Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a specific text, a body of work, or an oral discourse. In philosophy, critique refers to a methodical practice of doubt, and criticism is viewed as essential to enquiry, making meaning of life, and to being human.

Yet, in the field of psychology, including transactional analysis, criticism and being critical is, more often than not, viewed negatively. In this keynote speech, Keith argues that critique, criticality and being critical is (also) an Adult activity, and uses the concept of the critical Adult to develop these ideas.

In this livestream workshop I bring together the Radical from our past with contemporary (Relational) Transactional Analysis. My motivation in integrating these two approaches is that both speak to my personal philosophy. From radical psychiatry, I honor our roots in reforming thinking and practice. Relational TA is a different reminder of our roots and integrates contemporary thinking from the broad relational field, which has further informed our theories and practices.

I am proposing to take a look at an idea from early TA which I think gets overlooked but is worth re-visiting. It’s Woollams and Brown’s (1978) Vulnerability Quotient.

This is a neat little notion that was originally presented to help make sense of the context out of which the small child creates a script. I really like it just for that purpose, however, I have noticed how useful it is to make sense of what goes on in the educational experience.

I came to a relational approach to therapy through my experience as a therapist, my discussions with Helena Hargaden and other colleagues, and in supervision, reading and studying. But my thinking about a relational perspective has been broadened, deepened and shaped by contemporary energy physics and organisational theory, research into neuroscience, and indeed my spiritual teaching.

The therapeutic relationship is known as the most reliable predictor of positive outcome in psychotherapy. In this livestream, Mark will be discussing a range of research findings relating to best-practice in establishing and strengthening the working alliance and reliable methods of reducing premature termination/ drop-out from therapy.