The TA Group for Adolescents.

This article deals with one counseling approach used at a mental health center located in a small rural university community. Cognitive material used in the structured instructional segments of the group came from many sources. Basic transactional analysis (TA) theory was adapted from the works of scholar Eric Berne. The counselors wanted to acquaint the boys with TA ideas concerning ego states, transactions, scripts, strokes, and games. The bask principle behind the inclusion of each theoretical aspect was that intellectual insight is helpful in the development of emotional insight and behavior change. Concepts of individual "Okay-ness" were adapted from a sociologist and were especially important in view of the poor self-concepts held by the group members. A goal of counseling was to demonstrate to the boys that each of them bad many positive attributes and that it was possible for all of them to mobilize their strengths and overcome their self-identified areas of difficulty. From past experience in groups, one is aware of clients' tendency not to fully translate insights into behavior and not to work at an optimum level in searching for insights outside the group setting. To stimulate more work on behavioral change outside the group, the concept of structured homework was adopted. Sessions were 90 minutes long, each session having the same basic format.