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Transactional analysis or TA is a branch of psychotherapy developed by Eric Berne.

His definition of it is a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and change. Knowing about TA can be very useful for improving our communication skills. TA is about how people are structured psychologically and is both a theory of communication and a theory of child development.

Bernes model is a three part ego-state model. An ego state is A consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behaviour.

Berne believed that when we interact with other people, our state of mind affects what happens He believed that there were three states of mind in all humans, no matter how old they were, called ego states.

PARENT

ADULT CHILD

Ego states are irrespective of age and are capitalised to differentiate from the normal use of the words parent, adult and child. The Parent and Child ego states are echoes of the past. The Adult ego state is a response to the here and now when a person is grown up and using grown up responses. Ego states are things not names. They are a set and related; thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Communication between people can be from one ego state to a different one or from one ego state to the same ego state.

1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

Its not my fault my drink got spilt on your new carpet I wonder what might have caused that accident For goodness sake, clean up that mess. Shall we clean up the mess together with a wet cloth? I refuse to get involved in this incident.

CHILD ADULT

PARENT

Berne said that when people are in their different ego states and they interact with other people, four main types of transaction (or interaction) can happen. To make it easy to analyse what is happening, Berne developed a little diagram like this, to represent a person with their three ego states Parent, Adult and Child.

P
Interacts with Person B on right

P
A C

Complementary Transactions
P
A C
MANAGER
Youre three hours late, I want an explanation.

P
A C
EMPLOYEE
Im really sorry, I slept through the alarm, it wont happen again, I promise.

This is a complementary transaction because the employee accepts the child ego state assigned to him by the manager and responds in child ego state.

P
A C
MANAGER
Youre three hours late, I want an explanation.

P
A C
EMPLOYEE
Oh, didnt you get held up by that crash on the motorway as well?

This is a crossed transaction because although the manager, parent ego state, attempted to address the employee as a child, the employee refuses this ego state and responds in adult ego state to the managers ego state.
A crossed transaction is any transaction where the person being spoken to refuses the ego state they are assigned by the first speaker.

P
A C
SALES PERSON
Thats the latest iPod and theres 50% off at the moment, if you are interested

P A

C
CUSTOMER
Wow, thats amazing Ill take one!

This is an Angular Transaction because the sales person is talking on more than one level, appearing to address the customers Adult ego state but trying to hook the customers Child ego state, because the Child is impulsive and may be seduced by the 50% off the iPod and buy it! This is what happens, and the customer answers in Child ego state and buys the iPod!

P
Social Level

P A
Psychological Level

A
C
ATTRACTIVE BOY Do you come here often? Whoar, youre
gorgeous

C
ATTRACTIVE GIRL No, not really, do you?

This is a Duplex Transaction because the whole interaction is working on two levels. Both people are pretending to address Adult ego state and be in Adult ego state but they are both in Child ego state and want to address Child ego state but cant because of social norms and manners.

Wish youd just kiss me!

For effective communication you need to keep the transaction complementary i.e. focus on sender to receiver and receiver to sender where the message is sent to the ego state from which you expect a reply. Using ego states we can look at how others communicate and how we communicate with others. Its possible to identify which ego state we are in and which ego state we are expecting a reply from. We can also use TA to help us plan transactions. For example we can identify which ego state would be most valuable for us to send the message from and which ego state it would be better for it to be received by. If we receive a reply from the wrong (non expected) ego state then we can either try to shift the other persons ego state; or if we cannot do this it may be better to stop the communication and try again another time when the person may be in a different ego state.

We can listen to peoples communication to identify if they are habitually in one ego state and then decide if communication to that ego state would be appropriate or not. TA therefore can be used to elicit the reactions you want from other people (and this will happen consciously or unconsciously). We can help communication if we need to by trying to shift the other persons ego state by inviting people to move into a different ego state (they may not always move into it though, particularly if someone is habitually in one ego state). Do this by acknowledging their current ego state (by the appropriate message or response) and then invite them into another ego state by the words (and body language) which you use. We can invite people to move into Adult Ego State by asking questions, stating a few facts, asking for their opinion, asking for their preferences and views. Likewise if we want to create a Nurturing Parent Ego State then we can start the communication by asking for their help, seeking their advice, communicating fear and anxieties to them and asking for their expert opinion. Invitation to make them move into a Natural / Free Child by being oneself, showing the funny side of the situation, behaving like nurturing parent, being enthusiastic and showing an unconventional way of looking at things.

Berne believed that a lot of people get stuck in one ego state more than the other two and that this may be due to early childhood experiences. His theory was that in childhood we have a life position assigned to us, because of the experiences we have from birth onwards. He thinks there are four possible life positions Im not OK, Youre OK Im not OK, Youre not OK Im OK, Youre not OK Im OK, Youre OK

Berne believes that everyone is born in the same Life Position Im not OK, Youre OK

The reason you are not OK when you are born is because you are dependent on others for all your needs. They are OK, because they have the ability to satisfy their own needs and your needs.

Berne says the ideal life position to reach is Im OK, Youre OK, where you are in a position to satisfy your own needs and are happy that others are able to satisfy their needs. However, some people dont progress to this happy state, they get stuck in either
Im not OK, Youre not OK Im OK, Youre not OK

He says this happens because of the wrong kind of experiences in childhood which result in either very low self esteem or too high self esteem.

Im not OK, Youre not OK

Im OK, Youre not OK

Berne thinks that peoples life positions tend to determine the script of their life in other words. If you think the world is against you Im not OK, Youre not OK, you will tend to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your script will be a negative one, which makes your communication with others negative and makes negative things happen. Your non-verbal communication may be off-putting aggressive or withdrawn, your words may be the same.

It is a bit like being an optimistic person or a pessimistic person. How you approach life and encounters with other people, affect how these encounters progress.

Berne felt that people in the life position Im not OK, Youre OK or Im not OK, Youre not OK were people with low self esteem. He felt that these people find it hard to interact with people in a straightforward way so they play games. His definition of game was sets of ulterior transactions, repetitive in nature, with a well defined psychological pay off. In other words, an interaction with a hidden motive where one of the participants is gaining something underhand from the encounter.

Are repetitive Are played without Adult awareness Always end up with players experiencing racket feeling. Games entail an exchange of ulterior transactions between the players Games always include an element of surprise or confusion. Racket feeling a familiar emotion, learned and encouraged in childhood, experienced in many different stress situations, and useless as a means of problem solving but frequently carried out E.g. my computer screen freezes, I get stressed and hit it. Common games include: oh how I suffer Isnt it awful victim, persecutor, rescuer and If it werent for you

Games can be recognised by set verbal phrases which tend to be repeated in the conversation. Here are some of the games Berne spotted: Why dont you?, Yes but.. Ive got you, you son of a bitch Frigid woman Kick me
(clip from English Accent)

Between A shop keeper and a house wife: This one is better, but you cannot afford it Between A Teacher and a Student: This is a good topic, but you cannot handle it. Between an Expert and a Candidate: What you just said is totally wrong

verbal or non-verbal Positive or negative Conditional or unconditional A stroke is a unit of recognition. E.g. you walk down the street and see your neighbour. As you pass you smile and say hello. They smile and say yes, great day? Thats a positive stroke youve given and received. If your neighbour ignored you then you felt left out or deprived or wonder what you have done to offend them. Any transaction is an exchange of strokes. This may be entirely non-verbal. Positive strokes the receiver experiences it as being pleasant. Negative strokes the receiver experiences it as being painful. For example if your neighbour replied It was a nice day until I saw you! then thats an example of a negative stroke. But any kind of stroke is better than no stroke at all. Stewart and Jones identify that this is supported by work on rats where one group were given electric shocks and the other group were not. The rats given the shocks developed better as they were receiving some stimulation.

Conditional strokes relate to what you do. Unconditional strokes relate to what you are. E.g. Conditional: That was a good piece of work That painting youve done is a real mess Unconditional: Your humour always brightens things up I hate you and all which you represent

As infants we test out behaviours to find out which give us the strokes we need. If we receive strokes from a certain behaviour then we are likely to repeat it (and that can be where many of our learnt behaviours come from albeit unconsciously learnt)

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