29 Transactional Analysis-I

DR.Geeta Sachdev

1. Learning Objectives:

Basic objectives of this module are:

To understand the meaning of Transactional Analysis To know the various types of Ego States

To know the various types of transactions

2. Introduction

Eric Berne coined the concept of transactional analysis (TA) which is mainly a statement explaining the human personality. Transactional analysis was developed by Eric Berne for Psychotherapy in the 1950s. Trusting that life is a sequence of choices to be made &complications to be solved, he assumed that people have the intelligence & liberty to do both. Basically skilled in psychoanalysis, Berne required a theory which might be understood &reachable to everybody & started to develop what came to be named Transactional Analysis (TA). It is a social psychology & a method to improve communication. The theory sketches how we have advanced& treats ourselves, how we associate &interconnect with others, and proposes recommendations & interferences which will allow us to change &develop.Beforehand Berne firstly published his theories on Transactional Analysis, he used up years outlining of this approach. The fundamental to this approach was a transaction – the fundamental unit of social interaction. This unit of social intercourse is named as transaction. If two or more people come across each other earlier or later one of them will interconnect, or give some other hint of recognizing the existence of the others. It is termed as transactional stimulus. Another person will then say or do something which is in about connected to the stimulus, & it is termed as the transactional response.

This study of social transactions among people is named as Transactional Analysis (TA).

The aim of TA is to offer improved understanding of how people communicate to one another, so that they may have better communication & human connection. With this description, Dr. Berne demarcated the basic unit of analysis. At its fundamental level, Transactional Analysis is the method for studying interactions among individuals. By recognising& standardizing upon a single unit, progress & advancement of this theory was easily simplified. He had a positive view of the nature of persons. He supposed that children were born princes &princesses but were transformed into frogs by their parents & environment. He believed that people had the prospective to recoup their royal status on condition that they learned & applied the lessons of TA to their live

3. Types of Analysis:

The TA theory of human nature & human relationships initiates from data collected from four types of analyses.

The first one is structural analysis in this analysis a person’s personality is examined.

The second one is transactional analysis in this analysis what persons do & say to each other is considered.

Third analysis is Script analysis it deals with the specific life dramas people relish.

Lastly, game analysis is connected with which concealed transactions lead to a payoff for the person.

Precise discussion of all above mentioned four analyses is as below:

3.1 Structural analysis: it mentions that each person’s personality is divided into three diverse sources of behaviour or ego states, these are- the Parent, the Adult, and the Child. Each of these three indicate skeletal-muscular & verbal practises of behaviour & feeling grounded on emotions & experiences observed by persons in their early years.

The Parent aspect of personality includes commands, attitudes, & behaviours given generally by parents &significant authority figures. The Nurturing Parent shows itself in nurturing or facilitating behaviour & the Critical Parent conveys condemnation, control, &penalty.

The Adult functions reasonably& non-emotionally, providing unbiased information by using genuineness testing & a computer-like method to life.

The Child state contains of all the childlike instincts. The Child has two parts. The Adaptive Child arises as a result of demands from significant authority figures & can be marked by passivity. The Natural or Free Child signifies the impulsive, untutored, self-loving, pleasure-seeking part of the Child. The well-adjusted person permits the condition to define which ego state is in control, striking an even balance amongst the three.

3.2 The second sort of analysis is the examination of transactions, it is the heart of TA. A transaction is a unit of human communication or a stimulus-response connection between two people’s ego states. Transactions are congregated into three categories.

Complementary transactions occur when an answer comes from the ego state to which it was articulated.

Crossed transactions occur when a reply comes from one of the other two ego states. Covert, or ulterior, transactions comprise more than one ego state of individual person &encompass a psychological message that differs from the apparent message. The transaction sounds like one of the others but the real message sent is not vocalised.

3.3 Script analysis comprises an individual’s on-going program for a life drama. It orders where people are going with their lives & the paths that will lead there. The technique to learn about scripts is to examine time & relationships. It has important themes and three basic types: winner, loser, and non-winner. The constituents of scripts are directions from parents, a consistent personality development, a confirming childhood decision about oneself and life, a penchant for either success or failure, &a pattern for behaviour.

3.4 A game in TA is a continuous series of complementary hidden transaction continuing to a well-defined, predictable result. Games are mostly deceiving. It goes beyond an acknowledgement & confrontation of concealed communication to examine how games are used as defence or unconscious communication.

On the base of transactions & scripts, children develop life positions that shorten their concepts of self-worth & the worth of others. The four life positions are as: “I’m not OK-You’re OK” position is of those who feel stranded. “I’m not OK-You’re not OK” is the position of an individual who can hang on none. “I’m OK-You’re not OK” is the position of the individual who feels mistreated. “I’m OK-You’re OK” is the position of the healthy individual who has accurate expectations, good human relationships, and positive problem-solving capability. Strokes and rackets are significant concepts in TA.

A stroke is any act proposing gratefulness of another person’s presence & can be either positive or negative. Rackets are collections of explanations for behaviour & feelings.

KEY Points of TA

As per transactional analysis, an individual’s personality is comprised of three parts: the Parent, the Adult, & the Child.

Structural analysis is the examination of an individual’s personality.

Transactional analysis is the study of the communication between people.

Script analysis is the examination of the exact life dramas an individual steadily plays.

Game analysis is the analysis of hidden transactions leading to a recompense for the individual.

On the foundation of transactions & scripts, persons grow life positions.

4. Explanation of Structural Analysis:

There are three ego states in Berne’s model:

Parent Ego State Adult Ego State Child Ego State

Ego states are regardless of age and are capitalised to distinguish from the regular use of the words parent, adult and child. Ego states are ‘things’ not names. They are a set and related; thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Communication among people can be from one ego state to a dissimilar one or from one ego state to the similar ego state. Generally communication will be from one ego state either to the same ego state or a unlike one. The person who initially communicates will assume an answer to be from a certain ego state. If communication is from a unlike ego state to the predictable one, then the communication may be unproductive and the message may be lost, not received or overlooked by the person getting it.

4.1 Parent Ego State –The parent symbolises huge collection of footages in the mind of exterior events practiced or perceived in about the first five years of life. Since the many of the exterior events practiced by a child are activities of the parent, the ego state was appropriately named Parent. Note that actions observed by the child from individuals that are NOT parents (but who are frequently in parent-like characters) are also noted in the Parent. The parent ego state is a consequence of the “messages” (conditioning) persons obtain from their parents, elder sisters & brothers, school teachers & others throughout their infantile.

Examples of recordings in the Parent comprise: Never conversant to outsiders”, “Each time chew with your mouth closed” etc.

It is significant to note that, while recording these actions, the young child has no method to filter the information; the actions are documented deprived of question & without analysis. One can consider that these events are enforced on the child.

Furthermore there are two kinds of Parent ego states :(i) Nurturing Parent and (ii) Critical parent.

The Nurturing parent is that part of an individual which is concerned & considerate about other persons. Behaviour impending from the nurturing parent might set restrictions on and offer direction for individuals’ behaviour. It will not put the people down and make them feel not OK as individual.

Critical parent behaviour attacks person’s personalities as well as their behaviour. It makes people feel that they are not OK. When persons are this ego state they are genuine evaluative &critical. They are incessantly ready to react with a ‘should’ or ‘ought’ to approximately anything people tell them.

5.2 The child ego state is connected with behaviours that appear when an individual is responding expressively. An individual’s child covers the ‘natural’ instincts& attitudes learned from child experiences. In comparison to the Parent, the Child represents the footages in the mind of inner events associated with exterior events the child observes. Specified another way, stored in the Child are the emotions or feelings which accompanied external events. There are some types of the child ego state. Though, two kinds of ego states viz. happy child and destructive child are usually relevant in their behaviour. People acting happy child are doing things they desire to do it but it is not negative to others. Though, people in their destructive child are also doing things but their behaviour is either disparaging to others or to themselves, or to their environment.

5.3 The Adult ego state persuades behaviour that can be elucidated just as sensible, practical, rationale & unemotional. Behaviour from the adult ego state is measured by problem solving examination & rationale decision-making. Persons functioning from the adult ego state are taking emotive content of their child ego state, the value-laden content of their parent ego state &inspecting them out in the genuineness of the outside world. These persons inspect alternatives, probabilities& values proceeding to engaging in behaviour. In other words, the Adult allows the young person to evaluate & validate Child and Parental data. Berne clarifies the Adult as being “principally concerned with transforming stimuli into pieces of information, and processing and filing that information on the basis of previous experience”, Stated another way, Harris describes the Adult as “a data-processing computer, which grinds out decisions after calculating the information from three sources: the Parent, the Child, and the data which the adult has congregated and is gathering”.

In an attempt to clarify Transactional Analysis to a more exactly, Dr. Thomas Harris gave the succeeding summary for Transactional Analysis. The summary is as under:

A Healthy personality

All persons act from three ego states – parent, adult, child at different times. A healthy individual has a personality that preserves a balance amongst all three – according to Abewagner, “Nurturing Parent, Adult and Happy Child”. It means that these persons are able to lead the adult ego state take over &contemplate very rationally and occupy in problem-solving. At other times these persons are able to free the Child ego state & be imprudent and emotional. At other times healthy persons are able to agree to the Parent ego state and learn from experience. Though a balance among all three ego states appears to be most healthy, this is mainly a problem when the Adult ego state is not in the policymaking position and person’s personality is being conquered by the Critical Parent or the Destructive child. When this happens in persons, it generates problems.

5. Explanation of Analysis of Transactions:

When two persons connect, one individual starts a transaction with the transactional stimulus. The individual at whom the stimulus is focused will reply with the transactional response. Simple Transactional Analysis comprises categorising which ego state directed the stimulus & which ego state in the other individual performed the response. Transactions are about how people interconnect with each other, precisely, which ego state in me is speaking to which ego state in you. Sometimes communication lasts in a straightforward, relaxed way that appears to go naturally. But at other times, things appear to get all messy, mystifying, unclear, and unproductive. An understanding of transactions can aid to retain communication with others as clear as one would like it to be.

According to Dr. Berne, the simplest transactions are amid Adults ego states. But not all transactions endure in this manner. There are many combinations of open transactions; however the fundamental principle to recall is that the ego state should get reply to carry on the transaction. When reply to a transaction is the foreseeable and predictable one, communication can linger on.

6.1Open transactions are Adult to Adult, Child to Child, Parent to Child, Parent to Parent.

Not all open transactions are co-operative. What one needs to fight for in relations are OK open transaction-Happy child to happy child, Nurturing parent to Happy child. Adult to Adult, and Nurturing Parent to Nurturing parent. Not Ok transactions include any of the damage healthy ego states, for instance, Critical parent to Nurturing Parent, rebellious child, or complaint child.

Straight transactions (or complementary transactions):

When people use straight (or complementary) transactions, communication can last open-endedly. It is when people cross transactions that communication pauses down.

6.2 Crossed transactions: In this transaction, an ego state unlike than the ego state which got the stimuli is the one that replies. A blocked transaction is one that results in the closing, at least temporarily, of communication. Unlike open transactions, the reply is either inappropriate or surprizing, as well as being out of state with what the sender of the stimulus had originally envisioned. It occurs when an individual responds with an ego state different from the one the other individual was speaking. In other words, it happens when the stimulus from one ego state to another ego state, such that the sender feels misunderstood, jumbled, or even susceptible. When this happens, sharing & listening halts, at least momentarily. An instance is as follows:

Agent’s Adult: “Do you know where my suit is?” (This stimulus is directed at the Respondents Adult).

Respondent’s Child: “You every time blame me for everything.

It is one of the typical crossed transactions that happen. Instead of the Respondent’s adult responding with “I think they’re in almirah”, it is the Respondent’s Child that replies back.

It is important to note that when investigating transactions, one must look beyond what is being said. According to Dr. Berne, one must look at how the words are being conveyed (intonations on particular words, changes in tone, volume, etc.) as the non-verbal signs accompanying those words (body language, facial expressions, etc.). Transactional Analysts will pay consideration to all of these cues when examining a transaction &detecting which ego states are involved.

6.3 Ulterior Transactions: Ulterior transactions are the most complex because unlike complementary and crossed transactions, they always involve more than two ego states. And the communication has double meaning. An ulterior transaction occurs when a person appears to be sending one type of message but is secretly sending another message. Thus, the real message is often disguised in a socially acceptable way. In this transaction, generally game is played and message is in hidden form. On the surface level, the communication has a clear adult message, whereas on the psychological level it carries a hidden message and this conversation is carried out in disguised form.

6. Summary

When we learn to classify & differentiate between straight and crossed transactions we intensify our capability to communicate openly with others. Conversations made up of straight transactions are more passionately satisfying &creative than conversations that have recurrent crossed transactions.

Understanding transactional analysis can help to recognize oneself better. It can also aid to recognize more visibly how one interconnects with others. One of the things that sets transactional analysis away from each other from some other therapies is the belief that we are each answerable for our own future, irrespective of what occurred to us in the past. If we perceive things in ourselves that we do not like or that do not serve us well, transactional analysis offers some tools to aid us change. We can initiate to change by determining, for instance, what type of Parent ego state we would like to have and then exercise using &emerging that portion of our self. We can decide what ego state we would like to use more of& which one we might want to use less of.

References:-

• Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy: An Integrated Approach by Petruska Clarkson. I’M OK, YOU’RE OK by Thomas A. Harris, M.D.
• A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis by Stewart, Ian and Joines, Vann. TA Today: Life space Publishing, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 1987.
• I’m OK – You’re OK by Harris, Thomas A. HarperCollins Publishers Inc., New York, 1967. Scripts People Live: Transactional Analysis of Life Scripts by Steiner, Claude, New York:Grove Press, 1990.
• Organizational Behaviour by Shashi K. Gupta and Rosy Joshi, published by Kalyani, 2004. http://www.ericberne.com/transactional-analysis/
• http://www.businessballs.com/transactionalanalysis.htm
• http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/ta.htm
• http://www.itaaworld.org/what-transactional-analysis
• http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-transactional-analysis-and-the-idea-of-a-stroke-economy.html