Transactional Analysis
A fascinating theory of communication created or developed by
the Canadian psychiatrist/psychotherapist Eric Berne in 1958
There are several ‘people’ inside each person who interact with
other people in different ways.
A technique which helps to understand the behaviour of other
person so that communication becomes effective
Based on the idea that people’s early life experiences determine
the decisions they’ll make
Both positive and negative decisions that influence their quality
of life i.e. script.
Studies transactions amongst people and understands their
interpersonal behaviour.
Understanding human behaviour helps to motivate, guide and
direct other persons.
Still very much used today as it facilitates communication
Benefits of Transactional Analysis
The script is central to Transactional Analysis and can be viewed as
a well-described approach people use because they already learned
and experienced it as a child.
e.g. many men refuse to ever cry in public, because they learned
during childhood that ‘boys don’t cry’.
Less innocuous scripts make people repeat their behaviour and lead
to conflicts with their environment
Behavioural change can help alter the scripts.
Negative scripts inhibit any individual’s growth and development,
whereas positive scripts have a motivating effect.
Within Transactional Analysis, three different types of scripts are
distinguished; the Winner, the Loser and the Non-winner
(neutral).
All three scripts can be going on in the same person.
Understanding Transactional Analysis
To understand TA, one should understand the following:
A) Ego States: a person’s way of thinking, feeling and behaving.
Berne distinguishes three different ways to experience the world
around us in Transactional Analysis.
Based on these three perspectives, people behave differently
depending on the situation.
These are called the egos, in which thinking, feeling and
behaviour are the main factors.
TA made complex interpersonal transactions understandable that
people can interact from one of three “ego-states”: 1. Parent, 2.
Adult, 3. Child.
Each one of the ego states is a system of communication with its
own language and function.
Each ego can interact with others i.e. transactions.
The Parent’s is a language of values, the Adult’s is a language
of logic and rationality, and the Child’s is a language
of emotions.
The Parent, the Adult, the Child can be compared to
the Winner (parent), the Neutral (adult) and the Loser (child).
Present in every person in varying degrees i.e. ego states are
present in all human beings at some time or the other.
People respond to different situations in different ways depending
on their ego state.
They are related to behaviour of a person and not his age i.e.
irrespective of his own age.
There may be more of one ego state than another at a specific
point of time.
Ego States and Transactions
People’s interactions are made up of transactions.
Any one transaction has two parts: the stimulus and
the response.
An ego state is a specific way of thinking, feeling and behaving
and each ego state has its origin in specific regions of the brain.
People can behave from their Parent Ego State, Adult Ego State,
or Child Ego State.
At any one time, our actions come from one of these three ego
states.
Few pointers to understand and recognize these Ego States:
When two persons communicate with each other,
communication is affected by their ego states. These are:
1) The Parent Ego:
A collection of pre-recorded, pre-judged, prejudiced codes for
living.
Deeply rooted voice of authority that people think, feel and
express in the way parents do towards their children.
Stands for power and authority, and is pedantic and know-it-ally
Judgemental, critical, controlling or supportive and uses
patronising language
Usually reflects protection, displeasure, reference to rules and
working on the basis of past precedents
Parent behaviour is acquired through external environment.
The ‘raised finger’ is typical for this ego.
When a person is in the Parent ego state, he/she thinks, feels and
behaves like one of parents.
The Parent decides, without reasoning, how to react to situations,
what is good or bad, and how people should live.
When the Parent is critical it is called the Critical Parent. When
it is supportive it is called the Nurturing Parent.
This can be:
(i) Nurturing parent ego:
As nurturing parents, managers praise good performance of the
workers.
They interact with them and help them during times of distress.
They reflect nurturing behaviour towards others.
(ii) Negative or critical parent ego:
As critical parents, managers criticize or ignore poor
performance of the workers rather than help them to improve.
They have a critical attitude while interacting with others.
2) The Adult ego:
The Adult ego lives in the here and now.
The ability to carefully think and take action based on available
facts and data
Operates on data it collects and stores or uses to make decisions
according to a logic-based program
Adult behaviour reflects the ability to analyse the situation and
take logical decisions.
He overcomes the emotional feelings and takes decisions based
on facts and figures.
This state is based upon reasoning, thinking, experience,
rationality and discussion based on facts.
This ego is verbally skilled and asks many open-ended questions
and bases its opinion on facts.
If you want to change the Parent ego or the Child ego, it’s best to
do it through the Adult ego.
It updates the parental ego to determine what is right and wrong
and child ego to determine what feelings to express and what not
to express.
The Adult ego also makes comparisons to other situations in
order to form an objective opinion.
The most important characteristics are showing interest in others,
emphatic ability and patience.
3) The Child ego
Child behaviour reflects a person’s response to communicate in
the form of joy, sorrow, frustration or curiosity.
The Child ego thinks, feels and behaves like a small child.
These are the natural feelings that people learn as children.
The Child has all the feelings; fear, love, anger, joy, sadness,
shame and so on.
It reflects immediate action and immediate satisfaction.
Emotion takes over the Child ego and removes all inhibitions.
The Child is often blamed for being the source of people’s
troubles because it is self-centered, emotional, powerful and
resists the suppression that comes with growing up.
It reflects childhood experience of a person gained generally up
to the age of five years.
This can be positive; for instance feeling excited about an
upcoming holiday.
Often though, it’s expressed negatively in the form of difficult
behaviour, disagreeing with others, wanting to get their way, rude
behaviour or anger and rage.
The Child ego enjoys bragging, twisting the truth and making
things seem worse than they are to impress others.
When we are in the Child ego state we act like the child we once
were.
When the Child is hateful or loving, impulsive, spontaneous or
playful it is called the Natural Child.
When it is thoughtful, creative or imaginative it is called
the Little Professor.
When it is fearful, guilty or ashamed it is called
the Adapted/Adaptive Child.
A child can be:
(i) Natural child: He is naturally curious, joyous or scornful. He does
what comes his way naturally.
(ii) Adaptive child: He reacts the way his parents want him to react.
He is trained to act.
(iii)Rebellious child: He has the experience of fear, frustration and
anger.
Strokes
Each person has a need to feel noticed, appreciated and liked by
others.
Eric Berne has described this need for attention as wanting strokes.
There are different ways to get strokes and they can be either
positive or negative.
That’s also the case for the two meanings of the word ‘stroke’;
‘gentle touch’ and ‘hit’.
By using an action or words to elicit a response from someone,
you get a stroke.
That makes a stroke part of a transaction.
On the one hand, people get recognition through positive strokes
such as compliments, friendly remarks and encouragement.
On the other, people can also receive negative strokes in the
form of humiliation, cynicism, hatred etc.
