TA in brief psychotherapy with college students

This paper describes the use of Transactional Analysis with university students in brief psychotherapy. In the clinical setting of a large university, Transactional Analysis was introduced as an alternative to crisis intervention and other mental health strategies. When Transactional Analysis was introduced as a treatment modality, it was also introduced to all the staff clinicians as an alternative therapeutic model and they were instructed in its basic theories. References are made to TA as a technique and a model which is advantageous for teaching adolescents and young adults in learning about themselves. The emphasis is away from the medical model with its focus on disease and placed instead on the learning model with its focus on solving problems in living. TA lends itself well to the developmental issues especially relevant to adolecents and young adults, i.e., autonomy, identity, and independence. In summary, the authors report results of a survey from the students treated within this framework which seem to support their thesis that TA in brief psychotherapy with university students is an effective learning and therapeutic tool.