TA 101 Training
The Inner World, Relationships and Change
An official introduction to Transactional Analysis
Two-day training
23 and 30 October 2026
Leiden · In English · 12 training hours
🟡 Why do we sometimes continue to repeat a pattern even after we understand that it is not helping us?
🟡 Why can the same conversation feel so different to the two people involved?
🟡 What makes recognition so necessary - and its absence so powerful?
🟡 How do early experiences become part of the way we think, feel, relate and make choices later in life?
We invite you to explore these questions and much more through Transactional Analysis.
The TA 101 is the official introductory course in Transactional Analysis. Participants who attend the full 12-hour programme will receive an internationally recognised EATA TA 101 Certificate from the European Association for Transactional Analysis.
Transactional Analysis - or TA - is a rigorous, multidimensional psychological framework that offers:
a theory of personality and intrapsychic functioning;
a theory of communication and relationships;
a developmental understanding of how early experience shapes the present;
a theory of human motivation and the need for recognition;
a framework for understanding repetitive relational patterns;
a contractual approach to psychological and organisational change.
TA begins from the understanding that human behaviour has meaning. The ways in which we think, feel, protect ourselves and relate to others develop within a context. They may once have helped us adapt, belong or remain safe, even when they later restrict our choices.
By bringing these processes into awareness, we can begin to understand not only what is happening, but also how it became organised in this way - and what might now become possible instead.
A map of the person - and of what happens between people
Developed by psychiatrist Eric Berne, Transactional Analysis connects the inner and relational worlds.
It helps us examine what takes place within a person: how different parts of the personality are organised, how past experience may be replayed in the present and how internal conflict influences behaviour.
At the same time, it gives us a precise language for observing what passes between people: how communication is initiated, how others respond, why some exchanges create contact and why others repeatedly lead to misunderstanding, conflict or distance.
This movement between the internal world and the interpersonal is one of TA’s particular strengths. We do not exist separately from our relationships, and our relationships are shaped by the internal worlds we bring into them.
TA is used internationally in psychotherapy, counselling, coaching, education, parenting, training, leadership and organisational development.
The TA 101 is its official introductory course.
What we will explore
During the course we will explore various areas:
Ego states: personality and intrapsychic functioning
Transactions: communication and relationships
Strokes: recognition and human motivation
Life positions: how we understand ourselves and others
Script: development and the stories by which we live
Games: repetitive relational patterns
Contracting, autonomy and change
You can read more about each of the above below.
Areas of Exploration
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The model of ego states offers a way of understanding how personality is organised and how earlier experiences remain active within present psychological functioning.
We will explore Parent, Adult and Child ego states—as coherent systems of thinking, feeling and behaviour.
The model helps us ask:
Which part of my experience is active at this moment?
Am I responding to the present, or is an earlier reality influencing what I perceive?
Which internal messages guide or restrict me?
What becomes possible when Adult awareness is available?
We will also distinguish between the structural and functional models of ego states and consider how they illuminate both internal experience and visible behaviour.
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A transaction is a unit of communication between people. Examining transactions allows us to look beneath the topic being discussed and notice what is happening relationally.
We will explore complementary, crossed and ulterior transactions and use them to understand why some conversations flow, why others suddenly break down and how more than one message can be communicated at the same time.
Transactions provide a way of observing communication without immediately reducing it to blame:
What was offered?
What was heard?
From which ego state did each person respond?
What happened to the contact between them?
How might the interaction proceed differently?
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Berne used the term stroke to describe a unit of recognition.
Human beings need recognition. We need to know that we exist for other people and that our presence has an impact. This need influences motivation, belonging, learning, intimacy and the ways in which groups and organisations function.
We will consider how people seek, offer, accept, refuse and filter recognition—and why familiar negative recognition may sometimes feel more psychologically available than positive recognition.
The theory of strokes helps us think about questions such as:
What kind of recognition motivates a person?
What happens when recognition is scarce, conditional or unpredictable?
What have we learned to expect—or not expect—from other people?
How do recognition patterns influence families, classrooms, therapeutic relationships and workplaces?
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The position I’m OK - You’re OK is one of the best-known ideas in Transactional Analysis, but it is not simply a positive statement.
Life positions describe deeply held ways of experiencing our own worth, as well as the worth and trustworthiness of others. They influence how we interpret relationships, respond to difference, use power and understand conflict.
We will explore how these positions develop, how they may shift under pressure and what it means to return to an I’m OK - You’re OK position without denying difficulty, responsibility or difference.
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Script theory examines how people make meaning of early experience and form conclusions about themselves, others and life.
These conclusions are often made before a child has the language, perspective or freedom available to an adult. They can later operate outside awareness, influencing identity, expectations, relationships and the choices that seem possible.
Working with script does not mean treating childhood as destiny. It means becoming curious about how the past may still organise the present—and recognising that decisions made earlier can be reconsidered.
We will explore injunctions, permissions, drivers and early decisions, and consider how script is both personally formed and influenced by family, culture and the wider social world.
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In TA, a psychological game is not something playful. It is a repetitive sequence of interactions that leads towards a familiar and often painful outcome.
Games help explain why people can find themselves in similar conflicts again and again, even when nobody consciously intends the result.
Rather than asking only, “Who started this?” or “Who is at fault?”, TA invites us to examine:
What pattern is being created between us?
What roles are we being invited to take?
What is familiar about the outcome?
Which underlying need or expectation remains unspoken?
Where could the sequence be interrupted?
This offers a powerful way of thinking about recurring patterns in intimate relationships, families, helping relationships, teams and organisations.
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Transactional Analysis is a contractual approach. Trainer and learner, therapist and client, coach and coachee - or leader and team - need a sufficiently clear understanding of what they are working towards and how responsibility will be shared.
Contracting protects participation and makes expectations, boundaries and power more visible. It also reflects a central TA belief: people can participate actively in their own development.
The direction of change in TA is autonomy - the increasing capacity for:
awareness: perceiving ourselves, others and reality more clearly;
spontaneity: having access to a wider range of responses and choices;
intimacy: being able to enter genuine contact without relying on familiar defensive patterns.
Autonomy does not mean needing no one. It means having more freedom to meet ourselves, other people and the present as they are.
How we will learn
The course will combine conceptual teaching with discussion, observation, reflective exercises and practical application.
We will connect theory to everyday interactions and to situations from therapy, counselling, coaching, education, parenting, leadership and organisational life.
Participants will be invited to consider the concepts through their own personal and professional experience, while remaining free to choose what they share. The intention is not to analyse one another, but to develop a thoughtful and ethically grounded way of observing human experience.
We want you to leave with a sense of how the concepts belong together - and with questions you can continue to think about after the course.
Who is the course for?
The workshop is open to anyone interested in personality, relationships, communication and human development.
It may be especially relevant for:
therapists and counsellors;
coaches and supervisors;
educators, teachers and school professionals;
parents and professionals working with children and families;
trainers and group facilitators;
leaders and professionals working in organisations;
people interested in personal and professional development;
international and expat participants navigating personal, cultural or professional transitions.
No previous knowledge of Transactional Analysis or psychology is required.
The course will be taught in English and is particularly welcoming to international and expat participants who would like to learn within a culturally diverse group.
What will you take with you?
By the end of the course, you will have:
an introductory map of personality and intrapsychic functioning;
a framework for observing communication and relational processes;
a deeper understanding of recognition and human motivation;
ways of thinking about development and recurring life patterns;
a language for recognising repetitive interactions without reducing them to blame;
an introduction to TA’s contractual and relational approach to change;
concepts that can be applied across personal and professional contexts;
a foundation for further Transactional Analysis training.
Internationally recognised certificate
The TA 101 is the official introductory course in Transactional Analysis.
Participants who attend the full 12-hour programme will receive an internationally recognised EATA TA 101 Certificate from the European Association for Transactional Analysis.
The certificate is also a recognised entry requirement for those who later choose to undertake further formal training in Transactional Analysis.
Meet your trainer
Psychologist |Transactional Analysis therapist | Trainer | Supervisor
Alina is internationally certified in both the psychotherapy and educational fields and holds the qualifications CTA-P, CTA-E, PTSTA-P and PTSTA-E.
She has worked in private practice, education, professional training and organisations since 2014. Her teaching brings together conceptual depth, professional application, reflection and experiential learning.
Alina approaches education as a meeting place between theory and experience. She believes that participants arrive with knowledge of their own and that the trainer’s role is to offer a thoughtful structure within which existing experience can meet new ideas, be questioned and develop.
The Therapy Business Circle is where therapists step into clarity and confidence - combining clinical supervision, business tools, and a community that has your back.
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Practical Information
Dates
Fridays, 23 and 30 October 2026
Time
09:15–09:30 - Arrival and registration
09:30–17:00 - Course, including a one-hour lunch break and two 15-minute breaks
Location
Dé Plek, Kanaalpark 157, 2321 JW, Leiden, the Netherlands
10 minutes walk from station Leiden Lammenschans train station
Language
English
Duration
12 training hours across two days
Fee
Early Bird price - €345 (until 20 September)
General Admission price - €395
TBC members get an additional €50 off.
Certificate
Internationally recognised EATA TA 101 Certificate, awarded upon full attendance