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7 Responses to “Transactional Analysis”

1. Yafinka says:

   March 16, 2009 at 8:12 pm

   Is that all on TA that you have? I have a lot of material about it. I found this topic extremely exciting.
   TA was first introduced by Eric Berne (as you’ve mentioned in your post) in the book “Games People Play”. I’ve read this book and would recommend it to you too. He gives examples of communication behaviour in different situations, looks in details at the three ego states, defines them and splits up into different categories. For instance, “child ego state” includes natural child, adaptive child and little professor.
   And also we didn’t cover it with Gill but Berbe points out that there are 72 different types of crossed transactions four of which occur commonly and cause most of the problems in everyday communication. If you wish I can post some more info about it. I don’t know if you are going to read the book and I have a short summary…hmm…maybe not very short but summary of TA including different types of transactions (not just complementary and crossed as Gill introduced) but also angular and duplex which are much more complicated but still possible to understand.
   Berne has a graphic explanation of different transaction which helps to remember the material=)

   And! I found a mistake in your post.

   Are these ego states anything to do with chronological age or roles
   Yes.

   The answer should be NO. The ego states aren’t anything to do with chronological age and roles. Even a 6-year old child can adopt a “parent” ego state in a conversation and an adult can exhibit child-like communicative behaviour.
2. Jason says:

   March 17, 2009 at 6:31 pm

   My mistake, I should really go and edit the post but you know what, I seem to have picked up some lethargic traits recently.

   A summary of the book and all other information will be absolutely fantastic!
3. Jason says:

   March 17, 2009 at 7:59 pm

   “looking in details at people’s conversations with each other we can have a better insight and probably avoid some of the problems and barriers in communication”

   This is particularly insightful, how many times have you needed another to clarify what was meant. The facts of my experience here show this can be a serious communication barrier that need not be if only people ask questions and probe to find the answers to their questions.

   On the subject of “cool” since I have no idea what this means now I’m “old” here’s a clip from something I enjoyed as a child.
4. Yafinka says:

   March 17, 2009 at 7:44 pm

   Transactional Analysis – an approach to understanding and ultimately improving interpersonal communication.

   TA is based on Freudian ideas of psychoanalysis, but Eric Berne concentrates rather on people’s interactions in everyday life than on psychological dynamics. He believed that by looking in details at people’s conversations with each other we can have a better insight and probably avoid some of the problems and barriers in communication.
   The three ego states – Child, Parent and Adult – Berne takes from Freud’s ego which is one of the components of personality (ID includes primitive and instinctive behaviours, ego is responsible for dealing with reality and superego is the moral component of personality).

   Child: a state in which people behave, feel and think similarly to how they did in childhood. It can be further subdivided into two categories: Natural and Adapted Child. The Natural Child is generally uninhibited in its behaviour, loving and aggressive, afraid of the new as well as curious and inquisitive, sociable as well as egocentric. The Adapted Child has learnt how to deal with adults. The self-expressive Natural Child is held in check. The Adapted Child may put things off (you don’t get into trouble for your decisions if you don’t take any); it may become withdrawn, dreaming is way through life; it may be compliant (doing as it’s told) – however, it may be compliant, but look for ways around the ‘law’.

   Parent: a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to an unconscious mimicking of how their parents (or other parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent’s actions. This ego state includes Controlling (sometimes also called Critical) and Nurturing Parent. The Controlling Parent is strict and judgmental, is quick to form opinions about the child’s behaviour, may even have formed the judgements before the behaviour, and sees to it that the child should succeed on the parent’s terms. The Controlling Parent will offer quite a number of orders, which, if necessary will be justified by appeal to some kind of moral criteria or principles of behaviour which appear to have some kind of absolute value. The Nurturing Parent is quite positive, but can be overbearing and limiting. The Nurturing Parent is concerned with her child’s welfare, so rewards, protects and cares for the child and try to pass on good moral standards: ‘”Always be on time”, “Save your money”, “Work hard” are some of the typical examples given by Berne. The Nurturing Parent can help the child feel OK about its relationships and is likely to use comforting phrases, such as “Don’t worry, it’ll be OK” or “Let me see if I can help you with that”, as well as offering frequent praise, but can also be overprotective, smothering the child in its development.

   Adult: is detached, cool [=)], calm, reasoning. The Adult ego state is concerned with handling information and making decisions. It listens patiently in order to gather data and then bases a rational decision on the data collected, with reference to data and experiences previously gathered and decisions previously taken. It is most obviously predominant when we are engaged in solving problems. The Adult will ask questions: ‘Why did you say that?’, ‘How did that happen?’, ‘How do you know that?’, ‘What makes you so sure?’ The Adult will want to look at facts, saying ‘Let’s take a look at the facts’, ‘Let’s just discuss it first to get the facts clear’, ‘OK, so what do we know now?’ The Adult will resist false arguments and appeals to emotion and similarly will not appeal to emotion in either verbal or non-verbal behaviour.

   —to be continued—
5. Geoff says:

   March 17, 2009 at 9:57 pm

   I know nothing about this subject, but found the table of behaviours by age related demographics interesting. However, some of the table doesn’t display properly. Could you resize it please?

   Thank you.

   P.S. I remember Top Cat. However, my favourite was split between Danger Mouse and Bag Puss, both, I believe, are now cult cartoons (stop motion in terms of Bag Puss)
6. Yafinka says:

   March 17, 2009 at 10:17 pm

   Top Cat=) I’ve seen it already. I was watching it as a child too. That’s how I learned to speak English. Our teachers are not very competent, their pronounciation is awful, it is very difficul to understand them. So watching TV was the only way of learning the proper pronunciation English words.
7. Geoff says:

   March 21, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   @Yafinka

   And now you’re here, you’ve realised that there are not many English people who can actually pronouce English words properly.

   Bring back BBC English!!! A.K.A. ‘The Queen’s lingo’

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