TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS(TA)

Damodar SuarDepartment of Humanities & Social Sciences

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

After reading this chapter, you would

• understand yourself and reduce self-defeating behaviour in interaction,

• understand and improve your relations with others, and• Straight-forward and honest in your dealings in

interactions.

TA deals with how we relate to other people in social interaction. The unit of interaction is called transaction.

If two or more people encounter each other in social aggregation, sooner or later one of them will speak, or give some other indication acknowledging the presence of others. This is called transactional stimulus. Another person will say or do something called the transactional response. TA is concerned with these stimulus-response relationship– “ I do something for you, you do something for me”.

Scripts: Verbal and non-verbal message from parents, friends, relatives, societal members, happenings in family, school, playground, are recorded in brain and form the script. Unconscious mind, preconscious, and conscious mind massages are retrieved to shape the script.•Psychological scripts: massage from parent, relatives.•Cultural scripts: American assertive and achievement-oriented, Japanese go-getters and team players, Indians respect to seniors and dependence on them. Child rearing practices•Sub-cultural scripts: Bihari, Bengali, and Oriyas •Business Script, Family Script, Religion Script, etc.•Constructive and destructive scripts, Awareness about destructive script and rewriting of counter scripts lead to new interests and achievement in life.

Exercise•Think of one thing you now do which you copied from a parent figure and perhaps repeat to your spouse, children, friends and coworkers.•Think of a recent situation in which you believe you gathered facts and on the basis of those facts made a reasonable decision.•Think of one thing you did for fun as a child that you still do.

From time to time people show noticeable changes in posture, viewpoint, vocabulary, accompanied by change in feeling. The same individual show different patterns. This give rise to the idea of ego-states.•Parent •Child•Adult

Structural Analysis and personality

PERSON

PARENT“TAUGHT CONCEPT”

ADULT“THOUGHT CONCEPT”

CHILD“FELT CONCEPT”

Nurturing

Critical/Prejudicial

•Natural/free/ untrained

Affectionate, impulsive, curious, sensuous

•Little professor

• AdaptedComplying, withdrawing

•

ExerciseDraw three separate and non-overlapping circles of different or equal sizes, as they come to your mind, to identify the Parent, Adult and Child components within yourself. Identify one circle as Parent, another as Adult, and still another as the Child as you feel.

# Complementary Transaction: occurs when a message sent from a specific ego state, gets the predicted response from a specific ego state in other person. Communication is open because the responses given were expected responses and were appropriate to the stimulus.# Sometimes a stimulus receives an unexpected or inappropriate response and the line of communication become ‘crossed’. Two interacting persons glare at one another, unwilling to continue transaction or are puzzled by what has just occurred between them

CLASSIFICATION OF TRANSACTIONS

Complementary Transactions Adult/Adult Transactions

1 1

2 2

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C1.wife 2.Husband

1.Wife grieving for lost friend 2.Comforted by sympathetic husband

1.What is the yearly salary for this job.2.It start at Rs 10,0000/-

Sympathetic Parent/Parent Transaction Playful Child/Child Transaction

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C

12

1

2

1.Those children really miss their father2.Let’s take them to the park for a little fun

1.I really like you2.I Like you too

Crossed Transactions

1 1 2 2

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C 1 Wife 2 Husband 1.Boss 2. Secretary

1.Grieving for her lost friend 1.What time is it ?

2.Well,how do you think I feel ! 2.You are always in such a hurry!

1.Boss: I need 25 copies of this report for the board meeting this afternoon can you get them for me.2. Secretary: Aren't you lucky you’ve got me around to take care of you

1

2

Boss secretary

P

A

C

P

A

C

1 1.Wife: I’d like to use the car on

Wednesday night and have a good visit with my sister.

2.Husband: Mrs, my dear, you

never want to talk to me

2

Wife Husband

Transaction may be direct or indirect, straight forward or diluted, intense or week (Lack feeling)

Indirect transactions are three-handed. A man may be too fearful to speak directly to his boss, so he says something to the co-worker,hoping the boss will get the message .

Diluted transaction are half hostile, half affectionate

P

A

C

P

A

C

• Ulterior Transactions : Always involve more than two ego states. When an ulterior message is sent, it is disguised under a socially acceptable transaction.

A. Would you like to come up

C.To see my etchings?

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C

P

A

C

An ulterior message is given when a secretary submits a letter with several typing errors to the boss. This invites the boss to give the secretary a parental put-down.

PAC

PAC

It is our finest sports car, but it may be racy for you

It is an important job, but you can’t do it?- A

C

ExerciseThink back to a transactions you had today. Try to diagram it. Identify the transaction and mention your feeling after the interaction was over. P

A

C

P

A

C

• Steps to change Interaction style

1. Hindsight: Reflect on present

2. Midsight: Get reflection/feedback from others

3. Foresight:Think,how you can interact/relate to others in future

ExerciseRate how you feel generally about yourself and others most of the time (>50%of the time). Put the tick mark for yourself and others.Yourself OthersI am OK Others are OKI am not OK Others are not OK

FOUR LIFE POSITIONS: OK SONG

I am ok You are ok I am not ok you are not ok

I am ok,you are ok (4) I am not ok, you are ok (1)“LIFE IS WORTH LIVING” “Get away from me”Healthy “LIFE IS NOT WORTH MUCH” depression,withdrawl and anxiety

I am ok,you are not ok(2)“Get rid of others”

YOUR LIFE IS NOT WORTH MUCH”Paranoid behaviour and in extreme cases homicide

I am not ok,You are not ok (3)

“LIFE IS NOT WORTH ANYTHING AT ALL”

extreme withdrawl,succide

To be ok and others ok

Empathy

CompromiseTolerance

Trust

JOHARI WINDOW Self (“I”)

known Unknown

25% 25%

Known Blind Area Arena or open Area

Others 25% 25%

Closed Area Dark Area

Unknown

To increase arena:

1.Empathy2Trust

GAMES PEOPLE PLAYGames are a set pattern of transactions that have surface logic but hidden meanings and attempt to draw in an unsuspecting participant. The outcome of games is always almost a win-lose proposition. Straightforward as well as devious people play games. Most games are dysfunctional to interpersonal relations. How to know that someone is playing a game:•Repeated behaviour of the player. •Creation of emotions in the audience/defendantGAMESNow I’ve Got You, You S.O.B.: One employee gets back at another by luring her into what appears to be a natural work relationship. Actually the situation is rigged so that the other will fail. When the inevitable mistake is made, the game player pounces on the associate and publicly embarrasses her.Poor Me : The person depicts himself to the boss as helpless. Criticisms for inadequate performance are avoided because the boss truly feels sorry for the individual, who may actually begin feel sorry for himself.Blemish : 1.A teacher may play blemish with his students by pointing out unimportant flaws just as his parent had done with him/her. 2.The boss appears to be objectively evaluating an employee’s total performance. In reality, the boss is looking for some minor error. When the error is found, the employee is berated for the poor performance, the inference being that the whole project/task is inadequate.Hero: The boss consistently sets up situations in which employees fail. At some point, the boss steps in to save the day miraculously.

King of the Hill: The boss sets up situations in which employees end up in direct competition with her. At the end, she steps in and demonstrates her competence and superiority while publicly embarrassing her employees.

Prosecutor : The employee carefully carries around a copy of the union contract or organizationregulations and investigates management practices. This employee dares the boss to act in an arbitrary manner. Once he does, the employee files a grievance and attempts to embarrass the boss.Yes, but…: The boss responds with “Yes, but…” to every good answer or idea that the subordinatemay have. By doing this, the boss can maintain a superior position and keep subordinates in their place. It represents a form of pseudo-participation; that is, the boss asks for participation butanswers every suggestion with “Yes, but…”Harried : A new executive, takes up one work after another and lastly collapses. Either s/he leaves the job or finds herself/himself in a psychiatric clinic. The lady executive takes up the role of mistress, mother, doing marketing, rearing children, entertaining guests one after another. One day she finds that she is unable to meet the varied role demands and unable to satisfy her husband and children. The husband is carefully chosen, he will criticize her that she is not like his mother.

Games and New script1. Awareness 2. Spontaneity (freedom to choose without reasons)3. Intimacy(love, warmth and tender)

Favourite games I play as persecutor with whom?as rescuer with whom?as victims with whom?Kind of script (constructive, destructive, unproductive)Type of drama ( farce, tragedy, melodrama, saga, comedy)Audience response (applauded, bored, awed, tearful, hostile) New Script desired ____________________________________Contact with self for new script ______________________________

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