“
I know who I was when I got up this morning. I must have changed several times since then.
”
What is Transactional Analysis?
The School of You is a leading provider in Transactional Analysis Training.
Transactional Analysis (TA) is an approach to human development, personality and communication. It offers a powerful set of theories and tools that can have an enormous impact on your personal and professional interactions, communication, relationships and life.
It was created by Eric Berne in the 1960s to make complex psychological ideas more understandable to all so that people had information to safeguard and enhance their mental health. The theory has the inspiring quality of being easily usable for the newcomer, and yet has a level of depth that can intrigue and excite practitioners for a lifetime.
What are the various ways I can learn and qualify in Transactional Analysis?
We offer flexible options, which you can adapt to the different needs of each project.
Step 1
TA 101
2 Days
Transactional Analysis 101 is the official introduction to training in Transactional Analysis. It is accredited by ITAA (International Transactional Analysis Association) and is a pre-requisite for further training in Transactional Analysis
Step 2
Reimagine You
1 year (125 hours)
The year-long Foundational Program in Transactional Analysis that offers 125 hours of Transactional Analysis training. With this you will have the minimum necessary Transactional Analysis training hours to write the SAATA diploma
Step 3
TA Practitioner Training
3 years (450 hours)
Advanced Transactional Analysis practitioner training program in the field of psychotherapy and mental health. The program runs for 15 days each year. Over three years, you will have the minimum necessary training hours to write the CTA (Certified Transactional Analyst) written exam.
TA 101
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I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin
”
You are invited to begin the work of getting to know yourself better. Come, sit, have a cup of tea, dip your toes into Transactional Analysis. Meaning will emerge gently.
What is TA 101?
TA 101 is the internationally recognized introductory course in TA (Transactional Analysis), done over two days.
This program will introduce you to the core ideas in Transactional Analysis, that include
- The ego state model and the structure of our personality
- Transactions and ways in which we relate to others
- Psychological hungers and how we fulfil them
- Life scripts and why we need them
- Psychological “games” we play and how they serve us, even though painful
The workshop is a springboard for viewing your life with clearer lens and making it easier to make powerful and conscious adjustments
You receive a Transactional Analysis 101 certification from ITAA (International Transactional Analysis Association) on completion. This certificate is your gate pass into the world of TA
The School of You offers the Transactional Analysis 101 every quarter. We alternate between online and in-person in Bangalore to include as many seeking folk as we can.
To know more about the dates for the forthcoming TA 101
Reimagine You: The foundational course in Transactional Analysis
Reimagine You is the dive into the rabbit hole.
This Foundational Program is structured as 12 full days of training over 10 months. In addition participants go through 24 hours of online, self-paced lessons, and 12 hours of small group work. It offers 125 hours of advanced Transactional Analysis training.
This program is for you if you have been inspired to deepen your knowledge of Transactional Analysis. This course can be
- A stand-alone option
- The first year for those wanting to continue on to the practitioner program in psychotherapy
The Transactional Analysis 101 is a pre-requisite to join Reimagine You.
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Curiouser and curiouser.
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What is the goal of Reimagine You?
The goal of this program is as powerful as it is straightforward. You will reimagine yourself using the lens of Transactional Analysis theory. You will begin to see yourself, your life, and your relationships, in a different light. Through increased awareness of yourself and others, you will positively change what isn’t working for you.
You will explore the basic theories of Transactional Analysis in greater depth, applying it to your life. Through experiential exercises and sharing in the group, you explore how your script is active in your life every day. You recognise your process of meaning making and use that awareness to bring about changes in your life. The teaching for this program is interactive, with taught elements, case examples, and experiential exercises.
The theory covered in the workshop includes:
“
The time has come,
the walrus said
to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages and kings
”
You will cast about and trace the different paths you thought you didn’t or couldn’t have; you will try on different shoes for size, it will be an adventure! You will expect to meet old friends and demons – and sure enough, they will be there. You might turn a corner and run into an unknown friend or a minor demon – and that will be an exploration too!
| Begin at the beginning – Stepping into the wonderland of TA | The philosophy of TA | The history of TA | Contracting or making agreements | International and regional organisations |
| Being the Cheshire Cat and the Smile – Picturing our personality | Ego states – Structure and Function | Contaminations | First and Second Order Structure |
| Not going “off with their heads”- Relating with others | Transactions | Functional Fluency | Strokes | Time Structuring |
| Through the looking glass – Writing our life stories | Nature and origin of life script | Life positions and script matrix | Injunctions, permissions, drivers |
| When it is always 6 pm – Repetitive patterns with self and others | Rackets and Stamps | The Racket System Games | Drama Triangle, Bystander Position |
| Walking through a door in the tree How we maintain our view of the world | Discounting | Passivity | Symbiosis |
| And when we come to an end, stop! – Leaving one wonderland for a bigger, larger one | Autonomy and Homonomy | Ethics | The Four Fields in Transactional Analysis |
What is the credential I can apply for after completing Reimagine You?
Reimagine You gives you a minimum of 125 hours in Transactional Analysis, which is the minimum training hours needed for the SAATA Diploma
The SAATA diploma is designed to assess your understanding of the core ides of Transactional Analysis and your ability to apply them to gain a deeper understanding of yourself, enhance your well-being and improve your relationships. You need to write 4 reflective essays of length 1500 – 2000 words, on how you have used Transactional Analysis to understand yourself and make changes. You could do this at your own pace. A detailed handbook of Diploma Exam is available on the SAATA website (www.saata.org).
We also provide online course supporting SAATA diploma.
Organisational Transactional Analysis
A two-year professional pathway
Cohort begins 30 October 2026
Duration: 2 years. 100 hours each
Format: Online + 3-day in-person Bangalore
Prerequisites: TA 101 + 100 hours of TA training with an ITAA trainer
Apply: programs@theschoolofyou.in
Limited seats — small and intentionally contained cohort
Training hours from this programme may be counted toward SAATA’s DTAP and ITAA’s CTA pathway in the Organisational field. Obtaining either credential is subject to participants meeting each body’s full requirements.
“
You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.
”
Why Organisational Transactional Analysis?
Organisational Transactional Analysis is a field for professionals working in or with organisations who influence their effectiveness, culture, and health. TA is social psychology, concerned with both what happens at an interpersonal level and what operates outside awareness in individuals, groups, and organisations.
What makes TA distinctive is its accessibility. It bridges psychological depth and organisational practice – precise enough to name a hidden dynamic, yet plain enough to be used in a boardroom
Organizational Transactional Analysis offers a rigorous and practical way to:
“
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
”
“
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
”
| Design and lead planned change processes, integrating TA with Organisation Development, Systems, and Change Management approaches. |
| Contract with multiple stakeholders, navigating competing agendas and hidden expectations. |
| Read the structure, culture, and script of an organisation — distinguishing what is visible from what operates invisibly. |
| Understand how power is held and exercised through leadership roles, authority structures, and founder influence. |
| Work with team dynamics that determine whether people collaborate or collide – including the unconscious forces that drive game-playing. |
| Build conditions for psychological safety, trust, organisa-tional health using TA’s relational and stroke theory. |
| Use the consulting relationship itself as data recognising transference, countertransference, and enactment as windows into the organisation’s unconscious life. |
| Engage critically with contemporary developments in the field. |
Who this programme is for
This programme is for practitioners who want more than techniques – interested in understanding, intervening in, and transforming the conscious and unconscious dynamics of organisational systems.
It is especially suited for those who work with repeating patterns, stakeholder complexity, leadership and power issues, psychological games, resistance to change, culture, team dynamics, and questions of collaboration and trust. Through a systemic Organisational TA lens, participants learn to read organisations as living, interconnected systems, diagnose before intervening, work with both visible and hidden dynamics, and design change that addresses root causes rather than symptoms, building healthier, more reflective, and adaptive organisations.
The programme is ideally suited for:
- Organisational leaders applying TA to leadership practice
- Internal and external consultants working with teams
- HR, L&D, and OD practitioners
- Organisation development practitioners
- Facilitators, trainers, and coaches in organisational contexts
- TA practitioners specialising in the organisational field
The two year pathway
Year 1
Organisational Development and Transactional Analysis
Focuses on contracting, group structure, systems thinking, change, culture, leadership, power, diversity and equity, and ethics.
Year 2
Working with Groups and Individuals in Organisations
Focuses on communication, scripts, games, group dynamics, psychological safety, coaching, Appreciative Inquiry, and relational consulting.
Both years include:
Self in System Intensive: Three days in person in Bangalore, focused on the personal work that supports skilled organisational practice.
Student presentations: Case studies, applied projects, or reflective work demonstrating integration of theory and practice.
Trainers:
Marguerite Sacco
BA, PTSTA-O
Marguerite has over 30 years’ experience in organisational development. Grounded in Transactional Analysis, her work focuses on customised learning and development processes, leading group interventions, and fostering meaningful and productive dialogue in the workplace. She currently serves as President of the International Transactional Analysis Association and is a board member of the Igwiba Foundation, a non-profit working with communities affected by poverty and violent crime in South Africa’s townships.
Marguerite describes her practice as the facilitation of engagement in positive, life-giving dialogue, working with organisations to create conditions for employee health and wellbeing through understanding across lines of difference.
Aruna Gopakumar
TSTA(P), MCC
Aruna is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst with 33 years of experience working in, building, and consulting to organisations. She is the founder of Navgati, a boutique leadership development firm established in 1999, and The School of You, which focuses on psychological wellbeing and practitioner development. She holds an engineering degree from Anna University and an MBA from IIM Bangalore, and is an MCC-level coach. She served as past President of SAATA, the South Asian Association of Transactional Analysts.
Aruna is the co-author of And How Do You Feel About That, published by Penguin, and is completing a second book on psychological games in organisations, forthcoming from Westland. Her TEDx talk, Psychotherapy: A New Normal, has reached a wide audience beyond the therapy community.
Her work sits at the intersection of TA, organisational systems, and depth psychology. She brings to this programme three decades of practice in leadership development, group-level intervention, and the particularities of authority, culture, and script in organisational contexts.
Transactional Analysis Practitioner Training
If you are interested in using Transactional Analysis as a practitioner (coach, therapist, counsellor), you could join the TA practitioner Training after you complete Reimagine You.
This program runs for 3 years. This is a multi-level group, which means new members join the group every year, and complete the three year cycle from there. The program has 15 full days of training each year run over 10 months. In addition participants go through 30 hours of online, self-paced lessons, and 15 hours of small group work. It offers 150 hours of advanced Transactional Analysis training each year. The program has both in-person and online components.
Training in psychotherapy involves multi-faceted professional expertise involving theory, technique and relational qualities. Training and personal self-discovery are inextricably bound together. Learning involves emotional as well as intellectual processes. The training is a lived experience of risking oneself to challenge fixed notions of who we are and who we can be. Actions are considered for their unconscious motives and ethical implications.
You will train with a small, stable group over several years. Quite likely the relationships you developed with your fellow learners will enliven you as much or more than the content of the course. Interpersonal relationships become central to the learning process. The dynamics of the learning group are a significant source of learning. The trainer and learners become jointly responsible for a co-created process, in which all grow. Facilitative conditions like contact, congruence, acceptance, authenticity, empathy, challenge and play characterise the learning environment.
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My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.
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the Red Queen
Say what you have wanted to say but couldn’t. Be whoever you want to be. Do whatever you need to do. Nothing needs to be what it is, everything can be what it isn’t. Find the wonderland in your own life dramas.
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I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning?
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You are transformed from someone undergoing changes, to someone directing their changes: the pace of it, the direction and the intensity. You will take this empowered and transformed you into the world and do wonders
Professional Excellence Group
This is a group for you after you have completed the 3 years of Transactional Analysis practitioner training. It allows you to refine your skills and deepen your understanding of theory. Given the complexity of psychotherapy and the widely differing backgrounds and learning styles of participants, it is not possible to precisely predict the time frame for building competence and confidence to be a practising therapist. This group allows you to continue the learning and get ready for the exam at your own pace.
The group meets for eight days in a year. The learning agenda is developed by you along with others in the group on revisiting theory, supervision, exam preparation, skills training or practice exams
Online Supervision Groups
You could join an online supervision group once you start a practice. These groups allow you to reflect on your practice with a senior practitioner. You can, for instance, bring your stuck place with clients, reflect on process, theorise your work, think through a treatment plan for your client or rehearse a skill that you want to build. This is done in small groups of 3 – 5 people on a monthly basis.