (TA), developed by Graeme Summers (UK; CTA(P), later an executive coach) and Keith Tudor (UK, later Professor of Psychotherapy at Auckland University of Technology, NZ) from 2000…

Format

• No manualised phases. None of the sources describes fixed phases, a set number of sessions or stage-transition criteria. Co-creative TA works as a stance and a set of concepts layered onto ordinary TA practice (contracting, assessment and treatment) and onto relational, open-ended psychotherapy. It…
• Format. Individual psychotherapy and counselling, groups, coaching, education and organisational consultancy. The UKATA programme lists applications to relationship-building, transformational change, trauma, work with children, people with learning difficulties, and organisations. Tudor's…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• unprocessed disclosure. It is working when transference softens into curiosity.
• a health focus that skips risk assessment. Still carry out standard risk assessment.
• framing the game as only the client's. It is working when sequences are interrupted earlier.
• exclusion dynamics and scapegoating. It is working when members take responsibility for the group climate.
• script analysis turning into a deterministic verdict. It is working when the client sees options in the present.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.