Manchester Transactional Analysis Conference

Manchester Transactional Analysis Conference, Saturday 20th June 2026, "Being and OKness - Transactional Analysis and Spirituality"

Morning Workshops

Yinka Junaid (MSc TA Psychotherapy, Certified Transactional Analyst, EMDR Europe Accredited Practitioner, MA MBACP (Accred) Psychotherapist and Supervisor)

Holding hope while supporting clients with profound trauma. Maintaining mutual respect for self and others.


In this workshop we will explore ways to cultivate a culture of psychological safety and respect, a place where individuals feel valued and understood.
This workshop is about how we can stay ok with ourselves in the face of our client’s profound trauma. We will examine the importance of recognising and nurturing our core self/soul, and our interconnectedness with others.
We will consider what supports, and what reduces empowerment for each of us; we will include religious and spiritual dimensions and their impact on resilience.
Come with a willingness to share, explore, and learn with each other. I hope that we will all go away enriched.


Yinka is a Certified Transactional Analysis specialising in Psychotherapy, and an accredited member of BACP. She is a registered Practitioner in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) and a trained, Level 1-3, Emotional Freedom
Technique Practitioner. Yinka enjoys selecting from a range of techniques and theories to work with a diverse range of clients



Aims and Objectives:

Ben Groves ( PTSTA, CTA, MSW, UKATAdip, CTF, PEP2, BA(hons))

Locked Out of Faith

Most people hold an internal construct of faith, often non-religious, that gives meaning, direction, or a sense of coherence to life. During periods of stress, crisis, or trauma, individuals can become "locked out" of this faith process. Much like Maslow's hierarchy,
when attention is pulled toward survival or lower-level needs, access to higher-order meaning and values can become restricted.

This workshop will explore how internal faith constructs develop, how they may become disrupted, and how we can recognise when clients are 'locked out' of this aspect of their experience. We can use a number of TA models to understand this, such as structural exclusions as a way of understanding the process, to assess using tools like an internal stroking profile, and to use the concept of autonomy to describe a reconnection to faith.

Participants will consider practical ways to identify, explore, and work with faith constructs in therapeutic practice.


Ben is a psychotherapist based in York, his busy private practice (Est.2019) has four main parts: offering Psychotherapy, Supervising, Teaching, and Consultation. Ben tries to balance this with his young family. Ben is also a Social Worker, in which he worked for over 10 years before the move to TA.



Aims and Objectives: The aim of the workshop is to bring to awareness the ideas of internal faith, how to practically engage with these such as considering prayer life and how this can breakdown. Practically considering ways to help reconnect our clients with their faith or construct new faith understanding.

Theory to be Covered:

Lohani Noor (MSc Psychosexual Therapies, TA DIP, PGDip Urban Education)

Where is the Free Child when the lights go off?

The conference theme, "Being and OK-ness," finds a profound testing ground in the realm of sexuality. Where is the Free Child when the lights go off? How does the Critical Parent whisper shame into intimacy? This workshop offers a peek into the integration of Transactional Analysis and Psychosexual Therapy, proposing that erotic wellbeing is a core expression of our existential life position.
We will introduce the concept of the "Erotic Self" the embodied seat of desire, vulnerability, and pleasure and examine how it is scripted by early messages (injunctions, drivers) and policed by internal ego-state dynamics. Participants will learn to see common psychosexual presentations (e.g., low desire, performance anxiety, pleasure disconnect) not merely as dysfunctions, but as intelligent adaptations reflecting shifts from the "OK Corral."
Moving from diagnosis to intervention, the workshop provides a practical toolkit. We will explore how to use decontamination to challenge sexual "shoulds," employ therapeutic potency to give new permissions for pleasure, and facilitate somatic awareness to reconnect clients with the Free Child's capacity for authentic sensation.
This is a workshop for therapists ready to help clients (and themselves) reclaim a more integrated, confident, and OK relationship to their erotic being, transforming intimacy from a scripted performance into an expression of whole-self presence.

Lohani is a Psychotherapist Registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapists (UKCP) and Accredited by the College of Sexual and Relational Therapists (COSRT) and specialises in Psychosexual Therapies. Lohani is based in Manchester UK, where she is the Director of The Institute for Relational and Sexual Therapies (ThIRST). She also maintains a healthy private practice. She is the Author of audible classic, '12 steps to sexual connection'. Her next book 'Psychosexual Therapies: 100 Key Concepts and Techniques' will be available from Routledge in Spring of 2026.


Aims and Objectives:
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Afternoon Workshops

Robin Hobbes (BA, CQSW, CTA(p), TSTA(p))

Hope - The Impasse of Being – Sufism in Transactional Analysis?

In this workshop I will draw on some aspects of Ibn al-Arabi’s Sufis knowledge to throw some light on the notion of Okness and Impasse that is found in Transactional Analysis. Ibn al-Arabi was an Andalusian Arab Sunni scholar, Sufi mystic, poet, and philosopher who lived from July 1165 to November 1240. He is considered one of the most influential and profound thinkers in Islamic history who left a large number of manuscripts on Sufism. One of them is The Meccan Revelations: A monumental, encyclopaedic work of tremendous size that covers all the esoteric sciences in Islam, theology, and his personal spiritual experiences.

Robin Hobbes BA, CQSW, CTA(p), TSTA(p) is the Director of elan training, a psychotherapy and counselling training centre in Manchester. Elan training was founded by Robin and his wife Judi Ledward 40 years ago. He has been the Secretary, Chairman and Chair of Ethics for the British Institute of Transactional Analysis. He was the Ethical Advisor to the European Transactional Analysis Association for 10 years and was recently awarded their Gold Medal for services to TA.
He has written a number of articles and chapters in books on TA.
Throughout his life he has cultivated a spiritual stance on life that has twisted and turned the way it is meant to. The spiritual practices he has followed have included Christianity, Advaita Vedanta, Yoga, Mantra Meditation and most recently Sufism. He describes himself as a universalist who follows no one creed and affirms inclusivity.

Aims and Objectives:

Uzma Khan (UKCP Accredited Integrative Psychotherapist)

Insight & Revelation. Working with Muslim clients - a glimpse into the therapy room and "beyond"!

This workshop reveals the importance of the spiritual paradigm when working with Muslim clients. The Islamic theory of personality based on Islamic concepts of the heart (Qalb), self (Nafs) and soul (Ruh) will be presented in relation to TA and mainstream psychotherapy. Highlighting resourceful ways of integrating TA concepts with Islamic Psychology to aid the therapeutic process and 'open channels of communication'.

Uzma Khan is UKCP Accredited Integrative Psychotherapist and an experienced practitioner who has worked in mental health for over 20 years. She is passionate about inter-group connectivity and working with community based projects.
Presently she is the Chair of Board of Directors for IHSAAN (Ihsaan.org.uk) which is the first specialised psychotherapy and counselling service in England that provides psychological therapies compatible with Islamic psychology. This is a holistic service that is language, culturally and spiritually sensitive and caters to the needs of Muslim clients suffering from mild to moderate mental health issues in Bradford and West Yorkshire (England). Uzma's interests include working in a TA and integrative framework. The ethos driving her work is that healing comes from awareness and change.


Aims and Objectives:
To gain insight into client's intrapsychic process, and how this is effected by changing world events and global connectivity:

Sarah Demaree (CTA, PTSTA (P))

I'm OK, You're OK, They're Not OK: Rediscovering our Soul in Divided Times

These are difficult times we are living in. There is a strong sense of division, a sense that if your political/religious/social beliefs are different to mine, I can't really respect you/love you/support you. So how do we work with those whose values differ from ours?
In this workshop, we will explore whether TA can offer us a sense of mutuality to bridge our differences: within our TA communities, within our therapy rooms, within our training institutes, and within our world. Can we step out of Drego's "Ain't they awful?" game and create spaces to tolerate differing values and beliefs?

Sarah is a psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer in central London. Her recent focus has been on neuroscience; neurodivergence; relationships, especially neurodivergent couples and blended families; and the impact of women's health issues such as Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) and endometriosis on mental health.


Aims and Objectives:
In this workshop, we will use personal experience and common TA theories to: