STAA Annual Conference 2026

Challenging the Orthodoxy: Embodied, Erotic, Equal

Saturday 21 November 2026 | 09:30–17:00
The Studio, Hope Street, Glasgow

Join us in Glasgow for the STAA Annual Conference 2026 — a full day of learning, connection and exploration as we continue this year’s theme, Challenging the Orthodoxy: Embodied, Erotic, Equal.

Keynote: Feeling our way: Eros, risk, and the limits of rationality with Helen Rowland TSTA(P)

We are delighted to welcome Helen Rowland TSTA(P) as our 2026 keynote speaker.

Helen will open the conference by challenging the idea that psychological health is simply about being rational, controlled and productive. Drawing on depth, embodied and relational psychotherapy, she will invite us instead to consider the self as contradictory, desiring and alive. To explore what becomes possible when we make room for uncertainty, risk, vitality and the parts of experience that cannot be neatly resolved through rationality alone.

10 workshops. One day. Plenty to explore, stretch and disturb.

Across the day, delegates will be able to choose from 10 diverse and experiential workshops, exploring subjects including relationships and relational patterns, neurodivergence and obsessive processes, eating disorders, gendered trauma, chronic illness, creativity and music, organisational life, embodiment, queer relationships, and fresh ways of thinking about established TA theory.

Expect workshops that invite you not only to think differently, but to experiment, question, move, create, reflect and engage with TA in new ways.

Our workshops are open to people from all four fields of Transactional Analysis - Psychotherapy, Counselling, Educational and Organisational. Whatever your field, we invite you to take the ideas and experiences of the day and consider how they might translate into your own relationships, practice and professional context.

Come prepared to question what we take for granted, encounter something new, and perhaps leave thinking about TA, and yourself. a little differently.

Workshops

• Queer Eye for your Friendship Ties: Using Relationship Anarchy to Challenge the Orthodoxy of Normative Relationship Scripts — Carina Badger CTA(P)
  Explore how relationship anarchy and queer theory can challenge assumptions about which relationships we value and why.
• Re-imagining Berne’s Ego State Model in the Context of Survival, Creativity and Connection — Amy Cooper PTSTA(P) & Caroline Hawkey Barnes
  Reconsider Berne’s familiar ego state model and explore new ways of thinking about self, connection, creativity and our relationship with the wider world.
• “Sorry, I Don’t Work With That”: A Relational Perspective on Eating Disorders — Vicki McLellan
  Explore eating disorders as relational and embodied survival strategies while reflecting on the assumptions and responses we bring into the therapeutic relationship.
• Dirty, Disgusting and Doomed! The Obsession Nobody Sees: TA Interventions for Pure O in Autistic Clients — Hayley Johnson
  Discover neurodiversity-affirming TA approaches to working with intrusive thoughts, shame and obsessive processes in autistic clients.
• Dismantling the Patriarchal Script: A Liberation-Centred Approach to Gendered Trauma Work — Jaswinder (Jazz) Rehal & Laura McCarthy
  Examine how patriarchal power shapes gendered trauma and explore a liberation-centred TA approach that supports agency, autonomy and healing.
• Dancing Your Relational Patterns — Dr Sari van Poelje TSTA(O)
  Use salsa, movement and reflection to explore how we lead, follow, connect and balance autonomy with interdependence in relationships.
• Meeting Beyond Words: An Invitation to Embodied and Equal Encounter — Sally Holloway
  Explore the unspoken dimensions of relationship through presence, silence, gaze, symbolic play and embodied encounter.
• Should I Stay or Should I Go? – Rhythm, Music and Permission in Therapy — Hanna Konoplianyk PTSTA(P) & Lisa Cherry-Byrnes
  Experience how rhythm and music can create new possibilities for regulation, connection, spontaneity and change.
• An Invitation to Challenge the Orthodoxy of Working Relationally with People Who Have a Genetic or Chronic Illness — Gwynneth Evans
  Explore love, dignity and relational practice when working alongside people, families and communities affected by genetic and chronic illness.
• The impact of the places we meet on our way of life (orthodoxy), our propensity for life (erotic), our lived experience (embodiment) and our relationships (equal) — Lisa Paul PTSTA(E)
  Through interactive discussion and practical activities, we will explore and critique TA theory in the context of the place we gather and of our current sociopolitical climate.

More information on our workshops can be found here: Workshop Details

*workshops to be selected when purchasing tickets