Introduction of Transactional Analysis

Brief Introduction of Transactional Analysis:Transactional Analysis, in its most basic form tries to raise your awareness of how you interact and communicate at various times, in various situations and with various people. The aim of Transactional Analysis is to gain awareness. Having an understanding of it will help you to stop for a moment before behaving in a predictable manner and decide if you want to carry on behaving that way. It helps to locate the influences that we are sometimes unaware of that shape our behavior. This can translate into our home lives, work or in fact anywhere when we have to talk with other people. That is why this is sometimes known as the theory of social intercourse. Definition of Transactional Analysis:Transactional analysis was first identified by Eric Berne in the 1950s, Transactional Analysis is a simple, practical and comprehensive theory of human personality and human relationships. Transactional analysis has been effectively used in the field of Education, Counseling, Psychotherapy, Organizational Development, Human Relations, Marginal Effectiveness, Personality, Growth etc. Transactional analysis provides a technology for personal growth and social change, term building and motivation, clear thinking and inner freedom etc.

Importance of Transactional Analysis

Modern people wear many masks and have many forms of armor that keep their reality confined and unknown, even to themselves. The personality of encountering ones reality learning about ones self can be frightening and frustrating. Many people expect to discover the worst. A hidden fear lies in the fact that they may also discover the best. To discover the worst is to face the decision of whether or not to continue same patterns. To learn the best is to the decision of whether or not to live up to it. Either discovery may involve change and is therefore anxiety provoking. However, this can be creative anxiety which may be thought o as excitement, the excitement of changing ones possibilities for being a Winner. Transactional analysis is a tool you can sue to know yourself, to know how to relate to others, and to discover what dramatic course your life is taking. The unit of personality structure is Ego State. Let us see How Transactional analysis has been effectively used in the field of Psychotherapy, Counseling, Education, Organizational Development, etc? 1. Psychotherapy Transactional analysis is a powerful tool to bring about human well being. In psychotherapy, transactional analysis utilizes a contract for specific changes desired by the client and involves the "Adult" in both the client and the clinician to sort out behaviors, emotions and thoughts that prevent the development of full human potential. 2. Counseling Counselors who utilize transactional analysis work contractually on solving "here and now" problems. Counseling work focuses on creating productive problem solving behaviors. Using transactional analysis, counselor's establish an egalitarian, safe and mutually respectful working relationship with their clients. This working relationship provides tools clients can utilize in their day-to-day functions to improve the quality of their lives.

3. Educational Transactional Analysis is a practical educational psychology that offers a way of transforming educational philosophy and principles into everyday practice. TA concepts provide a flexible and creative approach to understanding how people function and to the connections between human behavior, learning and education. Teaching them to both teachers and students is a process of empowerment, enhancing effective methods of interaction and mutual recognition. 4. Organizational Development Transactional Analysis is a powerful tool in the hands of organizational development specialists. Through presenting the basic concepts of transactional analysis and using it as the basic theory to undergird the objectives of their clients, organizational development specialists build a common strategy with which to address the particular needs of organizations and to build a functional relationship, as well as eliminate dysfunctional organizational behaviors.

Parts of Transactional Analysis

1. Structural Analysis:Describes the relevant part of the individual personality and how they are formed and developed. 2. Transactional Analysis:The analysis of what people do and say to each other in transactions between them. 3. Script Analysis:The analysis of specific script each individual makes for himself inadvertently and plays out as a life-drama. 4. Game Analysis:The analysis of ulterior transactions leading to payoffs.

Concepts related to Transactional Analysis

1. Ego States
Berne devised the concept of ego states to help explain how we are made up, and how we relate to others. These are drawn as three stacked circles and they are one of the building blocks of Transactional Analysis. They categories the ways we think, feel and behave and are called Parent, Adult, and Child. Each ego state is given a capital letter to denote the difference between actual parents, adults and children.

1.1 Types of Ego States

A.

Parent ego state

This is a set of feelings, thinking and behaviour that we have copied from our parents and significant others. As we grow up we take in ideas, beliefs, feelings and behaviours from our parents and caretakers. If we live in an extended family then there are more people to learn and take in from. When we do this, it is called introjecting and it is just as if we take in the whole of the care giver. For example, we may notice that we are saying things just as our father, mother, grandmother may have done, even though, consciously, we don't want to. We do this as we have lived with this person so long that we automatically reproduce certain things that were said to us, or treat others as we might have been treated. The Parent ego state can be divided into two functions, a. One part includes the nurturing side and can be soft, loving, and permission giving. This is called the Nurturing Parent ego state. It can also set limits in a healthy way.

b. The

other side of the Parent ego state is called the Critical Parent. (It is also sometimes called the Prejudiced Parent.) This part of our personality contains the prejudged thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that we learned from our parents. Some of the messages that we hold in our Parent ego state can be helpful in living while other Parent messages are not. It is useful for us to sort out what information we carry around in our heads so we can keep the part that helps us in our lives and change the part that does not.

B.

Adult ego state

The Adult ego state is about direct responses to the here and now. We deal with things that are going on today in ways that are not unhealthily influenced by our past. The Adult ego state is about being spontaneous and aware with the capacity for intimacy. When in our Adult we are able to see people as they are, rather than what we project onto them. We ask for information rather than stay scared and rather than make assumptions. Taking the best from the past and using it appropriately in the present is an integration of the positive aspects of both our Parent and Child ego states. So this can be called the Integrating Adult. Integrating means that we are constantly updating ourselves through our every day experiences and using this to inform us.

C.

Child ego state

The Child ego state is the part of our personality that is the seat of emotions, thoughts, and feelings and all of the feeling state memories that we have of ourselves from childhood. We carry around in our Child ego states all of the experiences we have had, and sometimes these child like ways of being pop up in our grown-up lives. This can be fun when we are in a situation in which it is safe and right to play and enjoy ourselves. It can be a problem when our Child view of the world causes us to distort the facts in a current situation and prevents our Adult ego state from seeing things accurately. The Child ego state can also be divided into two parts: the Free Child ego state (also referred to as the Natural Child) and the Adapted Child ego state (which also contains the Rebellious Child ego state). 1. The Free Child is the seat of spontaneous feeling and behavior. It is the side of us that experiences the world in a direct and immediate way. Our Free Child ego state can be playful, authentic, expressive, and emotional. It, along with the Adult, is the seat of creativity. Having good contact with our own Free Child is an essential ingredient for having an intimate relationship. When we adapt in ways that make us less in touch with our true selves (our Free Child), we decrease the amount of intimacy we are able to have in our lives. 2. The Adapted Child is the part of our personality that has learned to comply with the parental messages we received growing up. We all adapt in one way or another. Sometimes when we are faced with parental messages that are

restricting, instead of complying with them, we rebel against them. This becomes our Rebellious Child ego state. This can be seen as an alternative to complying. It is still, however, a response to the parent messages, and so it is a kind of adaptation all its own. Let's take a very simple example of a child playing in the sand and look at how the different content develops in the different ego states: Nurturing Parent: Go ahead, play and have fun! Critical Parent: Now, don't you DARE get yourself all messy! Adult: This sand looks really interesting. I can make a castle. Free Child: WOW! Look how tall my castle is!!!!! Adapted Child: I better not get my clothes all dirty. Rebellious Child: I don't CARE if I do get dirty! (While dumping a bucket of sand on her head)

2. Transactions Analysis
Another important transactional analysis concept is that of transactions. Transactions are about how people interact with each other, specifically, which ego state in me is talking to which ego state in you. You may have noticed that sometimes communication continues in a straightforward, easy way that seems to go smoothly. But at other times, things seem to get all jumbled up, confusing, unclear, and unsatisfying. An understanding of transactions can help you keep your communication with others as clear as you would like it to be.

2.1 Types of Transactions

A. Straight transactions (or complementary transactions): We can understand the straight transactions through these Figures.

P A C

P A C

Adult: Will you tell me what time it is? Adult: Yes, it is four oclock.

P A C

P A C

Parent: You have to go to bed right now! Child: Please Cant I just finish this The first example is easy to understand. In the second example the two people are not in agreement, however the communication is clear. Both are examples of straight transactions; the arrows are straight or parallel. When people use straight (or complementary) transactions, communication can continue indefinitely. It is when people cross transactions that communication breaks down. B. Crossed transactions: We can understand the crossed transaction through these Figures.

P A C

P A C

Adult: Can you tell me what time it is? Adapted Child: Why are you always rushing me?

P A C

P A C

Adult: Can you tell me what time it is? Adapted Child: Why are you always rushing me? Here we see two different examples in which communication breaks down. In the first, the respondent comes from a Child ego state instead of Adult, thereby crossing the transaction. The speaker has two options. She can either stay in her Adult ego state and try again to hook the Adult in the responder (I didn't mean to rush you. I really just wanted to know the time), or she can get hooked and move into her Parent ego state and respond that way (e.g., saying angrily, Why do you have to be so sensitive?). In the second example, the respondent comes from a Critical Parent ego state to cross the transaction, and this communication breaks down. There are many other ways to cross transactions. When we learn to recognize and differentiate between straight and crossed transactions we increase our ability to communicate clearly with others.

Analysis of Life Position

Life positions are basic beliefs about self and others, which are used to justify decisions and behavior. 1. I am OK and You are OK:When we are conceived we are hopefully at peace, waiting to emerge into the world once we have grown sufficiently to be able to survive in the outside of the womb. If nothing untoward happens we will emerge contented and relaxed. In this case we are likely to perceive the world from the perspective of I am OK and You are OK. 2. I am not OK and You are not OK:However, perhaps our mother had some traumatic experiences, or the birth was difficult or even life threatening. This experience is likely to have an effect on the way we experience the world, even at the somatic level. In which case we might emerge sensing that life is scary and might, for example, go into "I am not OK and You are not OK either". 3.

I am not OK and You are OK:-

Let's take it that the pregnancy went fine, and the birth was easy enough. What then? Well life experiences might reinforce our initial somatic level life position, or contradict it. If we were treated punitively, talked down to, and not held, we may begin to believe "I am not OK and You are OK". This might be the only sense we can make of our experiences. 4.

I am OK and You are not OK:-

Let's take another situation. Perhaps we were picked on and bullied as a child. We learnt that the way to get by was to bully others and that way we felt stronger and in control. Our behavior then comes into the I am OK and You are not OK quadrant. Of course this may cover up our belief that we are really not OK, but nobody sees that. They just see our behavior, and in fact we may have forgotten all about our negative feelings about ourselves as we have tried so hard to deny the pain of believing we are not OK.

These life positions are perceptions of the world. The reality is I just am and you just are, therefore how I view myself and others are just that "views" not fact. However, we tend to act as if they are a fact. Just like when somebody says "I can't do this, I'm useless". Rather than "I don't know how to do this Will you show me?" The latter is staying with the fact that they do not yet know how to do it, whilst the former links being useless with not being able to do something. There are a number of ways of diagramming the life positions. Franklin Ernst drew the life positions in quadrants, which he called the OK Corral (1971). We have put these into red and green to show the effective and ineffective quadrants for communication and healthy relationships. By shading in the quadrants according to the amount of time we think we spend in each we can get an idea of the amount of time we spend in each. Ernst used the term 'Corralogram' for this method of self-assessment using the OK Corral matrix