There are about 50 different therapeutic modalities around, which I understand is more than you need... and makes your choice difficult and confusing. The good news is: research shows that the modality comes only third as a predictor of success of your therapy (Norcross, 2002). The most important factor is actually what we call the "working alliance", i.e. the capacity of the client and the practitioner to create a therapeutic relationship based on trust and safety, for the therapeutic transformation to take place. Other important factors are the professionalism of the practitioner and the adequation of the therapy to the needs.

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I read on some websites "our modality, unlike the others, is the only one that works". This arrogant statement makes me wonder if its author can also transmute lead into gold? The reality is that nobody holds "The Truth". The good therapy is the therapy that works for you and is effective, the good therapist the one that you can trust and helps you meet your goals.

If you choose me as your therapist, we will mainly work under the Relational Transactional Analysis therapeutic modality. Being quite of a mainstream approach, a lot of information can be found on the internet. Nevertheless, I thought it useful to sketch what are, in my view, some of its main points.

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Transactional Analysis was developed by psychoanalytically trained American psychiatrist Dr Eric Berne in the 1950s, and was originally designed as a cognitive psychoanalysis for short-term therapies.

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Over the last 60 years, thanks to its lively community, Transactional Analysis has happily integrated other Gestalt and Person-Centred influences and has blossomed into several schools. Some of my professors at the Metanoia Institute were the world-recognized founders of the “Relational” T.A. School, and have published many books and papers.

Transactional Analysis’s original tenets are structural analysis, functional analysis, game analysis, and script analysis. These, by certain aspects, resemble Ellis’s and Beck’s CBT (although Berne wasn’t aware of their respective work and nor were they of Berne’s).

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The Relational school stresses the importance of the therapeutic alliance between the client and the practitioner. I am trained to identify interpersonal dynamics such as projective identifications and transferences that may occur in the therapy room and which will inform me about my client’s world - your "unthought known" (Bollas, 1987).

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A typical treatment plan could start with a therapeutic contract and could go through decontamination (cognitive therapy), deconfusion (therapy of the unconscious), through to redecision work and crystallisation.

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As my client, you don't have to be aware of going through these steps, which I will wrap in the foreground therapeutic relationship in the pure Carl Rogers tradition. Although one of our review sessions may be a good opportunity to reflect on it. Some of my clients are surprised by their progress!

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To summarise, Relational Transactional Analysis may be viewed as a powerful two-person (Starck, 1999) integrative psychodynamic CBT promoting sustainable therapeutic change. Without the homework. And by no means a costly, intangible, lifelong indulgence!