Using Transactional Analysis to Help Foster Parents Develop Therapeutic Parenting Skills

Abstract

This article considers the application of transactional analysis (TA) theory in a nonclinical setting with foster parents and discusses the merits of offering therapeutic training to this section of the United Kingdom children’s workforce. Transactional analysis theory is used to illustrate how TA knowledge can be crucial in helping foster parents to understand both their own internal world and that of the child. The author analyzes the gap in expectations regarding the training of foster parents generally and the enormity of the task they are asked to undertake. This is particularly onerous when looking after children who have been significantly harmed, with all the consequent emotional and behavioral difficulties that ensue.

Keywords:

• Ego states
• fostering
• trauma
• attachment
• relational units
• children in care
• adoption
• transactional analysis
• unconscious
• parenting

Disclosure Statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Mica Douglas

Mica Douglas, MASW, MSc in Psychotherapy, Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), is a relational TA psychotherapist and child and adolescent psychotherapist who has been designing and running courses for therapeutic foster parents for the past 10 years. She is program leader of transactional analysis at Metanoia Institute, London, and is also program leader of a master’s degree in therapeutic fostering and adoption at Metanoia. Mica is consultant psychotherapist to a leading therapeutic fostering organization in the United Kingdom called By the Bridge. She can be reached at Holly Lodge, Chapel Road, Isle of Grain, Rochester, Kent ME3 ODT, United Kingdom; email: [email protected].