TRANSACTION ANALYSIS-I

OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
DR.ERIC BERNE-THE ORIGINATOR OF TA THE ROOTS OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS INTRODUCTION OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS MEANING OF TA DEFINITION OF TA EGO STATES CONTAMINATION OF EGO STATES TRADITIONAL THEORY MODERN THEORY MODEL OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS

THE ORIGINATOR OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS: DR. ERIC BERNE

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs

HOW COMMUNICATION CAN GO SO WRONG!

Father: Why the hell did you do that? Teenager: It's got nothing to do with you. Mother: What on earth possessed you? Teenager: I don't have to listen to you, as he/she turns to walk away. Father: Where the hell do you think you're going?
I'm sure most people have heard conversations like this, perhaps even been participants. Those dead-end interchanges which leave both parties feeling exhausted and a bit depressed. And such interchanges usually end badly. For both parties. How do they happen and why do they leave us so frustrated and unfulfilled?

Psychiatrist Eric Berne studied in depth what he called transactional units to try to explain such communication with the objective of helping people communicate more effectively. His findings have been used in communication training programmes to improve the communication skills of people in business, in the caring professions and in parenting.

DR.ERIC BERNE- THE ORIGINATOR OF TA WHO WAS ERIC BERNE?

Eric Berne was born in Montreal, Canada, on 10 May 1910, as Eric Lennard Bernstein. He graduated with his MD from McGill University in 1935 and moved to Yale to study psychoanalysis with Dr Paul Federn. He became a US citizen in 1939, a year after completing his psychoanalytic training. He served in the US Army Medical Corps until the end of the Second World War. He moved to San Francisco to study under Erik Erikson, later becoming a group therapist attached to several hospitals in the San Francisco area. While working in San Francisco he became fascinated by intuition which led over time to his formulation of the key concepts of Transactional Analysis (TA). Berne married three times and had four children. In the late 60s he and his third wife moved to Carmel, California, where he died suddenly of a heart attack in July 1970. Berne wrote eight books besides many essays and scholarly articles. His best known books are: Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (1961), which laid the foundations of TA; Games People Play (1964); and What Do You Say After You Say Hello (published in 1975, after his death)

THE ROOTS OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS

Throughout history, and from all standpoints: philosophy, medical science, religion; people have believed that each man and woman has a multiple nature. In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud first established that the human psyche is multi-faceted, and that each of us has warring factions in our subconscious. Since then, new theories continue to be put forward. In1951, Dr Wilder Penfield began a series of scientific experiments. Penfield proved, using conscious human subjects, by touching a part of the brain with a weak electrical probe, that the brain could be caused to 'play back' certain past experiences, and the feelings associated with them. CONCLUSION EXPERIMENT: OF PENFIELD

The human brain acts like a tape recorder, and as we may 'forget' experiences, the brain still has them recorded. Along with events the brain also records the associated feelings, and both feelings and events stay locked together. It is possible for a person to exist in two states simultaneously (because patients replaying hidden events and feelings could talk about them objectively at the same time). Hidden experiences when replayed are vivid, and affect how we feel at the time of replaying. There is a certain connection between mind and body, i.e. the link between the biological and the psychological, eg a psychological fear of spiders and a biological feeling of nausea.

INTRODUCTION TO TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Transactional Analysis (TA) is a personality and psychotherapy for personal growth. It has wide applications in clinical, therapeutic, organizational and personal development, encompassing communications, management, personality, relationships and behaviour.
Transactional Analysis is an approach to psychoanalysis and therapy developed in the early 1950s, but was adopted by commercial organisations in the '60s as they tried to improve the ways that people in general interacted. It is based on two notions: first that we have three parts or 'ego-states' to our personality namely parent, adult and child. The other assumption is that these converse with one another in 'transactions. It defines some basic Ego States and Life Positions that individuals can adopt, and uses those to describe how Transactions then occur between two people. The famous 'parent adult child' theory is still being developed today. The idea is that if you know your own state, and can determine the other person's state, you can use your behaviour to influence the interactions between the two of you.

MEANING OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS

Before Berne first published his theories on Transactional Analysis, he spent years formulating the framework of this approach. The key to this methodology was a transaction - the fundamental unit

of social intercourse.

TRANSACTION

The unit of social intercourse is called a transaction. A transaction consists of a transactional stimulus (TS) and a transactional response (TR). TS is the behavior (verbal or nonverbal) produced by one person in acknowledgement of the presence of others when two or more people encounter each other.(Initiates) TR is the response to TS by another person.. Transaction Analysis is defined as Transactional Analysis is the method for

STIMULUS

RESPONSE

studying interactions between individuals.

TRANSACTION ANALYSIS DEFINITION

According to the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA), an association founded in 1964 to promote TA, TA can be defined as

1.) an easily understandable yet sophisticated psychological theory about people's thinking, feelings and behaviour and, 2.) a contemporary and effective system of psychotherapy, education, organizational and sociocultural analysis and social psychiatry.

EGO STATE-STRUCTURAL MODEL OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS

In his encounters with his clients, Dr. Berne understood that There exist three distinct states in all people. People change from one state to another in the course of their transactions. This change can be easily noticed by the manners, appearances, words, gestures, and tones. He 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 categorize the ways we think, feel and behave and are called Parent, Adult, and Child. We each have internal models of parents, children and also adults and we play these roles with one another in our relationships. We even do it with ourselves, in our internal conversations.

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.. 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.

THERE ARE TWO FORMS OF PARENT WE CAN PLAY.

The Nurturing Parent is caring and concerned and often may appear as a mother-figure (though men can play it too). They seek to keep the Child safe and offer unconditional love, calming them when they are troubled. The Controlling (or Critical) Parent, on the other hand, tries to make the Child do as the parent wants them to do, perhaps transferring values or beliefs or helping the Child to understand and live in society. They may also have negative intent, using the Child as a whipping-boy or worse.

Parent is our 'Taught' concept of life

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. 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. The Adult in us is the 'grown up' rational person who talks reasonably and assertively, neither trying to control nor reacting. The Adult is comfortable with themselves and is, for many of us, our 'ideal self'. In this structural model, the Integrating Adult ego state circle is placed in the middle to show how it needs to orchestrate between the Parent and the Child ego states. Example: parent Ego You are no good, look at what you did wrong again, you are useless. Child Ego "I am no good, look how useless I am, I never get anything right". An effective Integrating Adult ego state can intervene between the Parent and Child ego states.

Adult is our 'Thought' concept of life

C.CHILD EGO STATE

The Child ego state is a set of behaviours, thoughts and feelings which are replayed from our own childhood. The Child ego state is the response the little person produced to what he saw, heard, felt and understood.

THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF CHILD WE CAN PLAY.

NATURAL CHILD: The Natural Child is largely un-self-aware and is characterized by the non-speech noises they make (yahoo, etc.). They like playing and are open and vulnerable. LITTLE PROFESSOR: The cutely-named Little Professor is the curious and exploring Child who is always trying out new stuff (often much to their Controlling Parent's annoyance). Together with the Natural Child they make up the Free Child. ADAPTIVE CHILD-The Adaptive Child reacts to the world around them, either changing themselves to fit in or rebelling against the forces they feel.

Child is our 'Felt' concept of life

HOW CAN WE IDENTIFY THESE EGO STATE IN OTHERS AND IN OURSELF

PARENT EGO STATE
PHYSICAL - angry or impatient body-language and expressions, fingerpointing, patronising gestures etc. VERBAL - always, never, for once and for all, judgmental words, critical words, patronising language, posturing language.

CHILD EGO STATE

PHYSICAL - emotionally sad expressions, despair, temper tantrums, whining voice, rolling eyes, shrugging shoulders, teasing, delight, laughter, speaking behind hand, raising hand to speak, squirming and giggling. VERBAL - baby talk, I wish, I dunno, I want, I'm gonna, I don't care, oh no, not again, things never go right for me, worst day of my life, bigger, biggest, best, many superlatives, words to impress.

ADULT EGO STATE

PHYSICAL - attentive, interested, straight-forward, tilted head, nonthreatening and non-threatened. VERBAL - why, what, how, who, where and when, how much, in what way, comparative expressions, reasoned statements, true, false, probably, possibly, I think, I realise, I see, I believe, in my opinion

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS: The process of analyzing personality in terms of ego states is called structural analysis. It is important to remember that ego states do not have an existence of their own, they are concepts to enable understanding. Therefore it is important to say "I want some fun rather than "My Child wants some fun". We may be in our Child ego state when we say this, but saying "I" reminds us to take responsibility for our actions.

Nurturing Parent: Go ahead, play and have

fun!

Critical Parent: Now, don't you DARE get

yourself all messy! can make a castle. is!!!!!

Adult: This sand looks really interesting. I Free Child: WOW! Look how tall my castle 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)

CONTAMINATION OF EGO STATES

All people are structurally alike in that everyone has a Parent, an Adult, and a Child. we differ in two ways.

1.We differ in the content of Parent, Adult, and Child, which it is unique to each person. 2. we differ in the functioning of the Parent, Adult, and Child. There are two kinds of functional problems:
1.CONTAMINATION 2.EXCLUSION These three ego states should stay separated which is ideal.

Contamination exist when the boundary of one ego state overlap other ego states. Either the parent or the child or both can contaminate the adult ego state.
when Parent and Adult overlap, we have a Parent contaminated Adult. This results in PREJUDICE. for instance, beliefs such as "white skins is better than black skins," "right-handedness is better than left-handedness," and "cops are bad are transactions on the bases of prejudgment, before reality data (Adult) is applied to them. Prejudice develops in early childhood when the opportunity of inquiry is shut on certain subjects by the security-giving parents. The little person dares not open it for fear of parental rebuke. When Adult and Child overlap, we have a Child contaminated Adult. This condition causes DELUSION. A delusion is grounded in fear. A person who would describe the world as hideous is describing how the world seemed to him as a small child.A little person who was in constant fear of brutality at the hands of angry, unpredictable parents can, as a grownup, under stress, be flooded by the same fear to the extent that he can fabricate "logical" supporting data.

For example, He may believe that the neighbor down the street is coming to kill him, and have no basis for that fear. It can only be eliminated by uncovering the truth that the original threat to the Child no longer exist externally. Only as the Adult is decontaminated is it able to compute reality data. EXCLUSION: Eric Berne said, "Exclusion is manifested by a stereotyped, predictable

attitude which is steadfastly maintained as long as possible in the face of any threatening situation. The constant Parent, the constant Adult, and the constant Child all result primarily from defensive exclusion of the two complimentary aspects in each case.
In exclusion, the communication from one of the P, A, or C is cut off. For example, when Child is cut off, the person cannot play at all and is very rigid and serious, causing neurotic behavior. When the Parent is cut off, the person does not have any conscience at all. If his Adult is also contaminated with Child, the person will be psychopathic.

A.PARENT-CONTAMINATED ADULT WITH A BLOCKED-OUT CHILD: Parent-Contaminated adult with a Blocked-Out Child is the person who is dominated by duty, always working late, all business, and impatient with family members who want to plan a vacation trip or a picnic in the park. This type of person has very little happiness recorded in his Child. He probably never will be able to let his happy Child out, because he has very little happy Child. B.CHILD-CONTAMINATED ADULT WITH A BLOCKED-OUT PARENT: This condition develops in the person whose real parents, are those who fulfilled the parental role, were so brutal and terrifying or, in the other extreme, so doltishly indulgent that the only way to preserve life was to "shut them off" or block them out. This is typical of the psychopath. This little person concludes correctly that his parents are in fact Not OK. They are so Not OK that he excludes them entirely.

According to this system, psychosis (Any severe mental disorder in which contact with reality is lost or highly distorted)results when the Adult is completely blocked from Parent and Child. This is called decommissioned Adult. If the blocking out of Adult is periodic, the result is Manic-Depressive personality.
The Decommissioned Adult ( Psychosis)

TRADITIONAL THEORY OF TA
In the 1950's Eric Berne began to develop his theories of Transactional Analysis. He said that verbal communication, particularly face to face, is at the centre of human social relationships and psychoanalysis. His starting-point was that when two people encounter each other, one of them will speak to the other. This he called the Transaction Stimulus. There action from the other person he called the Transaction Response. The person sending the Stimulus is called the Agent. The person who responds is called the Respondent. Transactional Analysis became the method of examining the transaction wherein: 'I do something to you, and you do something back'.

Berne also said that each person is made up of three alter ego states: 1.PARENT-Our parent is formed by external events and influences upon us as we grow through early childhood. This is our ingrained voice of authority, absorbed conditioning, learning and attitudes from when we were young. 2.ADULT-Our 'Adult' is our ability to think and determine action for ourselves, based on received data. The adult in us begins to form at around ten months old, and is the means by which we keep our Parent and Child under control. If we are to change our Parent or Child we must do so through our adult 3. CHILD-Our internal reaction and feelings to external events form the 'Child'. This is the seeing, hearing, feeling, and emotional body of data within each of us.

When we communicate we are doing so from one of our own alter ego states, our Parent, Adult or Child. Our feelings at the time determine which one we use, and at any time something can trigger a shift from one state to another. When we respond, we are also doing this from one of the three states, and it is in the analysis of these stimuli and responses that the essence of Transactional Analysis lies. At the core of Berne's theory is the rule that effective transactions (ie successful communications) must be complementary. They must go back from the receiving ego state to the sending ego state. For example, if the stimulus is Parent to Child, the response must be Child to Parent, or the transaction is 'crossed', and there will be a problem between sender and receiver. If a crossed transaction occurs, there is an ineffective communication. Worse still either or both parties will be upset. In order for the relationship to continue smoothly the agent or the respondent must rescue the situation with a complementary transaction.

MODERN THEORY OF TA
Transactional Analysis is a theory which operates as each of the following: A Theory Of Personality A Model Of Communication A Study Of Repetitive Patterns Of Behaviour Transactional Analysis developed significantly beyond these Berne's early theories, by Berne himself until his death in 1970, and since then by his followers and many current writers and experts. Transactional Analysis has been explored and enhanced in many different ways by these people, including: -Ian Stewart And Vann Joines (their book 'TA Today' is widely regarded as a definitive modern interpretation); John Dusay, Aaron and Jacqui Schiff, Robert and Mary Goulding, Pat Crossman, Taibi Kahler, Abe Wagner, Ken Mellorand Eric Sigmund, Richard Erskine and Marityn Zalcman, Muriel James, PamLevin, Anita Mountain and Julie Hay (specialists in organizational applications),Susannah Temple, Claude Steiner, Franklin Ernst, S Woollams and M Brown,Fanita English, P Clarkson, M M Holloway, Stephen Karpman and others.

The original three Parent Adult Child components were sub-divided to form a new seven element model, principally during the 1980's by Wagner, Joines and Mountain. This established Controlling and Nurturing aspects of the Parent mode, each with positive and negative aspects, and the Adapted and Free aspects of the Child mode, again each with positive and negative aspects, which essentially gives us the model to which most TA practitioners refer today:

PARENT Parent is now commonly represented as a circle with four quadrants: NURTURING PARENT -Nurturing (positive) -Spoiling (negative). CONTROLLING PARENT -Structuring (positive) -Critical (negative) ADULT Adult remains as a single entity, representing an 'accounting' function or mode, which can draw on the resources of both Parent and Child. CHILD Child is now commonly represented as circle with four quadrants: ADAPTED CHILD -Co-operative (positive) -Compliant/Resistant (negative) FREE CHILD -Spontaneous (positive) -Immature (negative)

Previously Transactional Analysis suggested that effective communications were complementary (response echoing the path of the stimulus), and better still complementary adult to adult. The modern interpretation suggests that effective communications and relationships are based on complementary transactions to and from positive quadrants, and also, still, adult to adult. Stimulii and responses can come from any (or some) of these seven ego states, to any or some of the respondent's seven ego states.

A DESCRIPTIVE MODEL OF TRANSACTION ANALYSIS

This model shows how we function or behave with others.

The model used here is divided up into nine and we have used S.Temple's (1999) term "mode" as it differentiates it from the structural ego state model.
We colour the different modes in red and green for those who find colour helpful as a tool. Effective communication comes from the green modes, (just as with traffic lights we get the go ahead when the green light comes on). Ineffective communication come from the red modes (as with the red traffic light). When we come from the red modes we invite a negative response, and vice versa from the green modes.

INEFFECTIVE MODES
NEGATIVE CONTROLLING PARENT - communicates a "You're not OK" message, and is punitive. NEGATIVE NURTURING PARENT - communicates a "You're not OK" message. When in this mode the person will often do things for others which they are capable of doing for themselves. When in this mode the person is engulfing and overprotective .

NEGATIVE ADAPTED CHILD - expresses an "I'm not OK" message. When in this mode the person over-adapts to others and tends to experience such emotions as depression, unrealistic fear and anxiety.
NEGATIVE FREE CHILD - expresses a "You're not OK" When in this mode the person runs wild with no restrictions or boundaries.

EFFECTIVE MODES
POSITIVE NURTURING PARENT - communicates the message "You're OK". When in this mode the person is caring and affirming. POSITIVE CONTROLLING PARENT - communicates the message "You're OK". This is the boundary setting mode, offering constructive criticism, whilst being caring but firm. POSITIVE ADAPTED CHILD - communicates an "I'm OK" message. From this mode we learn the rules to help us live with others. POSITIVE FREE CHILD - communicates an "I'm OK" message. This is the creative, fun loving, curious and energetic mode. ACCOUNTING MODE - communicates "We're OK" messages. The Adult is able to assess reality in the here and now. When the Accounting mode is in the executive position it is possible to choose which of the other effective modes to go into, dependent on the situation. This is then called Accounting Mode. When using the descriptive behavioural model the term Accounting Mode helps to differentiate it from the structural model where it is referred to as Adult. When stable in this Accounting Mode we are taking account of the present context and situation and deciding the most appropriate mode to come from. We are then able to respond appropriately rather than flipping into archaic or historic ways of being, thinking and behaving which are likely to be inappropriate and unhelpful

THANK YOU