Co-creative TA

1. Introduction

Version followed: Summers & Tudor, "Cocreative transactional analysis" (Transactional Analysis Journal 30(1), 23–40, 2000), as revised and extended in Tudor & Summers (2014), Co-creative Transactional Analysis: Papers, Responses, Dialogues, and Developments (Karnac; Routledge reissue 2018), plus the extended list of tenets used in the UKATA Co-creative TA (CCTA) programme 2021–22. Only the abstracts, publisher descriptions and programme pages are drawn on, not the full texts of the 2000 paper and the 2014 book, so the detail below is limited and marked accordingly. [source: Tudor CV; SAGE TAJ 30(1) contents; Routledge/Karnac pages; UKATA CCTA page]

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 onward. The two received the 2020 Eric Berne Memorial Award for it. It re-reads TA's core concepts (transactions, ego states, games, script) as things both participants make together in the present, and it is used in all four TA fields: psychotherapy, counselling, education and organisations/coaching. [source: AUT news 2020; Routledge description] Tudor classes it as a form of relational TA, separate from Erskine's integrative approach and from Hargaden & Sills's relational TA. [source: Tudor 2011/2014 "Empathy: a co-creative perspective", chapter abstract]

How change happens. The theory draws on field theory and social constructivism. It holds that client and therapist build a shared relational field, which the authors call a "common communicative home". In that field, the client's archaic patterns can be noticed and new experiences can be made together in the here and now. Change comes through present-centred development, meaning the growth of the client's "integrating Adult" (the neopsyche), and does not depend on long reconstruction of the past. [source: AUT news; SAGE abstract fragment; Karnac description] The therapist's main task is to help the client set aside transferential expectations and to invite them into fresh, co-created experience. Empathy is named as the approach's principal method. [source: chapter abstracts, Tudor 2014/2018 ch. 3 response and ch. 6]

2. Framework

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 is also used in short-term coaching and in organisational work. [uncertain: phase structure not found in primary sources]

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. [source: UKATA CCTA page] Tudor's "co-creative TA 101" syllabus (2014, Appendix 2) maps the standard TA introductory course onto co-creative concepts. Its content is not drawn on. [uncertain]

Working sequence for a clinician [synthesis]. The sequence below is my own way of putting the published concepts in order. The authors do not prescribe it.

Co-creative contracting (sessions 1–3). Goal: an agreed working focus with responsibilities owned on both sides; an assessment of health as well as of difficulty. Move on when the client can say what they want from the work, and what each party contributes, in their own words.
Present-centred exploration and empathic attunement (early to middle phase). Goal: a reliable Adult–Adult working relationship; the client feels received; archaic and introjected patterns become visible in current life and in the room. Move on when patterns repeat recognisably and the client can step back and observe them with you.
Working the co-created field (middle phase). Goal: analyse transference, co-transference, games and script as they are co-created between you, own the therapist's part, and create fresh experience in place of the expected repetition. Move on when the client brings in new responses from outside sessions and repairs of misattunement land well.
Integration and ending. Goal: the client's integrating Adult takes in the new learning, including the experiences of being both understood and misunderstood. The ending is planned together, and both parties review what each contributed.

Length: open-ended in psychotherapy. [uncertain: none of the sources gives a session count]

3. Guiding principles

The 2000/2014 core triad is "we" psychology, shared responsibility and present-centred development. [source: Karnac/Routledge description; AUT news] The UKATA CCTA programme adds unconditional positive regard, constructivism and field theory as tenets. [source: UKATA CCTA page] The one-line practical meanings are my synthesis from the published summaries.

"We" psychology / we-ness. Treat the relationship ("we") as the unit of work, a "two-person-plus psychology", and not the client alone. In practice: ask what we are creating right now, as well as what is happening in the client. [source: Karnac description; AUT news; practical line = synthesis]
Shared responsibility. Each party owns their own part in whatever happens between them, whether as protagonist or as witness. In practice: name your own contribution to impasses and enactments, and invite the client to name theirs, without blaming either side. [source: AUT news; practical line = synthesis]
Present-centred development. Change happens in the here and now. In practice: link past material to how it is lived and co-created today, and favour new experience in the session over historical reconstruction for its own sake. [source: AUT news; Routledge description]
Health alongside pathology (positive health). Describe models of health, and the client's healthy functioning, as well as their pathology. In practice: in every formulation, list strengths and integrating-Adult capacities next to problems. [source: ch. 3 response abstract; Karnac description; 1999 Summers & Tudor workshop title "TA: a theory of pathology or health?" (Tudor CV)]
Unconditional positive regard. This is the person-centred condition, which Tudor brings into TA. In practice: keep an "I'm OK – You're OK" valuing of the person, especially while you confront a pattern. [source: UKATA tenet list; meaning = synthesis]
Constructivism. Meaning is constructed, and co-constructed, through dialogue and discourse. In practice: hold diagnoses and script formulations as working stories built together, and revise them with the client. [source: Karnac description; UKATA]
Field theory. The relational field that two people create is more than the sum of what each person brings to it. In practice: treat your own feelings, impulses and lapses as information about the shared field, not only as "your countertransference" or "their projection". [source: EATA news page; UKATA]
The therapist participates actively. The therapist is part of the process, not a neutral observer. In practice: be willing to make transparent, bounded disclosures of your process when they serve the work. [source: Karnac description "therapist's active participation"; disclosure guidance = synthesis]
Dialogue and discourse. Theory itself is developed through dialogue, which is why the 2014 book is set out as papers with responses and rejoinders. In practice: keep a questioning, dialogical stance and avoid an expert-interpretive one. [source: Routledge/Karnac descriptions]
Novelty (the "neo" in neopsyche). Favour what is new and emerging over what is repeated. In practice: notice and amplify moments where the client responds in a fresh way. [source: ch. 3 response abstract]
Interactive over interpretive when learning is implicit. When procedural or implicit knowledge is not available to consciousness, interactive, intersubjective and non-interpretive processes are likely to help more than interpretation. In practice: change the relational experience rather than explaining it. [source: ch. 3 response abstract, citing Fosshage]

4. Intervention inventory

Scope note: co-creative TA describes its practice through concepts and a stance, not through numbered techniques. The items below are (a) the methods the sources name explicitly (empathy; Adult–Adult transacting; suspending transferential expectation; non-interpretive work with implicit patterns), and (b) the named models taught in the UKATA CCTA programme (partial and co-transferential transactions, integrating Adult, dynamic ego states, co-creative script, positive games, the implicit relationship, belonging, transference and countertransference). For group (b), the sources give only the titles, so the step-by-step procedures are my clinical synthesis, built on standard TA method and consistent with the stated principles. They are marked [synthesis] or [uncertain]. All example language is illustrative. [source: chapter abstracts; UKATA CCTA page]

4.1 Empathy as the principal method (empathic Adult–Adult transactions)

Purpose / when: The core method throughout therapy. It builds the shared field, deconfuses archaic experience and strengthens the client's integrating Adult. Tudor defines co-creative empathy as a series of Adult–Adult transactions. [source: Tudor ch. 6 abstract]
Steps: (1) Listen for the client's felt meaning in the present, including what is implicit. (2) Offer your understanding tentatively, from your Adult to their Adult, and check whether it fits. (3) Take in the client's correction as more information; being partly wrong is part of the method. (4) Help the client notice both experiences: being received and being misunderstood. (5) Invite them to "extract and abstract" from those experiences what they now know about themselves and about relating. [source: steps 2–5 paraphrase Tudor ch. 6 abstract; sequencing = synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "Let me check I've got this: when she didn't reply, it sounds like you went cold and very busy. Is that close?" / "I missed it a moment ago. What was it like to have me get it wrong, and then to put me right?"
Watch for: the client deferring to your version (an adaptive Child response) rather than correcting it; your empathy sliding into rescuing or soothing. Signs it is working: the client corrects you more freely, uses their own words for their experience, and reflects on the misattunement without collapse.

4.2 Staying Adult–Adult: not setting up complementary ulterior transactions with the archaic Child

Purpose / when: Whenever the client invites a parental response (reassurance, rescue, criticism). The aim is to avoid colluding with archaic patterns while still meeting the person. [source: Tudor ch. 6 abstract]
Steps: (1) Notice the pull, for example toward reassuring, advising or becoming the critic. (2) Name it internally as a possible ulterior invitation (a psychological-level message under the social one). (3) Respond to the whole person from your integrating Adult, acknowledging the need without taking up the complementary parental role. (4) If useful, make the process transparent. [synthesis based on abstract]
Example language (illustrative): "I notice I want to tell you it'll be fine. I don't think that would really help you. What would help right now?"
Watch for: this tipping into withholding or coldness, which is a different failure of empathy. It is working when the client starts to find their own resources rather than borrowing yours.

4.3 Inviting suspension of transferential expectation and co-creating fresh experience

Purpose / when: The therapist's "primary task" according to the ch. 3 response abstract. Use it when the client expects you to respond as past figures did. [source: Tudor/Summers ch. 3 response abstract]
Steps: (1) Identify the expectation as it shows up in the room, for example "you'll be bored with me". (2) Explore it with curiosity and without interpreting it straight back to childhood. (3) Respond in a way that is genuinely new while staying authentic, not staged. (4) Invite the client to notice the difference between the expected and the actual response. (5) Help them keep hold of the new experience, as in 4.1 step 5. [synthesis on the stated task]
Example language (illustrative): "You looked at me just now as if you were waiting for me to sigh. I'm not bored. What's it like to hear that?"
Watch for: reassurance used as a replacement for exploration. It is working when the client tests the relationship less and takes more risks with you.

4.4 Analysing partial and co-transferential transactions

Purpose / when: To look at transactions as co-created, where either or both participants may be responding from archaic or introjected states. Use it at impasses, in repeating misunderstandings, and in enactments. The concept name is confirmed from the UKATA programme; the 2000 paper's exact definitions are not drawn on. [source: UKATA CCTA page; uncertain]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Reconstruct the exchange together, message by message. (2) For each side, ask whether the person was responding to the present other (integrating Adult) or to a past figure (transferential). (3) Classify the exchange: both present-centred; one side transferential (partial); or both transferential (co-transferential). (4) Own your part first, then invite the client to look at theirs. (5) Agree together on a different move to try next time.
Example language (illustrative): "When I went quiet, I think I was reacting to old stuff of my own as well. Shall we slow down what happened between us?"
Watch for: your self-disclosure taking the focus away from the client; a client who takes your ownership as proof that it was "all you". It is working when the client can describe their own part without shame.

4.5 Strengthening the integrating Adult (neopsyche)

Purpose / when: Tudor (2003/2014) treats the Adult as the integrating, present-centred ego state, the seat of health and growth, and not merely a cognitive "computer". Use this throughout, and especially in consolidation. [source: Routledge TOC; UKATA; Tudor CV; the details of Tudor's model are uncertain]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Notice and name moments when the client feels, thinks and acts in a way that fits the current situation. (2) Invite the client to describe what lets them do this, in body, feeling and thought. (3) Link those capacities to the problem areas. (4) Review in-session learning as something the Adult takes in and uses, not as rules handed over.
Example language (illustrative): "Just now you stayed with the anger and still chose what to say. How did you do that?"
Watch for: treating Adult as cold rationality, a misreading the co-creative authors reject (inference from "integrating"; uncertain). It is working when the client draws on these capacities spontaneously.

4.6 Working with dynamic ego states: conscious, non-conscious and unconscious patterns

Purpose / when: Summers's development treats ego states as dynamic patterns that are conscious, non-conscious (implicit, procedural) and unconscious. Use it when patterns are enacted rather than reported. [source: Routledge TOC chapter title; ch. 3 abstract on the implicit domain]
Steps: (1) For conscious patterns, use ordinary TA ego-state diagnosis together with the client. (2) For non-conscious procedural patterns, which show up in posture, timing and relational moves, prefer interactive and intersubjective responses over interpretation: alter the rhythm, stay with the moment, and offer a different relational move. (3) For unconscious material, attend to dreams, slips and enactments within the relationship. (4) Afterwards, invite the client to reflect on what changed. [source for step 2: ch. 3 abstract citing Fosshage; other steps = synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "Can we pause? Something happened in how we're talking. We've both sped up. Let's see what it's like to slow down together."
Watch for: over-intellectualising implicit material. It is working when relational rhythm and the felt sense change, not only insight.

4.7 Co-creative script work

Purpose / when: To understand script as something actively co-created and re-created in present relationships, including the therapy, and not only as a fixed childhood decision. [source: UKATA module "Co-creative script"; framing from "co-creative nature of ... scripts", AUT news; procedure uncertain]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Explore the client's script themes in the usual TA way, as working stories. (2) Ask how current relationships, including this one, take part in confirming the script. (3) Identify present choice points where something different could be co-created. (4) Co-author new narratives and test them in life. (5) Include healthy, creative script elements as well as restrictive ones.
Example language (illustrative): "If your story is 'I'm always too much', how might you and I be acting that out here, and what would a different scene look like?"
Watch for: script analysis turning into a deterministic verdict. It is working when the client sees options in the present.

4.8 Co-creative game analysis and "positive games"

Purpose / when: To analyse games as patterns both parties co-create, including the therapist's hook. Summers taught a module titled "Positive games", but its content is not drawn on. [source: AUT news; UKATA module title; content uncertain]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Track a repeating sequence that ends in a familiar bad feeling (the payoff). (2) Identify your own move in it, such as a rescue or a persecutory remark. (3) Name the pattern together without blame. (4) Agree on a non-game option, for example a straight request in place of the con. (5) If you use Summers's "positive games" idea, treat it only as described in his teaching. I do not reconstruct its details here. [uncertain]
Example language (illustrative): "We've ended up here before: you ask, I suggest, you say 'yes, but'. I think I keep offering suggestions. What would you really like from me?"
Watch for: framing the game as only the client's. It is working when sequences are interrupted earlier.

4.9 Co-creative contracting and shared responsibility

Purpose / when: At the start and at reviews, to put shared responsibility into practice. [source: principle, AUT news; procedure = synthesis]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Agree the goals together, in the client's language. (2) Make explicit what each party contributes: attendance, honesty, the therapist's attention and its limits, and feedback. (3) Agree how ruptures will be talked about. (4) Review the contract regularly as a co-created document, not a test.
Example language (illustrative): "What would you like to be different, and what do you think each of us needs to bring for that to happen?"
Watch for: contracts imposed by the therapist, or vague goals. It is working when the client refers to the agreement as theirs.

4.10 Attending to the "we": the shared field and the implicit relationship

Purpose / when: To bring the co-created relational field, including its implicit level, into awareness. "The implicit relationship" is a CCTA module led by Summers and Sweeney; its detailed method is not drawn on. [source: UKATA; EATA news (field greater than the sum of its parts)]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Periodically ask what is happening between you, not only inside the client. (2) Share your felt sense of the field briefly and tentatively. (3) Invite the client's sense of it. (4) Use what you notice to adjust the work.
Example language (illustrative): "I'm noticing a heaviness between us today, as if we're both being careful. Does that fit for you?"
Watch for: imposing your reading of the field. It is working when the client begins to comment on the relationship spontaneously.

4.11 Health-oriented assessment and formulation

Purpose / when: At intake and at reviews, to describe health alongside pathology. [source: ch. 3 abstract; Karnac description]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Alongside the standard TA diagnosis (ego states, script, games, any DSM/ICD diagnosis), map the client's integrating-Adult capacities, relational resources and moments of novelty. (2) Write the formulation together. (3) Revisit it as a constructed, revisable account.
Example language (illustrative): "Besides what's been hard, what parts of your life work, and what do you do there?"
Watch for: a health focus that skips risk assessment. Still carry out standard risk assessment.

4.12 Working with transference and countertransference within a co-creative frame

Purpose / when: When strong transferential material dominates. The CCTA frame treats transference and countertransference as co-created within the field. [source: UKATA module titles; detail uncertain]
Steps [synthesis]: (1) Notice your countertransference and ask what in you and what in the field contributes to it. (2) Explore the client's transference as a meaningful communication and not a distortion to correct. (3) Use 4.3 and 4.4 to create fresh experience. (4) Take intense or persistent countertransference to supervision.
Example language (illustrative): "I wonder whether part of me has been acting like the strict teacher you described, and you've been bracing for it."
Watch for: unprocessed disclosure. It is working when transference softens into curiosity.

4.13 Belonging and transformational learning

Purpose / when: CCTA modules cover belonging and transformational learning and change, and they apply to groups, education and organisations. Their content is not drawn on. [source: UKATA; uncertain]
Steps [synthesis]: In groups, build we-ness through explicit shared agreements and attention to who is in and out; frame learning as co-constructed; use the group's present process as the learning material.
Example language (illustrative): "Who feels part of this group today, and who is on the edge? What helps you belong here?"
Watch for: exclusion dynamics and scapegoating. It is working when members take responsibility for the group climate.

5. Handling problems

The sources do not include a troubleshooting guide. Apart from the two points tagged with a source, everything below is [synthesis] that applies the published principles.

Stuck client / impasse. Treat the impasse as co-created (shared responsibility). Review your own contribution in supervision. Then open a joint inquiry using 4.4: "What are we both doing that keeps us here?" If historical exploration keeps going round in circles, shift to present-centred experiment (4.3, 4.6). [synthesis]
Resistance. Reframe resistance as a meaningful contribution to the field, for example protection from an expected repetition, rather than as opposition. Empathise with the protective function (4.1) and do not push. Check whether you set up a complementary ulterior transaction, such as Parent pushing against Child (4.2). [synthesis]
Overwhelm or dysregulation. Present-centredness includes the body and the immediate moment. Slow down, ground in the present, and reduce interpretive load. Interactive, non-interpretive responses are preferred when the material is implicit (4.6). [source for preference: ch. 3 abstract; grounding steps = synthesis] Return to contracting about pace (4.9).
Non-adherence (homework, attendance). Revisit the co-created contract and ask how the agreement itself may have been made by the therapist rather than shared. Renegotiate without moralising. [synthesis]
Ruptures and misattunement. In co-creative TA these are part of the method, not failures. The client experiences being misunderstood and then repaired, and learns from it ("extracts and abstracts" the experience). Acknowledge your part plainly, explore the impact, and invite the client to say what they now understand. [source: ch. 6 abstract; steps = synthesis]
Modality-specific difficulty: over-disclosure and blurred roles. "We-ness" and the therapist's active participation can slide into burdening the client with the therapist's process, or into collapsing the asymmetry of responsibility. Disclose only briefly and only in the client's interest, keep the professional and ethical responsibility clearly yours, and use supervision. A 2006 TAJ roundtable addressed the ethics of relational TA, which includes Summers and Tudor; its content is not drawn on. [uncertain; synthesis]
Modality-specific difficulty: "shared responsibility" misheard as blame. Clients with shame or a history of abuse may hear "your part" as "your fault". Separate responsibility for what happens next from culpability for what was done to you, and always own your contribution first. [synthesis]
Modality-specific difficulty: present focus that neglects the past. Some clients, trauma survivors in particular, need their history acknowledged. Present-centred development does not forbid historical work. Link past to present and stay with the history when the client needs it. [synthesis; UKATA lists trauma as an application area]
Health focus that minimises risk. Keep standard risk assessment, safety planning and the duty-of-care procedures of your jurisdiction and professional body. A health-oriented formulation sits alongside them and never replaces them. [synthesis]
Therapist lacks TA training. Co-creative TA assumes fluency in TA basics: ego states, transactions, games, script and contracts. Tudor's "co-creative TA 101" syllabus and accredited TA training, through ITAA, EATA, UKATA or national associations, are the route in. [source: Tudor CV; UKATA]

Sources

Sources (all of them abstracts, descriptions or programme pages; none is a full text):