Written by Karen Pratt (TSTA-E)
TA in the early 1970’s in Johannesburg
As with the development of TA from its early Bernean roots in psychotherapy, it seems like the beginnings of TA in SA were similar.
South Africans Petruska Clarkson and Maria Gilbert (both psychotherapists) were key figures in the early days.
Clarkson (1947-2006) studied humanistic psychology, Gestalt therapy, organisational development and TA. In 1976 she attended her first international TA conference in the Netherlands where she met Richard Erskine and began training with him and Rebecca Trautmann. Between 1978 and 1990, Erskine began running a psychotherapy training programme in Johannesburg – he was amongst the few TSTAs who were willing to teach in SA at the time of the Apartheid regime.
Clarkson left SA for the UK in late 1977. The historical ITAA records show her as a Clinical Teaching member by 1989 and a TSTA (clinical) by 1992.
Gilbert (1938- 2020) was born of Afrikaans speaking parents and grew up during the Apartheid era. Her obituary from the Metanoia website reads ‘…her family was strongly opposed to the national policy of Apartheid. As a result she experienced house searches, phone tapping and police cars parked outside. She finally left her homeland with her son, Matt, like Clarkson before her, to escape this regime; but she left with a great warmth for the oppressed Black and other non-White fellow South Africans.” [https://www.metanoia.ac.uk/news/death-of-professor-maria-gilbert/ ] She was a teacher at Metanoia from 1986 till her retirement in 2018.
Together with Sue Fish and Brian Dobson, Clarkson founded Metanoia Institute in London in May 1984. It seems that Dobson worked as a physician and surgeon at Baragwanath Hospital for Black people in Johannesburg and as a psychiatrist at Tara Mental Hospital. Although Fish was born in the UK, she moved to Johannesburg aged two. She did two degrees in SA and worked in a special needs primary school. She met Clarkson when she invited Clarkson to give a talk at a behavioral science group she organised. (Information from https://www.metanoia.ac.uk)
Other TA practitioners in those early days included academics from the University of the Witwatersrand. Diana Shmukler was professor of Clinical Psychology there, and she and Merle Friedman promoted TA making it part of the psychology curriculum. It is not clear from whom Shmukler and Friedman learned their TA. Gradually a small group of South African therapists and counsellors formed a TA learning group. The group was an informal but organised association of practitioners using TA. They included Sharon Kalinko, who remembers doing her TA 101 and 202 with Gilbert and Clarkson in Johannesburg in 1977. Kalinko went on to qualify as a TSTA (P). She left South Africa for the UK around 8 years ago.
Gordon Law was another influential South African TA professional. Born around 1939 he grew up to become actively involved in opposition to Apartheid and white supremacy. He left SA around 1971, became involved at Metanoia and is known especially for his contribution to spiritually informed TA. He received the Muriel James Living Principles Award in 2015.
Early articles in the TAJ
Between 1982 and 1992, there were 11 articles in the TAJ from Shmukler, Friedman, and Clarkson. They expanded TA beyond classical theory by integrating it with developmental psychology, family systems theory, object relations, attachment theory and play theory. They moved TA towards an integrative approach, laying the foundation for the development of relational TA.
It is interesting to note how many South Africans were involved in TA in the 1970’s but then chose (or were forced) to leave SA because of the unjust system of Apartheid and their opposition to the system – a real living out of the I’m OK, You’re OK philosophy of TA! Many of them were part of the beginnings of Metanoia – a training institution still doing important work today!
Ongoing development of TA and a shift towards social responsibility and community development
Another South African, Diane Salters, returned from 25 years in exile in the UK in 1993, just before the 1994 democratic elections in SA. She had done her TA training joining Metanoia in 1982, qualified as a CTA (P) in 1985 and later as a TSTA (P).
Salters worked as a therapist, as well as using TA in community work. In a sense, she was the bridge between psychotherapy and developmental TA in SA. She saw TA as a social and educational model rather than just a psychotherapeutic model. As an political activist she was deeply involved with creating spaces for people across the diversity of South Africans to connect and begin to heal. This work formed the basis of her 2006 TAJ article and the indigenizing of the OK Corral to the OK Kraal.
Together with Samkele Mhlanga, one of her important contributions was the creation of Care for Carers, a programme for volunteers working with HIV and AIDS affected people in poor communities run by AIDS Response, later renamed The Wellness Foundation.
Salters also worked closely with and was inspired by Anne Hope and Sally Timmel who had already encountered TA and included it in their Training for Transformation approach. This approach drew on Paulo Freire’s ideas of critical consciousness and participatory education. A section on TA appears in the 2nd volume of their much-used handbook. This approach was influential in the SA context of anti-apartheid education in community organizations. Hope, having been threatened with arrest and going into exile in Kenya and Zimbabwe, was invited by Steve Biko, an important SA activist & leading thinker of the Black Consciousness Movement, to return from exile and work with him. It is inspiring to know that TA is part of this and continues to be part of community development even in the post-Apartheid SA.
Brendah Gaine first encountered TA in the late 1980’s in the UK and did her TA training at Metanoia She left the UK for SA in 1999 with her 4 year old granddaughter whom she had adopted. She had met Colin Brett at a lecture at Metanoia, and he invited her to meet him in Cape Town on one of his visits there and run a training weekend with his TA group. So began her involvement with the South African TA community.
As well as her involvement with the Wellness Foundation Care for Carers programmes, in 2005, Gaine, with her firm commitment to the social application of TA, went on to be one of six founders of a grief and trauma organization now known as Khululeka Grief Support. This was a group of multicultural women responding to the growing number of children who had lost parents in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Khululeka Grief Support is still very active in the Western Cape.
Gaine returned to the UK in 2008.
Other international TA influences
Valerie Batts was an American TA activist and therapist who travelled to SA several times. Her first visit was in 1992, and she continued to visit regularly till 2002. The South African, Dr Julian Sonn, had gone into exile in the US and met up with Batts and her VISIONS programme. It was Sonn who invited her to work in his homeland at a time when SA was preparing for the transition to democracy. Batts (private communication) fondly remembers her work with the Cape Town City Council in 1992 and 1993 and the reconstituted Police Service after the democratic elections in 1994. She travelled to SA again in 2016 and 2017 to work with a new generation of consultants working in corporate and university settings in Johannesburg.
Over the years in the early 2000’s, various other TA trainers visited SA – some on a very regular basis. These included: Colin Brett, Trudi Newton, Joanna Beasley-Richards, Rosemary Napper and Julie Hay. Brett TSTA (O) was a key TA trainer in SA, visiting Cape Town from his home in the UK on a monthly basis to run TA training weekends. Newton, too, visited SA many times over the years. After loving her first visit to the country in 1997, she visited as a guest trainer in Brett’s training group in 2003, and in subsequent trips visited community organizations and schools, offering workshops and supervision training until 2019 when Covid made travel impossible.
Formation of the SATAA and the 2008 World Conference
Having had the SATAA formally registered as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Kalinko and Salters organized the 2008 World TA Conference in Johannesburg – the first ever world conference! It was a very successful conference with the theme of Cradled by Culture – The journey of Humankind. They intentionally included TA speakers as well as local non -TA speakers in an attempt both to showcase the work of local peoples well as hoping to interest them in studying TA. The opening address was given by Nozizwe Madlala-Rouledge, a member of Parliament in SA with a strong history of social upliftment. Keynotes were given by Richard Erskine and Pearl Drego. There were many workshops from TA professionals as well as local community leaders, which showcased the richness of work and thinking in the new democratic South Africa.
My own TA journey
I began training with Colin Brett doing my TA 101 in 2000 and continuing with my further training over the next few years. As there were no educational TA trainers living in SA, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to overseas conferences as the regional representative for Africa on the ITAA Board, and I actively sought out educational TA trainers from whom I could learn. I achieved my CTA (E) at the Johannesburg World Conference in 2008. It was a proud moment both to be the first CTA in education in SA, as well as being able to be certified in my own country! With Trudi Newton as my sponsor, I went on to achieve my TSTA (E) certification in 2016. Brett has impacted the local TA landscape significantly with Marguerite Sacco and me being part of the new generation of CTAs in SA.
Many people in South Africa use TA in their work – as coaches, consultants, trainers and teachers. Marguerite Sacco (PTSTA-O) actively uses TA in organizations and teams. Advanced TA trainees Clive Vanderwagen, Andrew Matthews, Kirsty Melmed and Alex van Oostveen use TA in various developmental areas including parenting, self-awareness workshops, organisational development, mentor coaching, supervision and work in schools.
I look forward to the ongoing journey of TA in South Africa with a vision of the SATAA being both the container holding our heritage, as well as continuing to expand in new ways to support people interested in how TA can add a rich dimension to their lives!
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