We can be in contact with people throughout the day, exchanging messages, responding to emails and keeping up with what's happening. Yet that isn't necessarily the same experience as spending time together. And when diaries are full, getting together just to get together can easily slip down the list.

Transactional Analysis (TA) is a framework for understanding how people communicate, relate, and get stuck in patterns. This plain-language guide explains ego states, transactions, games, scripts, and strokes — and where TA is used today.

From time to time, a coach will email me and say something like: “I’m not a therapist — would the TA101 still be relevant for me?” It’s an understandable question. Transactional Analysis is a recognised psychotherapy approach. But the honest answer is that some of the most thoughtful participants we see on theTA101 are coaches. Not because they want to retrain as therapists. But because they’re working with real human complexity — and they want a way of thinking that can hold