Oct 16, 2015
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Transactional analysis or TA is a branch of psychotherapydeveloped 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 childdevelopment.
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Bernes model is a three part ego-state model. An ego state isA 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.
ADULT
CHILDPARENT
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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.
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1. Its not my fault my drinkgot spilt on your newcarpet
2. I wonder what might havecaused that accident
3. For goodness sake, cleanup that mess.
4. Shall we clean up the messtogether with a wet cloth?
5. I refuse to get involved in
this incident.
CHILD
ADULT
PARENT
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Berne said that when people are in their different ego statesand they interact with other people, four main types oftransaction(or interaction) can happen.
To make it easy to analyse what is happening, Bernedeveloped a little diagram like this, to represent a person
with their three ego states Parent, Adult and Child.
P
A
C
Interacts with Person B on right
P
A
C
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ComplementaryTransactions
P
A
C
P
A
C
Youre three hours late,
I want an explanation.
MANAGER EMPLOYEE
Im really sorry, I slept
through the alarm, it
wont happen again, I
promise.
This is a
complementary
transaction
because the
employee acceptsthe child ego state
assigned to him by
the manager and
responds in child
ego state.
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P
A
C
P
A
C
MANAGER EMPLOYEE
Youre three
hours late, I want
an explanation.
Oh, didnt you get
held up by that
crash on the
motorway as
well?
This is a crossedtransaction because
although the manager,
parentego state,
attempted to address the
employee as a child, the
employee refusesthisego state and responds in
adultego state to the
managers ego state.
A crossedtransaction is
any transaction where theperson being spoken to
refusesthe ego state they
are assigned by the first
speaker.
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P
A
C
P
A
C
SALESPERSON CUSTOMER
Thats the latest iPod
and theres 50% off at
the moment, if you are
interested
Wow, thats
amazingIll
take one!
This is an AngularTransactionbecause
the sales person is
talking on more than
one level, appearing to
address the customers
Adultego state buttrying to hook the
customers Childego
state, because the
Child is impulsive and
may be seduced by the
50% off the iPod andbuy it! This is what
happens, and the
customer answers in
Child ego state and
buys the iPod!
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P
A
C
P
A
C
ATTRACTIVE
BOYATTRACTIVE
GIRL
Do you come
here often?No, not really,
do you?Whoar,
youregorgeous
Wish
youd
just
kissme!
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 inAdult 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.
Social Level
Psychological Level
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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.
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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 willhappen 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 anunconventional way of looking at things.
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Berne believed that a lot of people get stuck in oneego state more than the other two and that thismay be due to early childhood experiences. Histheory was that in childhood we have a life positionassigned to us, because of the experiences we havefrom birth onwards.
He thinks there are four possible life positionsIm not OK, Youre OKIm not OK, Youre not OK
Im OK, Youre not OKIm OK, Youre OK
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Berne believes that everyone is born in the same LifePositionIm not OK, Youre OK
The reason you are not OK
when you are born is becauseyou are dependent on othersfor all your needs. They areOK, because they have theability to satisfy their ownneeds and your needs.
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Berne says the ideal life position to reach is Im OK, YoureOK, where you are in a position to satisfy your own needsand 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 OKIm OK, Youre not OK
He says this happens because of the wrong kind ofexperiences in childhood which result in either very low self
esteem or too high self esteem.
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Im not OK, Youre not OK
Im OK, Youre not OK
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Berne thinks that peoples life positions tend to determinethe script of their life in other words.
If you think the world is against you Im not OK, Youre notOK, you will tend to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy.Your script will be a negative one, which makes yourcommunication with others negative and makes negativethings 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 pessimisticperson. Howyou approach life and encounters with otherpeople, affect howthese encounters progress.
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Berne felt that people in the life position Im notOK, Youre OK or Im not OK, Youre not OK werepeople with low self esteem. He felt that thesepeople find it hard to interact with people in a
straightforward way so they play games.
His definition of game was sets of ulteriortransactions, repetitive in nature, with a well defined
psychological pay off. In other words, aninteraction with a hidden motive where one of theparticipants is gaining something underhand fromthe encounter.
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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 carriedout E.g. my computer screen freezes, I get stressed and hit it.
Common games include: oh how I suffer Isnt it awfulvictim, persecutor, rescuer and If it werent for you
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Games can be recognised by set verbalphrases which tend to be repeated in theconversation. Here are some of the games
Berne spotted: Why dont you?, Yes but.. Ive got you, you son of a bitch (clip from English Accent)
Frigid woman Kick me
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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
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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 whatyou 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 nostroke at all.
Stewart and Jones identify that this is supported by work on rats where onegroup were given electric shocks and the other group were not. The rats given
the shocks developed better as they were receiving some stimulation.
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Conditionalstrokes relate to what you do. Unconditionalstrokes 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 upI hate you and all which you represent
As infants we test out behaviours to find out which give us the strokes weneed. 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 fromalbeit unconsciously learnt)