Transactional Analysis — Part 1
Ego-States and Transactions
Eric Berne coined the term transactional analysis (widely known as TA) to describe any communication, verbal or non-verbal, between two people. This communication is the “transaction” and the analysis bit examines the nature of this transaction. So what, you might ask!
Well, Transactional Analysis offers us a way to reflect on these communications or transactions, to allow us to understand our behaviour,as well as that of others and to have a choice about what we do next. TA can help us become more effective in the way we respond and communicate to others.
To help us understand the nature of our transactions with each other, Eric Berne grouped our ways of thinking and behaving into three ego states, which he called Parent, Adult and Child:
Parent
When we are thinking or behaving from this ego state, we are drawing on our experience of the parental figures in our lives which have been absorbed into our way of relating. We know we are in this ego state when we hear ourselves using words like “never”, “always” or “should”..
Child
This ego state has us expressing ourselves from old feelings and behaviours which we used to repond to the outside world when we were small. We know we are in this ego state when we notice in oursleves extremes of behaviour, feeling or language.
Adult
When we make transactions from our adult ego state, weare rational, factual, able to think and make choices for oursleves. Spending time in the Adult ego state also helps us to manage both parent and child ego states and maitain control. We know we are in this ego state if we notice ourselves using measured and questioning verbal behaviours, saying things like “probably” or “perhaps”.
Whether we are sending or receiving or a transaction, we will be doing so from one of our ego states and sometimes moving between the different states.
When someone begins a transaction with us from a particular ego state, it can “hook” into the ego state that we naturally adopt when under pressure. In its simplest form, if someone uses a parental style with us, we might respond from the child ego state.
Alternatively we might respond from the parent ego state ourselves and a battle for power might ensue, or we might identify with each other as having the right sort of attitude! Of course, once these ego states are viewed through the lens of real human interaction, it gets way more complicated.
The person who had feelings story..
This story has been around for ever and is usually attributed to Barbara Dunlap, but it is widely available on the Internet and elsewhere. If you are a fan of Alan Sugar (“this is not a psychotherapy session here” ) or the sort of person who flinches from popular psychology, you should probably look away now. However, so many of our clients have said they found this useful we thought we would include it. We like this story because it talks about our underlying tendency to adopt a particular ego state according to our upbringing and shows in a simple way how environment acts upon us, sometimes without our awareness..
Once there was a very small person who had feelings. They had many feelings and felt them every day. Their family liked them when they showed their feelings, so the very small person started to wear their feelings on their sleeve. One day one of the small person's parents said that they didn't like to see the FEAR feeling any more, so the small person tried to pull it off. The parent said that they would give the small person some TOUGH to cover over their FEAR. The small person found it very difficult to cover the FEAR with the TOUGH, so the other parent and the grandparents all helped. It took many days. "Now you look wonderful," said the parents when it was done. "We've covered some of your feelings with TOUGH, and you'll grow into a strong person."
The small person grew a little older and found a friend. The friend also wore their feelings on their sleeve. The friend said one day, "My parents want me to cover up my LONELY feelings, and to be different from now on." And they were. The small person decided to cover over their LONELY feelings too, and they got ANGRY from another adult. The small person put big patches of ANGRY on top of their LONELY. It was hard work to cover over the LONELY feelings.
One day when the small person (who was now not so small) went to school some of their LONELY feelings started to show. So the teacher kept them behind and gave them some GUILT to cover their LONELY feelings. Sometimes when alone at night the person would look at their feelings. The would pull off the TOUGH and ANGRY and GUILT to look at their LONELY and FEAR. Then they would have to take a long time putting the TOUGH, ANGRY and GUILT back again.
One night the person noticed that their LONELY and FEAR were growing, and beginning to stick out from under the patches. So the person had to go out to find some more ANGRY to cover the LONELY, and got all the TOUGH that their parents could spare to cover their FEAR.
The person grew older and became very popular because everyone said that they could hide their feelings well. The person's parents said one day that they had a PROUD feeling because the person had been so TOUGH. But the person could not find anywhere to put the PROUD feeling because the TOUGH was getting so big. The person had trouble finding room on their sleeve for any other feelings - the TOUGH and the ANGRY were all that showed.
Then after a time the person met another person and they became friends. They thought that they were a lot alike because they both had only TOUGH and ANGRY feelings that showed. One day the friend told the person a secret: "I'm not really like you - my TOUGH and ANGRY are only patches to cover over my LONELY and my FEAR." The friend pulled back the edge of their TOUGH and showed the person their FEAR; just for a second. The person sat quietly and did not speak.
Then carefully they too pulled back the edge of their TOUGH and showed their FEAR. The friend saw the LONELY underneath. Then the friend gently reached out and touched the person's FEAR, and then the LONELY....... The friend's touch was like magic. A feeling of ACCEPTANCE appeared on the person's sleeve, and the TOUGH and ANGRY had become smaller. The person then knew that whenever someone gave them ACCEPTANCE, they would need less TOUGH, and then there would be more room to show PROUD..... SAD ....... LOVING.... STRONG.... GOOD.... WARM... HURT... FEAR....