Benefits of Formulating a Treatment Plan in Tranactional Analysis

1681 Words7 Pages
In this essay I will endeavour to show how treatment planning is fundamental in the psychotherapeutic relationship and how I go about setting out a treatment plan. Eric Berne pioneered openness and honesty in the treatment process, inviting his patients into an equal partnership in their healing. Since then, two main guiding principles of Transactional Analysis psychotherapy emerged, the contractual method, and open communication, with the main implications being that both the therapist and the client share responsibility in the treatment planning. Berne (1966) said the real doctor must be orientated primarily towards curing his patients; and be able to plan the treatment, so that at each phase she/he knows what she/he is doing and why! Both clients and therapist benefit from the treatment plan as it helps both to focus and think about the therapy outcomes. As clear objectives are set ones client can channel their efforts into achieving specific changes that will lead to long term goal or problem resolution. The assessment process is an integral part of beginning to formulate a treatment plan. Noticing how the client is along with what they are saying, and recognising that the real reason that brings one to therapy may not emerge until much later in the relationship with the client. Berne emphasised the importance of the very first moments with a client (Berne, 1961). He provided four levels of diagnosing ego states. 1. Behavioural (Clarkson, 1992) (M, 1978) (Hewitt, 1995) (Steward, 1989) (Stewart, 1987) (Stewart, Personality Adaptations, 2002) (Ware, 1983) (Allen, 2011) (Allen, 2011) (Allen, 2011) 2. Historical 3. Social 4. Phenomenological Berne said that for a complete diagnosis, all four levels must be present. He stressed the importance of intuition as well as observation in this process. So Berne made a major contribution to the diagnostic field with
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