Transactional Analyis made simple (but not simplistic!) – part 3
Welcome to the third of our articles on Transactional Analysis in which we introduce simple concepts for easy application in our day-to-day lives.
In this issue we go a little deeper to look further at the nature of transactions‘.
So let‘s begin by considering what we mean by this term.
Transactions
Put simply a transaction happens when I communicate with you or you communicate with me. We might be chatting in the office: I might say ―How‘s it going? and you might say ―Fine,thank you. In formal terms, the opening communication is the stimulous and the reply is the response. If we kept our chat going, we would have a transaction chain. Remember the diagram from the Spring issue?
As well as showing the three ego states and transactions between them, it could also be said to be showing a stimulous and response transaction (fig.1).
We could show this more clearly by putting a little ‗S‘ or ‗R‘ by each of the arrows to denote someone beginning the transaction (stimulous) and someone replying (response), as in fig.2:
If I then say ―what‘s the date? and you reply ―it‘s the 25th, then we have just had an adult-adult, here and now complementary transaction. The arrows in the diagram above have remained parallel and the ego state from which I spoke was the same one from which you responded. Adult.
I could also have addressed you from my parent ego state and you might have responded from your child ego state, or vice versa. This would also be a complementary transaction because the arrows (or vectors, in TA-speak) remain parallel. And of course, in an example of the third kind of transaction, my child or parent ego state can address yours or vice versa. As long as the vectors stay parallel, it counts as a complementary transaction.
So what? Well, for as long as transactions stay parallel, everything runs fairly smoothly, even if it is not on an Adult basis. But what about when transactions are crossed?
How do we mean? Well, let‘s say that when I asked you what the date was, you made yourself small and said in a whiny voice ―why do you expect me to know everything all the time? I‘m not super-man/woman!
We could be pretty certain we had a crossed transaction right there - I asked you a question from my adult ego state expecting an adult reply, but I got something very definitely from your child state. It might have surprised us both! Or you might have said ―you always ask that—why on earth don‘t you get yourself a diary? A statement from someone‘s parent ego state for sure! But in either case, not the adult response I invited with my adult question.
In our experience, crossed transactions are an inevitable feature of most confusion and conflicts our clients ask us to explore with them. And the danger is that when you have a crossed transaction, the person who just received the cross will shift to get those vectors into a parallel, or complementary position. So if I address you from an angry, critical parent ego state, you will either be angry back (CP to CP) or move into an adapted child ego state (CP to AD) to keep things in parallel. Most people do this unconsciously, or almost unconsciously... And sometimes it can be very subtle - a free child request to listen to some music might be met with a critical rather than Nurturing Parent response of ―I haven‘t got time for that instead of a smiley ‖yes, of course we can. At first sight, this example looks complementary, but it‘s not - the Free Child stimulous was hoping for a Nurturing Parent response, but it got one from the Critical Parent ego state. Not very nice!
What can you do about it? Well, you can try looking out for crossed transactions - maybe start with responses from people you perceive to be ‗difficult‘. Try to notice where it goes awry and come back with re-sponses from your adult ego state and see what happens. You can‘t change people‘s responses, only invite an adult response and see what they do. At least you will not be colluding in an endlessly destructive pattern of crossed communication!