Transactional Analysis - Some Key Points.
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
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EgoStates
This is basic to TA. The ego-state is a set of related behaviours, thoughts and feelings; a way in which we manifest a part of our personality at a given time. There are three ego-states:
Adult - when you are thinking and feeling in response to what is going on around you here and now, using all your resources as a grown-up.
Parent- when you think and feel and behave in ways which are a copy of one of your parents or of others who were parent figures.
Child - when you return to ways of behaving, thinking and feeling which you used when a child.
Transactions, Strokes, Time structuring
When we communicate we can choose to address each other from any of the three ego-states. This is known as a transaction.
In TA strokes are the act of recognition of each other. We need strokes to maintain physical and psychological wellbeing.
When people are transacting they use time in various specific ways which can be listed as analysed. This is the analysis of time structuring
Life-Script
In childhood we write a story for ourselves. This has a beginning, middle and an end. Most of it has been written by 7yrs, although we revise it during adolescence.
As grown-ups we are usually no longer aware of the life-story we have written for ourselves. We set up our lives so that we move towards the final scene we decided upon as infants.
Discounting, Redefining, Symbiosis
The young child decides on a life-script because it represents the best strategy that the child can work out to survive and get by in what often seems a hostile world. In our Child ego-state, we may still believe that any threat to our infant picture of the world is a threat to the satisfaction of our needs or even to our survival. Thus we may sometimes distort our perception of reality so that it fits our script. When we do so, we are said to be redefining.
One way of ensuring that the world seems to fit our script is to selectively ignore information available to us about a situation, Without conscious intention, we blank out the aspects of the situation that would contradict our script, This is called discounting.
As art of maintaining our script, we may sometimes get into relationships as grown-ups which replay the relationships we had with our parents when we were children . We do this without being aware of it, In this situation, one of the partners in the relationship plays the part of Parent and Adult, while the other acts Child. Between them, they function as though they had only three instead of six ego-states available. A relationship like this is called a symbiosis.
Rackets, Stamps, Games
As young children we may notice that in our family, certain feelings are encourages while others are prohibited. To get our strokes, we may decide to feel only the permitted feelings. This decision is made without conscious awareness, When we play out our script in grown-up life, we continue to cover our authentic feelings with the feelings that were permitted to us as children. These substitute feelings are known as racket feelings.
If we experience a racket feeling and store it up instead of expressing it at the time, we are said to be saving a stamp.
A game is a repetitive sequence of transactions in which both parties end up experiencing racket feelings. It always includes a switch, a moment when the players experience that something unexpected and uncomfortable has happened. People play games without being aware they are doing so.
Autonomy
To realise our full potential as grown-ups, we need to update the strategies for dealing with life, which we decided upon as infants. When we find that these strategies are no longer working for us, we need to replace them with new ones which do work. In TA language, we need to move out of script and gain autonomy.
The tools of TA are designed to help people achieve that autonomy. Its components are awareness, spontaneity and the capacity for intimacy. It implies the ability to solve problems using the person's full resources as a grown-up.
People are OK, Thinking, Decision.
The basic assumption of TA is that people are OK. Behaviour might not be, but in essence, as a human being, we are OK with each other, in spite of gender, race, status etc…
Unless we are suffering brain-damage we all have the capacity to think. Therefore it is our responsibility to decide what we want from life.
Even though we sometimes engage in not OK behaviour (following strategies decided upon in childhood) we cannot be made to feel or behave in particular ways. There may be great pressure, but we do not have to conform to this. We are responsible for our behaviour and our feelings.
We can change the decisions we made about ourselves and the world for more appropriate ones. We can achieve change not merely by insight into our old patterns of behaviour, but by actively deciding to change those patterns.
EgoStates
This is basic to TA. The ego-state is a set of related behaviours, thoughts and feelings; a way in which we manifest a part of our personality at a given time. There are three ego-states:
Adult - when you are thinking and feeling in response to what is going on around you here and now, using all your resources as a grown-up.
Parent- when you think and feel and behave in ways which are a copy of one of your parents or of others who were parent figures.
Child - when you return to ways of behaving, thinking and feeling which you used when a child.
Transactions, Strokes, Time structuring
When we communicate we can choose to address each other from any of the three ego-states. This is known as a transaction.
In TA strokes are the act of recognition of each other. We need strokes to maintain physical and psychological wellbeing.
When people are transacting they use time in various specific ways which can be listed as analysed. This is the analysis of time structuring
Life-Script
In childhood we write a story for ourselves. This has a beginning, middle and an end. Most of it has been written by 7yrs, although we revise it during adolescence.
As grown-ups we are usually no longer aware of the life-story we have written for ourselves. We set up our lives so that we move towards the final scene we decided upon as infants.
Discounting, Redefining, Symbiosis
The young child decides on a life-script because it represents the best strategy that the child can work out to survive and get by in what often seems a hostile world. In our Child ego-state, we may still believe that any threat to our infant picture of the world is a threat to the satisfaction of our needs or even to our survival. Thus we may sometimes distort our perception of reality so that it fits our script. When we do so, we are said to be redefining.
One way of ensuring that the world seems to fit our script is to selectively ignore information available to us about a situation, Without conscious intention, we blank out the aspects of the situation that would contradict our script, This is called discounting.
As art of maintaining our script, we may sometimes get into relationships as grown-ups which replay the relationships we had with our parents when we were children . We do this without being aware of it, In this situation, one of the partners in the relationship plays the part of Parent and Adult, while the other acts Child. Between them, they function as though they had only three instead of six ego-states available. A relationship like this is called a symbiosis.
Rackets, Stamps, Games
As young children we may notice that in our family, certain feelings are encourages while others are prohibited. To get our strokes, we may decide to feel only the permitted feelings. This decision is made without conscious awareness, When we play out our script in grown-up life, we continue to cover our authentic feelings with the feelings that were permitted to us as children. These substitute feelings are known as racket feelings.
If we experience a racket feeling and store it up instead of expressing it at the time, we are said to be saving a stamp.
A game is a repetitive sequence of transactions in which both parties end up experiencing racket feelings. It always includes a switch, a moment when the players experience that something unexpected and uncomfortable has happened. People play games without being aware they are doing so.
Autonomy
To realise our full potential as grown-ups, we need to update the strategies for dealing with life, which we decided upon as infants. When we find that these strategies are no longer working for us, we need to replace them with new ones which do work. In TA language, we need to move out of script and gain autonomy.
The tools of TA are designed to help people achieve that autonomy. Its components are awareness, spontaneity and the capacity for intimacy. It implies the ability to solve problems using the person's full resources as a grown-up.
People are OK, Thinking, Decision.
The basic assumption of TA is that people are OK. Behaviour might not be, but in essence, as a human being, we are OK with each other, in spite of gender, race, status etc…
Unless we are suffering brain-damage we all have the capacity to think. Therefore it is our responsibility to decide what we want from life.
Even though we sometimes engage in not OK behaviour (following strategies decided upon in childhood) we cannot be made to feel or behave in particular ways. There may be great pressure, but we do not have to conform to this. We are responsible for our behaviour and our feelings.
We can change the decisions we made about ourselves and the world for more appropriate ones. We can achieve change not merely by insight into our old patterns of behaviour, but by actively deciding to change those patterns.
