This week I have been mostly doing… Transactional Analysis (facebook posts)

For those of you that do not subscribe to our facebook page, I have grouped here our daily snippets from the theme of Transactional Analysis (TA). A smaller amount of posts this week, due to being rather busy

1st November 2011

Transactional Analysis: TA was developed by Dr Eric Berne, who recognised and observed peoples having three distinct ‘ego-states’; Parent, Adult and Child (we always use capitalisation to distinguish them from actual parents, adults and children). Berne described the ego-states as being ‘a consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behavior.’ (Principles Of Group Treatment, 1966, p364). Parent ego state is an entire system of copied and remembered thoughts, feelings and behaviours from the persons parents or care-givers (which can also include teachers, older siblings etc). Adult ego state is an entire system of here-and-now thoughts, feelings and behaviours like gathering data, problem solving skills and assessments. Child ego state is an entire system of feelings, thoughts and behaviours experienced from our childhood, typically up to about 7/8 years old. A way of recognising your own ego states is to start bringing into your awareness how you behave/think/feel in different situations, examples would be ‘being late for work’ ‘cleaning up somebody elses mess’ ‘doing a crossword puzzle’ etc, note down your reactions differentiating between your feelings, thoughts and behaviours at that time. Although Parent, Adult and Child is a seemingly simple theory, TA is in fact a highly complex theory that helps us understand human behaviour and personality. I have a story about that tomorrow

2nd November 2011

TA: I said yesterday that I know about a story reflecting the seemingly simple language that Eric Berne used within TA. Before I share this story I want to explain the reasons behind the use of such language. Berne was a psychiatrist, back in the 1950′s where there was a split between the them (patients) and the ‘us’ (psychiatrists), where a different vocabulary was used for each. There was also an emphasis on the patient having something ‘wrong with them’, and that treatment was ‘done to them’. Berne used everyday language in his development of TA because he wanted the client to feel equal in the process, that the journey was travelled together with a shared understanding of language to describe what has/was going on. … So Eric Berne was sat on a plane was asked for his name and occupation by the man sitting next to him. Berne replied “I am Eric Berne, a psychiatrist who has developed transactional analysis”. The man said “Oh, I know all about TA. It’s I’m Ok. You’r OK!”. Berne then went on to ask the man about himself. “I’m a professor of astonomy” he said. Berne immediately replied “Oh I know all about astronomy. It’s twinkle twinkle little star!”

4th November 2011

TA: The story told on the last post indicated that TA is most known for ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’. This bit of theory is based on Eric Berne stating that everybody is fundamentally born ‘OK’, however it was actually Frank Ernst who created a model called the ‘Ok Corral’ in 1971. Frank Ernst brought a lot of behavioural elements to TA and worked in quite a contractual manner with clients, he noted that people take up a favourite role/position (called a ‘life position’) which is either I’m OK, or I’m not OK, they also give others around them a role/position of either You’re OK or You’re not OK. Ernst would encourage his clients to identify themselves on the OK Corral, state what behavioural change they were willing to make and then to contract (joint agreement) this change by the end of the session. For those of you who are familiar with CBT you may recognise a familiar format here! So did you recognise your favourite position? If not check back tomorrow, as I shall be talking more about each position in my next post.

If you would like any further information about the OK Corral and each of the positions, you can either wait until I continue the TA theme through facebook, email me, or perhaps go on a googling spree.