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     UPGRADING PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6
Chapter 6 OPTIMUM RELATIONSHIP FOR OPTIMUM FULFILLMENT

Outline of the chapter
Session 6-1  PARENT -- ADULT -- CHILD as Superego, Ego, Id (Eric Berne)
     Parent ego state (Critical - Nurturing)
     Adult ego state
     Child ego state (Natural - Adaptive)

Session 6-2  SETTING UP POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS
     Friends, staying in the same ego state
     Crossed transactions in conflict situations
     Ulterior transactions, Games People Play by Eric Berne
     Payoffs from transactions

Session 6-3  PLEASURE PRINCIPLE DRIVE: THE LITTLE PROFESSOR
     Your inner Little Professor works in your interest
     The Little Professor’s guidelines
            RELATIONSHIP STROKES AS ENERGY FOR  SUCCESS
     Positive Strokes survival quotient
     Positive Strokes and WarmFuzzies resource list
Session 6-4  THE PAST TAPES THAT RUN YOUR LIFE
     Changing from being stiff-headed to rational     
     Consequences from not re-writing your bad “scripts”
     The decommissioned adult
     Origins of maladaptive behavior
     Insufficient strokes; worst problem
           REWRITING YOUR AUTOMATIC “SCRIPTS”
     Structural analysis
     Script analysis
     Intrapsychic/interpersonal analysis
     Game analysis

Session 6-5  TRANSACTIONAL ADVICE FOR PARENTING
           TRANSACTIONAL WISDOM FOR MARRIAGE
     The Adaptive Child exploder
     The Co-dependent two-“Child” relationship



                                                  

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS:

Interpersonal Lifeskills Model
Intrapsychic Lifeskills Model

The Transactional Analysis (TA) model for shaping human relationship deserves consideration because it is so simple and fosters easy identification of oneself with the model. The Transactional Analysis model is considered quite ideal for guidance in parenting classes, marriage and pre-marital counseling. TA is helpful in cognitive therapy groups where informative material helps guide the group process. Like all models, the TA model has deficiencies, which sometimes detract from its strengths. It is graphic, picturesque, with metaphoric (figurative, symbolic) terminology that covers ranges of behavior. These characteristics restrict its use for experimentation and research, where more precision is required. Eric Berne, M.D. and Claude Steiner, Ph.D. are the primary spokesmen for TA . Muriel James, Dorothy Jongeward and Tom Harris have also made strong and popular contributions.


Eric Leonard Bernstein, MD, the original spokesman for Transactional Analysis, was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1910. He took his psychiatric residency at Yale University Hospital. He changed his name to Eric Berne just before World War II. He entered the American army as a psychiatrist in 1943.  Eric Berne had strong interest in group therapy methods and active participation in patient's process of rehabilitation. This may have prevented him from becoming a member of the Psychoanalytic Institute, to which he had applied. Berne began to develop his own ideas, and made his first presentation of Transactional Analysis (TA) at a conference in Los Angeles in 1957. Berne constructed a diagrammatic framework. He taught it to his clients. His system of circles enabled persons with less severe types of emotional disturbance to do self-analysis. Berne's model becomes a mental framework within which a person can identify problem-producing beliefs and behaviors. The model is not a skill-training model in which there are  steps.” Rather, the model becomes a mental picture of how to act more rationally, positively and optimally

Session 6-1  PARENT-ADULT-CHILD as Super, Ego and Id

Eric Berne did not acknowledge any relationship between his three primary structural concepts (circles) and the earlier psychoanalytic model of  superego,  ego and  id. Psychologists agree there is similarity, but Berne's concepts are more like pictures of people than Freudian diagrams and scientific functional descriptions. Eric Berne called the three basic circles; Parent, Adult and Child



Parent ego state

    

The Parent ego state is a collection of memories that have been recorded in early years. Parental, family and social expectations are logged into the brain as the person perceives them. What is recorded are society's expectations and obligations that are “oughts.” The parent ego state is filled with judgements, values and attitudes (Wollams & Brown, 1979). The messages are sometimes verbal, sometimes experiential and sometimes assumed. They are communicated by various verbal and non-verbal cues. Eric Berne used the word  “tapes” for messages and believed that the “ tapes” recorded in early childhood were the most influential. According to Berne, everyone has a Parent ego state, even an infant or child. In psychoanalytic terms the “parent” ego state is much like the “superego.”

Child ego state

     The Child ego state is a function of impulses and desires to find pleasure and be happy. It collects taped information in similar ways to the Adult ego state. The early cry for food (and protest of wetness) and the later playfulness, or pursuit of happiness, is the function of the Child ego state. Young or old, everyone has a Child ego state. “Tapes” are the internal recordings of the successes and the means used to achieve those successes.
Adult ego state

     The Adult ego state (Figure 6-2) is “principally concerned with transforming stimuli into pieces of information, processing and filing that information on the basis of previous experience” (Berne, 1961). It is quite similar to a data-processing computer. From the earliest recorded “tapes” of the intrapsychic Parent and the intrapsychic Child, the intrapsychic Adult calculates  what action must be taken on the basis of that information. The Adult ego state is constantly updating its own processing and storage guidelines. Eventually, the Adult Ego State  (the central core computer of the psyche) is able to integrate all three with reality.
For example, it processes seeing the red burner on the stove. It retrieves a past memory of being burned on the finger.  It remembers the bodily pain from the burn. It alerts the brain to “stand back.” It has saved you from being burned. That is what a good “adult” would do for a child in real life, but an intrapsychic “adult” of the kind Eric Berne is talking about, would do the same for a person.


Adding two dimensions

Berne's model splits the Parent and the Child into two halves. The Parent is split into Critical Parent (Figure 6-3) and Nurturing Parent (Figure 6-4), while the Child is split into Natural Child and Adaptive Child. This split makes the concepts go beyond the earlier Freudian model. Now there are 5 ego states. Each of the ego “states represent visible behavior rather than hypothetical constructs” (Steiner, 74).   



 Nurturing Parent represents the more affirming and more pleasant qualities of what parents and society do for a person. When you say Thank You, that is a kind gesture. It is positive. It is nurturing. When you volunteer to be helpful, that is positive and nurturing.  When you compliment someone that gives a sort of AHHhhaa feeling which makes our heart just a bit happier. A compliment is nurturing.   Critical Parent behaviors generally represent the corrective behaviors of real parents and the prohibitive messages of society. Both of these are appropriate, but both can be grossly overdone. This description of what happens between persons also happens within persons. When you make a mistake and say “Dumb Me!” you have just let your critical parent beat on yourself.
    

The Natural Child ego state (Figure 6-5) represents the playful part of human behavior, from infancy to old age. The infant may receive enjoyment from playing with a spoon, and the adult may find enjoyment from golfing or from counting his/her money. You may be 5 years old or 50 years old but throughout life you play or can be playful, or think playfully, happily, joyously. That’s your Natural Child doing its thing. And along with that, when we are not having fun, we’re bored. That’s the other side of us. It’s the Adaptive Child in us.
     The  Adaptive Child ego state (Figure 6-6) represents human response which has some negativity in it, some resistance, some reaction and some deeper hostility. A  disobedient child, a rebellious teenager, and a person with a personality disorder may be said to be “in the Adaptive Child ego state.” To be naturally playful and to sometimes be adaptive are normal and natural. Excessive indulgence in either or both can a problem. If a person is too playful on the job he can get fired. If a person is too adaptive, such as being inappropriately defiant, withdrawing, unhappy, rebellious or resistant, etc., the person can take on behaviors that are not-so-optimum. (You are still only learning to understand Berne’s figurative model. We will look at the significance of this model shortly.)

Not O.K. hurt child ego state


The Transactional Analysis (TA) model attempts to closely simulate real life by the figurative terms used for such behaviors. In real life, children make a lot of mistakes. Children are therefore probably corrected more and punished more. People generally consider a child's passage from childhood to adulthood is filled with more hurts. Children who experience those hurts, feel “Not OK” at such times. A person's intrapsychic “child ego state” is where hurts accumulate. Thus, the term  Hurt Child refers to the negative effect we get from the hurts and stress of living. Hurtness or NOT OK feelings do not become a part of either the Parent or the Adult ego states.

     Grown persons also feel “Not OK” when they experience criticism, failure or defeat, etc. Transactional Analysis (TA) indicates that grown persons are in their “NOT OK” and/or “ Hurt Child” ego state when they experience hurts of various kinds. In the Boss-Employee transaction below, the Boss' NOT OK feelings turn him into a Critical Parent. The employee feels the put-down from the Boss' comments, and responds. However, the comment by the Employee doesn't seem to be a retaliating response, but a simple statement of fact. That statement of fact appears to be a very Adult-oriented statement. If there is anger attached to the employee response, then the arrow needs to be redrawn as if starting in the employee's Critical Parent and ending up in the Boss' Child ego state.


    In No. 1 above, the boss was coming out of a Critical Parent ego state, which resulted in the put-down. The Boss must have seen his employee disobey his instructions, creating his inner “NOT OK” feelings.  These, he dumped on the employee. The employee did not overreact and return a Critical Parent type of comment. The employee appears to have kept self-control in command and responded with an explanation in an Adult-to-Adult transcation.

Session 6-2   SETTING UP POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Eric Berne had a strong positive model cast in figurative language. He views two persons in a normal conversation as having “complementary transactions” taking place when they discuss an issue or share stories. A complementary transaction  takes place when two persons are interacting on the same frequency. Both persons are in the same ego state when this takes place. A transaction not only consists of words, but includes facial expression, tone of voice, gestures and other cues. The receiver takes both the verbal and the non-verbal cues to interpret the message which is being communicated. Here is an example.

Friends, staying in the same ego state

     Complementary transactions also exist when one person's expression brings forth another person's expected reaction. A person can be communicating out of one ego state, but the other person responds out of a different, but acceptable  ego state. Here is an example of two lovers, both functioning mostly adult-to-adult, but the messages are both positive, functioning a lot like two persons both in their natural child ego state.
     This transaction (pair of comments) is strongly natural child, but the transaction is also an adult-to-adult transaction in the figurative language of  Transactional Analysis (TA).

 Crossed transactions in conflict situations

Crossed transactions produce a large amount of interpersonal conflict. Such transactions are predictably not Adult-Adult transactions. In these crossed-transaction communications, the tone of the voice is generally about an octave too high. The volume is many decibels too high. The gestures and the body language which accompany the verbal messages serve to reinforce utter contempt. They are more like the following.
    

Crossed transactions can begin in any ego state and be crossed by the transaction out of a different ego state from the other person. The horizontal Adult-Adult transactions are considered the optimum responses. When someone comes out of a Critical Parent ego state and strongly criticizes the other person, it has the tendency to create some hard feelings.

    In the above diagram we see that the File Clerk has a habit of becoming defensive. Or perhaps it’s his or her bad day. Possibly the Clerk is carrying excessive amounts of Hurt Child (suppressed hostility) inside, which explode. The Hurt Child ego state fires up the person to overreact and the hostility comes out from the Critical Parent ego state (See top circle on right; File Clerk’s negativity coming down on the Boss. The goal of Transactional Analysis (TA) is to help persons aim at responding more out of the Adult-to-Adult ego state. Transactional Analysis wants the Boss to be as careful as possible not to come off being the “Critical Parent” too much, and wants the File Clerk to quit the  habit of responding in the same Critical Parent manner.
     Transactional Analysis (TA) fosters helpful complementary relationships like two people relating Natural Child (NC) to NC; that is, laughing and joking together. Another allowable  behavior may be that of  two persons sharing ideas and each respecting to the other person’s views. One might see this as the complementary transactions of two persons each functioning in their Nurturing Parent Ego State. Finally, complementary transactions could exist in two persons in a debate, where both are in their Critical Parent (CP) Ego State. With this model in mind a person can see himself or herself functioning at a more positive level, helping people respond more correctly. The picture generated by the two sets of three circles helps guide people into more correct responses.

Ulterior transactions -- Games

When an ulterior transaction is being communicated there is a hidden game being played. Sometimes it is obvious to both, and both play along. Sometimes the ulterior transaction is only known by one of the relating persons. When a young man invites a girl to a movie, the invitation is mostly Adult to Adult, but the intrapsychic Child ego state is dancing with ulterior fantasies.
     Eric Berne was fascinated with peoples' ulterior (beyond the apparent) transactions, and discussed them extensively in his book, Games People Play. “An ulterior transaction is one that contains both an overt (social) and a covert (unspoken psychological) message” (Shilling, 1984).

    

The girl may respond equally Adult to Adult, but have her own set of needs which make her internal transactions much different than the boy might possibly know.

Payoffs from transactions



In the above transactions, the “payoff” for the boy may be that of holding her hand in the movie, and having another date with her in the future. The payoff for her may be the response she receives when her girl friends hear about her date. Berne saw humans shifting into ego states, playing games with ulterior transactions; then achieving and enjoying the payoff, all done quite  unconsciously. One of the games he describes is, “Why Don't You. . .Yes, But.” Here is how it might take place.

     Hyacinth: My husband never builds anything right.
     Camellia: Why doesn't he take a course in carpentry?
     Hyacinth: Yes, but he doesn't have time.
     Rosita: Why don't you buy him some good tools?
     Hyacinth: Yes, but he doesn't know how to use them.
     Holly: Why don't you hire a carpenter?
     Hyacinth: Yes, but that would cost too much.
     Iris: Why don't you just accept what he does?
     Hyacinth: Yes, but the whole thing might fall down.
          (Berne, 196l, p. 104)


     Hyacinth is a good player in the game “Why Don't You. . .Yes, But.”  She is basically coming out of a Hurt Child position, and is setting up all her friends to be a good parent to her (Figure 6-7). In this scenario, all her friends will finally give up, and that will ensure that Hyacinth can remain in the Hurt Child position. Hyacinth will probably use other games to set people up to be either Nurturing Parent to her or (eventually) Critical Parent to her. If you investigate further, you see that Hyacinth flip-flops from Hurt Child to Critical Parent toward her friends.
     This is frustrating for people who want to be helpful. The helpful persons cannot connect with Hyacinth's Adult ego state. The Child in Hyacinth shields itself from positive Adult action or positive Adult abandonment. Hyacinth will probably stay in this  Poor Me position, and use her game to insulate herself from Adult change. Some of Hyacinth's payoff comes from being so smart she can outwit other's advice. Another payoff for her gaming is attention. Another payoff is the psychological arrogance. None of these is lasting or optimally functional. Generally, people function better when their Adult ego state is mostly in command; listening, acting, solving, and/or abandoning.

Session 6-3  PLEASURE PRINCIPLE: THE LITTLE PROFESSOR



There is a  Little Professor living inside the Child  ego state. The Little Professor is a metaphorical representation of a basic inner psychological function, somewhat parallel to the pleasure principle. The Little Professor (inside all persons) is always looking for the best payoff to please the inner Child, that TA pictures us having.

Pleasure brought by the Little Professor

     At a primitive level, the Little Professor instinctively processes information to make the Natural Child ego state happy. If you've ever seen a child between age 1 and age 2 lie, you were puzzled how he learned that. He probably didn't learn to tell the lie to escape punishment. His/her Little Professor shielded him/her from the emotional pain of  guilt by the denial. A person’s Little Professor is very smart at finding pleasure and eliminating pain. That Little Professor lives in the Child ego state (Figure 6-8) of 1 year old persons, of 20 year old persons, 40 year old persons and 80 year old persons. So if a person doesn't learn to make a commitment to be truthful, the Little Professor will eventually teach a person all the unconscious neurotic defense mechanisms described earlier The person will not be liked for all the denial, blame, rationalization and other neurotic behaviors, but the person will not suffer from much guilt.
    

The Little Professor will deny and rationalize most personal blame and guilt. The guilt isn't gone, only suppressed, with all the problem consequences that go with  suppression (such as temper, explosiveness, violence, addictions, etc.).
     The Little Professor is the “ intuition” function which “works primarily at the frontiers of a person's knowledge” (Steiner, 1974). The Little Professor in a person of any age, has “an extremely accurate grasp and understanding of major variables that enter into interpersonal relationships” (Steiner, 1974). He can detect deeper intentions and meanings. He can integrate verbal messages and non-verbal cues. He is in touch with feelings, his own and other's. That is important for communication. However, if the person's Little Professor has been lied to, manipulated, and browbeaten, the Little Professor will look for protection from emotional pain in distorted ways (neuroses, phobias, obsessions, addictions, schizophrenias, etc.).

Controlling the Little Professor

A person who likes to explore, experiment and be curious, has a very active Little Professor. That can get a person into a lot of trouble, or it can make a person very creative. Therefore, the person needs to listen to the inner voice of one's own inner Critical Parent, and find a balance. If you let the Little Professor run wild, he'll take the whole Parent –  Adult –  Child (P-A-C) system into lawless deviances and bondaging addictions. This happens when the Little Professor isn't taught, or won't learn some self-restraining and self-cooling self-discipline. In life people need to constantly tell that Little Professor inside to “cool it,” to curb itself, to restrict itself from paths that lead to self-destructing pleasure.

RELATIONSHIP STROKES AS ENERGY FOR SUCCESS


The most important key to understanding Transactional Analysis (TA) is the concept of  Positive Strokes and Negative Strokes. The Little Professor is looking for Positive Strokes much of the time. Earlier, we introduced Freud’s concept of “libidinal nourishment” which is psychic nourishment.  

Positive Strokes and Warm Fuzzies for the soul


Positive Strokes are emotionally nourishing. Like food feeds the body, like education feeds the mind, and like beliefs feed the value system, so Positive Strokes feed the psychological makeup of a person.  Touching is giving Positive Strokes. Touching is essential for early growth. “Infants will not grow normally without the touch of others” (Spitz, 1945). This hunger for stroking, as it may be called, is a physical manifestation of the need for love. Without Positive Strokes we are psychologically weakened (Figure 6-9). As children mature they also have “stimulus (attention) hunger,” and “(time) structure hunger.” People want strokes from stimulation and they want strokes from their position in work and social relationships. The Little Professor intuitively knows how to bring in strokes to fill these needs, to bring in pleasure, including satisfaction.
     Positive Strokes are more than just hugs and kisses. People get Positive Strokes out of watching sunsets. They get Positive Strokes from compliments. They get Positive Strokes from successes, from hoping, from dreaming, from creating, from hobbies, and studying and thousands of pleasurable and not-so pleasurable experiences. Positive Strokes are nourishing to the emotions of a person.

                      “The notion that strokes are, throughout a person's life, as indispensable as
                      food is a notion that has not been sufficiently emphasized in recent TA theory.
                     Therefore, I wish to restate the fact: strokes are as necessary to human life
                     as are other primary biological needs such as food, water and shelter--needs
                     which if not satisfied will lead to death.” (Steiner, 1974)

     Claude Steiner (1974) created a delightful story about Warm Fuzzies, which are like Positive Strokes. In the story people had a Warm Fuzzy bag and each one went around handing others a Warm Fuzzy which made them feel good. Then a bad witch came to town and scared them away from giving away  Warm Fuzzies. She deceived them into thinking that the supply of Warm Fuzzies would run out. The bad witch gave out bags of Cold Pricklies. People kept their Warm Fuzzies and gave out Cold Pricklies. Since Warm Fuzzies were more in demand, some people “coated” the Cold Pricklies “with white and fluffy” and sold them as Warm Fuzzies. These “counterfeits” didn't make people feel good. Then a Hip Woman came to town and gave the children a limitless supply of Warm Fuzzies. The parents were worried and wanted to pass a law so the children wouldn't deplete their supply. The children didn't care. They kept giving away Warm Fuzzies. (The outcome of this story is left for persons to imagine for themselves.)
     That is the origin of the term Warm Fuzzy. A Warm Fuzzy is similar to a Positive Stroke. These are Transactional Analysis (TA) pictures. Like Freud's “pleasure principle,” the Little Professor in the Child ego state has natural-born intuition about what the most pleasurable Warm Fuzzy is, where it is easiest to obtain, safest to stockpile for future consumption. The Little Professor knows where to obtain Positive Stroking and Warm Fuzzy experiences.
     Education ( cognitive restructuring by Ellis, Beck, Maultsby, Seligman, et al.) increases a person’s (the Little Professor's) sense of responsibility to bring some Positive Strokes, not only to the Child ego state, but to the other ego states and to Body, Mind and Spirit. If a person (the Little Professor) isn't taught, or refuses to accept responsibility to the whole person, the person becomes unbalanced and distorted (Figure 6-10). A person may find Positive Strokes through quick-acting  alcohol in the body, or through a fall color tour for the emotions. Some would agree that Positive Strokes from a fall color tour is great, but not agree to participate in whatever Positive Strokes come from alcohol. There are many persons who cannot, or won’t, expand their sources of Positive Strokes. They are simply drawn to whatever the body wants, but seldom provide Positive Strokes to the mind or to the spirit/value systems or to any other person.  

    
What about finding strokes in learning (mind) or finding strokes through pursuing values and beliefs (spirit/values) which make the world a better place? It is not within the Little Professor's instinctual makeup to worry about anything but its own pleasure as it dwells in the Child ego state. People (their Little Professors) are not basically self disciplined unless they copy or imitate someone who demonstrates the benefits of self-discipline. Sometimes a person (his or her Little Professor) won't learn unless s/he experiences the folly of his/her ignorance. Sometimes people have to hit the bottom because of their (Little Professor's) ignorance and laziness in not finding a variety of sources of strokes, other than the addictive sources. Alcoholics, drug addicts, sex  addicts, pornography addicts, food addicts, anorexics, etc., are generally "stroke hungry" persons. Their hunger was supplied by the Little Professor who didn't use self-discipline in discovering multiple sources of strokes. Anyone can make his or her Little Professor learn and diversify.

Positive Strokes survival quotient

All persons need strokes, but what is the formula? How many Positive Strokes does one need daily? How big must they be? What hunger do they fill? Can we tolerate an unending attack of Negative Strokes? How man, what kind, and what size can we tolerate? How many Negative Strokes does it take to neutralize the positives? Can a person amplify or enlarge the Positive Strokes s/he gets? Can a person mentally dislodge negatives and hold positives in the forefront, as a shield against the impact of Negative Strokes? Doesn't your Little Professor have some ability to calculate this? Isn't the Little Professor able to add the positives and subtract the negatives, and reveal when the negative load is getting too much? How are children who get an overload of Negative Strokes, able to speak up? Will their parents listen when the children do speak up?


                          “Most human beings live in a state of stroke deficit,   
                           that is, a situation in which they survive on a less
                           than ideal diet of strokes. This stroke deficit can
                          vary from mild to severe.”
                                    Claude Steiner, Scripts People Live, Bantam Books, 1974, p. 136

     Capers, Hedges and Holland (1971) determined that each person has a Stroke Survival Quotient, which means that there is a minimum-maximum of positive emotional input needed for healthy survival. Behaviors can be calculated in terms of strokes. Saying “Hi!” to a person may be worth 1 stroke to someone. Saying “Hi!” with a dull face may be 1 Negative Stroke to someone. A robust and gleeful “Hi!” may be worth 10 strokes. One's job may give him 5 strokes a day, if he likes his job. Some days one’s job may bring 10 strokes, but other days one’s job may bring minus 20 Negative Strokes. Certain foods may be worth zero Positive Strokes on some occasions, but up to 50, or 100, or 1000 Positive Strokes, depending on circumstances.

Warm Fuzzy and Positive Strokes resource list

Evaluate your Stroke Survival Quotient. Your particular Stroke Survival Quotient may differ from others. However, let each person assume that s/he needs 100 strokes a day. First, listen to your feelings and determine whether your supply of “Positive Strokes” and “'Warm Fuzzies” is above or below 100, your optimum daily need. Give yourself the number of strokes you think you get from each of the following. Raise or lower stroke levels on individual stroking factors, so that the final tally reaches that above-100 or below-100 which you initially calculated. Use minus figures where appropriate. Add and subtract until your daily average reaches what level you think you are at, either above or below 100.


 1. Food          ___     
2. Sex               ___
3. Love          ___
4. Touch          ___
5. Friendship          ___
6. Sports          ___
7. Objects          ___      
8. Shiny new car     ___
 9. Spacious house     ___
10. Animals          ___     
11. Helping others     ___
12. Pornography     ___

(Add other personal sources of positive strokes.)

13. Hobbies          ____
14.  Smoking     ___
15. Alcohol          ___     
16. Drugs          ___
17. Poor Me          ___     
18. Flirting          ___     
 19. Clothes          ___     
20. Reading          ___     
21. Clean house     ___     
22. Coffee time     ___     
23. Studying          ___     
24. Artistry          ___

(Add other personal sources of positive strokes.)

25. Family          ___
26. Work          ___
27. Success          ___
28. Perform          ___
29. Fishing          ___
30. Hunting          ___
31. Toys          ___
32. Religion          ___
33. Bullying          ___
34. Child care     ___
35. Jewelry          ___
36. Building          ___

(Add other personal sources of positive strokes.)

     Now subtract the Negative Strokes that you have to deal with in your life. Identify which negative experiences you live with. Give each of those experiences below a daily negative score.


 1. My looks           ___     
 2. My weight          ___     
 3. My height          ___     
 4. My past abuse     ___
 5. My past grades     ___
 6. My low self-esteem___     
 7. My social life     ___

Other________________

  8. My I.Q.          ___     
  9. My roommate     ___     
10. My finances     ___     
11. My guilt          ___     
12. My loneliness     ___     
13. My romances     ___
14. My job          ___     

Other______________


15. Death          ___
16. Divorce     ___
17. Single          ___
18. My anger     ___
19. Jealousy     ___
20. Parents     ___
21. Failure(s)     ___

Other______________


(If there are one or more past major sources of past traumatic negatives that still seems to drain you, average out the negatives over a daily basis)

Subtract TOTAL negatives from TOTAL positives for final TOTAL     ____________

If you are generally happy and upbeat, then your final TOTAL score should be 100 or above 100. If it isn't, scan your life and see where else your Positive Strokes are coming from. If you are frequently depressed, identify what source of Negative Strokes is draining your emotions. Humans are the only species that can manipulate the environment to get more Positive Strokes out of it. Humans, often pay prices for excessive manipulation, sometimes with delayed Negative Strokes. They also suffer from the consequences of ignorance and lack of self-control. Generally, gaining Positive Strokes from a large variety of sources is advantageous.


Session 6-4  THE PAST TAPES THAT RUN YOUR LIFE

The Adult ego state isn't always separate from the other ego states. Sometimes there is contamination. “Contamination occurs when ego-state boundaries break down so that the individual's Adult becomes contaminated by his or her Parent and/or Child” (Schilling, 1984). A person who votes a certain way, along with his family and the majority of my community, has an Adult ego state which has probably been influenced by, or contaminated by what others want the person to do. Parent “tapes” are so strong they can make the person vote that way. The Parent ego state has “contaminated” the Adult Ego state. This isn't bad to vote this way. In that sense everyone has some Adult contamination by his/her own Parent ego state. This may be acceptable and not harmful. However, when the Adult ego state bows to social pressures which are involved in illegal, immoral and unkindly behaviors, then there is a problem with excessive Parent ego state contaminating the Adult ego state. Autonomy by the Adult ego state is important.

Pre-programmed “tapes” often run our lives.
     It is possible for the Adult ego state to be contaminated by the Parental ego state pressures. These cultural messages may tell us to vote in a certain way. The Child ego state can contaminate the Adult as well. For example; the choco-holic is a person whose taste for chocolate has grown to addictive proportions. In such an instance the size of the Adaptive and Natural child’s ego state dominates the emaciated power of the Adult ego state. No ego state should totally dominate another ego state within the person.

Changing from being stiff-headed to rational

Some persons are more opinionated than rational. One might see such a person as “excluding” what wisdom has to offer. Exclusion takes place when one internal ego state dominates another and won't let the third ego state have anything to say. John Jacobs III grew up knowing he would inherit the family business. John occasionally played football with the backyard boys, but his parents wanted him to study. They wanted homework finished by 7:00 PM. John's parents had high expectations for John. John lived up to them and made his parents happy. When John inherited the family business he couldn't feel comfortable playing. His inner Adult ego state had been contaminated (overly influenced) by his Parent ego state. John's Child ego state has been excluded, or blocked off. John was became a workaholic.

    

John developed ulcers. After that an episode of depression brought him to the hospital. Both were signs of inner conflict and lack of good interaction between John's ego states. John had a deep passion for playing violin in an orchestra. He had practiced a lot in early life. His Little Professor had been intuiting, but John had squelched the messages when he took over the family business. John decided to take some time to “play” the violin. He began practicing and revived his inner spirit. He was hired by an orchestra, and became a man with a new passion, a renewed source of Strokes. Fortunately, it feed his system enough to enliven his interest in the business. John was busier but happier.

Problem consequences from not rewriting one’s “script”

 Jocko was completely opposite from John. Jocko's Natural Child ego state is so large it dominates the Adult in him (below). Jocko's internal Parent ego state has been blocked off. That meant Jocko did what he wanted and listened to nobody. In the diagram below we see that Jocko's internal Parent ego state has been excluded and his Child contaminates (overly influences) his Adult.
    

Jocko (above) will likely have more problems and create problems. Jocko-type persons are extremely  narcissistic (self-centered), grossly self-indulgent, use  temper tantrums to get their way,  bully people into deferring to them, and are more vulnerable to most forms of self-pleasing addiction. “A more serious difficulty, particularly to society, is presented by the Child-Contaminated Adult with a Blocked-Out Parent. This condition develops in the person whose real parents, or those who fulfilled the parental role, were so brutal and terrifying or, in the other extreme, so doltishly indulgent (permissive) that the only want to preserve life was to `shut them off' or block them out. This is typical of the psychopath, the person who at some point early in life gives up the first position, I'M NOT OK — YOU'RE OK, and assumes a new one, I'M OK — YOU'RE NOT OK.” . . Such a person does not have available to his current transactions any tapes which supply data having to do with social control, appropriate `shoulds' and `should-nots' cultural norms, or what, in one sense, may be referred to as conscience . . . One way to determine whether a person has a Parent is to determine the existence of feelings of shame, remorse, embarrassment, or guilt. . . The treatment of such a person is difficult. One cannot evoke a Parent where one does not exist” (Harris, 1967).

Origins of maladaptive behavior

The  psychotic is a person with little Adult function. In TA terms, the adult has been decommissioned. In a diagram one would see a blockage between the Adult and Parent, and another blockage between the Adult and the Child. Both the intrapsychic Parent and the intrapsychic Child produce behaviors that are confusing and contradictory. Psychotics do not understand themselves, and the public can't handle their jumble of Parent and Child actions. There seems to be an indiscriminate replay of tapes that have little relation to reality. Some of this is due to past painful experiences which have been suppressed and repressed. Medicine is generally used to calm the anxiety which develops from the confusion. Therapy would help to uncover the repressed event and its emotion. Therapy would also provide explanations, resolution of earlier hurts, restructuring of rational ideas, loving support and hope.


Family and caretaker origins


Some problems arise when a small child tries to make a compromise between his own needs and the needs of those who are responsible for his her growth and development, such as; parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, school authorities and school peers. This would be a conflict in which the parent’s Parent ego state is in conflict with the child’s Child ego state. In this teeter-totter picture, any Adaptive Child behavior can easily be accounted for by seeing the other end of the teeter-totter as being in a Critical Parent ego state. Likewise, any Natural Child behavior can be seen as coming from Nurturing Parent ego states. Transactional Analysis acknowledges that this diagnosis may be true in many instances.
     “Discounting” is considered by Transactional Analysis to have a devastating influence (Wollams & Brown, 1979, p. 103). There are four levels of severity of discounting. Within each level one can discount self, others and the situation. 1. One can discount the existence of a problem by walking out the door and ignoring it (neurotic defense of denial).  2. One can discount the significance of the problem, like, “Oh, that's no big deal” (neurotic defense of rationalization).  3. One can discount the change possibilities, saying, “I'll never satisfy her/him no matter what I do” (neurotic defense of intellectualizing). 4. One can discount one's own personal abilities to handle the problem or resolve the situation. Here are some discounting statements that a parent might make to a real-live child.


“You are just being a big baby.”
     “You are just a spoiled brat.”
     “Don't be so stupid about that.”
     “When are you going to learn?”
     “I don't want to hear about it.”
     “Don't bother me now.”
     “Don't talk back to me, you hear?”
     “Shut up and eat it.”
     “I couldn't please you if I tried?”
     What you are seeing is an inability to  listen to a child who may be trying to explain that s/he has a problem with something. The above statements represent put-down statements and not Adult-Adult listening. Most of the above statements are Critical Parent to Hurt Child (Figure 6-16), which, if continued, could make the child upset enough to begin turning into an Adaptive Child. In the Adaptive Child ego state one sees withdrawal. Boys tend to take on strong fathers and become aggressive (hostile and reactive), when they suffer for a long time under male Critical Parenting.
Societal origins

Many problem behaviors are not necessarily the result of the teeter-totter picture of Parent-Child interaction that exists in the Transactional Analysis Model. Sometimes a person's friends like to ridicule and mock one of their fellow members to boost their own egos. Such scorn can pressure one into drugs and undermine self-esteem. Society has cultural messages that are just as devastating as an Critical parent message from a real father, mother or caretaker.
Developmental origins

Transactional Analysis is a well-rounded system that encompasses developmental understanding. For example, a person can learn a false notion (from a teacher or anyone) that being shy and withdrawing is perfectly normal. In other words the idea was learned at an earlier developmental stage. That can have a negative influence on social development, and serious consequences later. In this instance, an untrue and irrational idea can leave a person in an Adaptive Child ego state.
     The Transactional Analysis model assumes that the smallest infant new-born child is already endowed with the 3 basic ego states. This means that new-borns have an Adult ego state as well as a Parent and Child ego state. It is quite obvious that a baby’s various forms of crying are sending various messages, one of them being a Critical Parent message if the real-live parent doesn’t respond.

    

The new-born baby also has an Adult ego state, and is probably processing information from conception. Somewhere, in that mass of experience, a new-born is already organizing information, and making certain decisions in an Adult ego state (or percentage of it). How much does a person determine his or her destiny? The TA model helps to hold up individual responsibility high, because everyone is endowed with an Adult ego state. The TA model thereby gives each person hope of being able to function at higher and higher Adult levels, if and when they are supported emotionally with enough Positive Strokes, the energy of the system.

Insufficient strokes; worst problem of all


The Transactional Analysis model makes it apparent that suffering from not enough Positive Strokes is as harmful as being victimized by too many Negative Strokes, or getting hooked on addicting strokes. “The lack of sufficient strokes always has a detrimental effect on people” (James & Jongewaard, 1971, p. 46). “The need for strokes continues throughout life, although the strokes themselves gradually assume a more symbolic, less physical character over time” (Shilling, 1984, p. 75). “Strokes are necessary for human survival, and when people can't obtain positive strokes, they will settle for negative strokes because they too, even though they feel bad, are life supporters” (Steiner, 1974, p. 127). “You need to stroke and be stroked whether you are old, young, single or married” (Campos & McCormick, 1972, p.12). “Rene' Spitz found that infants deprived of handling over a long period will tend at length to sink into an irreversible decline and are prone to succumb eventually to intercurrent [any present] disease. In effect, this means that what he calls emotional deprivation can have fatal consequences” (Berne, 1964, p. 13).

     David was the middle child of 5 children. He was conceived and born during the most stressful time of his parent's life. The economy was a problem due to the recession. His father had been forced to resign his position by radical conservative thinking. From birth to age 5 he lived in a village and the child closest to his age lived a half mile away. David played by himself most of the time. David's parents were not yellers or violent. They loved deeply but just didn't give a lot of Positive Strokes and Warm Fuzzies, which was quite typical of many parents in that generation. In grade school David was very friendly, hungry for attention. David's family moved to a large city when David was 13. The area they moved to was economically deprived. David attended high school. He did well, but he had a large appetite for friends. He would do anything to gain attention and friends. He found friends when he got his cars. He had fast cars. David dropped out of high school, picked it up after a year, went to college but didn't finish the fourth year. David became a nationally recognized salesman in the furniture world. In marriage he lived in a wealthy suburb, owned a foreign car, and a motor home. He lost it all and died at 52. David indulged in some self-indulgent behaviors. He was not trained in conflict resolution. His indulgent Natural Child ego state polarized with his wife. In the last 3 years of his life he suffered enormous Negative Strokes from many sources, some of which he brought on himself, some not. David didn't have a strongly nurtured Adult ego state, and his life script was more self-indulgent than self-controlling. He died never knowing what exactly went wrong.


F. REWRITING YOUR AUTOMATIC “SCRIPTS”

Cognitive psychology understands that we can develop some irrational (non-truthful, non-helpful) thought processes. Transactional Analysis also understands this. There is a continuing history of recognizing this problem. Robert Goulding (1989) co-established the Redecision Therapy School in the late 1970's. Transactional Analysis is taught in their school. They work with clients to enable them to re-script their lives, using the steps. Change takes place when more optimum values and mental skills replace inferior ones.

Re-deciding as re-scripting


Redecision therapy is available (Campos, 1986) in Sacramento, CA for children. Vann Joines (1986) promotes it in Chapel Hill, NC. In the self-help world of this textbook, the student is encouraged to understand that s/he needs to take the ultimate and final responsibility for problem-solving. Redecision Therapy is really what all positive psychology is about.
     Scripting, rescripting (Massey & Massey, 1989), reprogramming, rechilding (Clarkson & Fish, 1988), reparenting (Moroney, 1989), reframing (Divac-Jovanovic, 1986, German), and redeciding goes on continually in the healthiest and most successful people. Optimum lifestyle factors are updated regularly by contact with healthy persons. They refuse to stay in Poor-Me-Fix-My-Hurt-Child positions. Healthy persons refuse to allow abuse or failure to internalize. They stay with reality and disallow the internal Critical Parent to abuse their own internal Child. Having a hero, a model, fixed in one's own mental imagery helps one do the job of rescripting and redeciding. Some people hang on with faith. Some people seek and find support (stroking) in family and friends. Some people react against a bad past and build their lives with one positive self-affirmation at a time, until the compounding effect makes them winners.
     David could have benefitted from some “rescripting” (Figure 6-18). He was very intelligent and had a good memory. If David would have had the opportunity to digest this textbook, he might have been able to quit his self-indulgent game (Little Professor feeding narcissistic Adaptive Child), and rewrite his life script. Statistically speaking, he may possibly have saved his life, or at least added years to it, by throwing out the “Smile” game, tightening the screws on his self-discipline, and using problem-solving skills.

Life Positions as “scripts” and “tapes”

Ultimately, both the person and the TA therapist need to discover (uncover) how one feels most of the time. It isn't helpful to simply identify a  depressed state. Its more helpful to identify that emotional state with a structure. TA helps one identify his or her degree of OK-ness or NOT OK-ness in relation to other factors. Here are TA’s four “life positions.”

    

David probably adopted a life position somewhere between age 1 and 2, I'M NOT OK. YOU'RE OK. He always put on a good front. Everyone liked David, but customers knew that David sometimes didn't follow through on promises. It takes a strong inner Parent ego state to tell your inner Child ego state to keep still until you finish what you promised. Without a good supply of strokes its easy to fall back and replay the tape, I'M NOT OK. YOU'RE OK.

Structural analysis (1)


There are 4 basic steps in using Transactional Analysis for therapy; structural analysis, script analysis, intrapsychic and interpersonal analysis, and game analysis (Cabezon-Duclos, 1981). Structure analysis is simply taking one's own life history (or that of a client) and organizing the material around the various ego states. As information is gathered it will fall into one ego state more than another. That helps the individual understand the size or relative power of those ego states.
     David never seemed to get enough positive strokes. His house, car, motor home, cigarettes, alcohol, parties, and friendly behavior always brought strokes. That is where his Little Professor went. Even that shouldn't have been a problem. That's the American dream. The problem seemed to be that David never saw that his Child ego state was often running his life.

Script analysis (2)

 Script analysis is the second step in the process of using Transactional Analysis. Script analysis seeks to understand what behaviors or sequence of behaviors are repeated most often. Consequences of those behaviors are evaluated. Once behaviors and consequences are reduced to writing, a person can begin to reprogram his or her life with new scripts. Each ego state has a hierarchy of behaviors that replay when certain cues are delivered. Someone yells. I flinch and withdraw. You get ready to defend and attack. My script comes out of seeing my real-life parents mostly withdraw under pressure.

     Now my internal Parent ego state has a script which is cued to withdraw when another's voice is loud and angry. Your script comes out of living with people who yelled back, doubled the intensity, and bombed the opposition into oblivion. TA therapy spends a lot of time evaluating the NP, CP, A, NC and AC tapes and scripts. New scripts are written, learned, memorized and posted, in order to chart a new course of behavior. Change is possible and “frogs can become princes and princesses.”
     David's basic script was a “Pleaser Script.”
He really was a very wonderful person. He tried to please so many persons. He would promise to do things for you, but would fail to keep his word. He did not have a strong sense of self-discipline. His personal Critical Parent ego state was not strong enough to keep his Natural Child from promises he could not keep.
      He believed that conservative behaviors were to be avoided (Figure 6-19). This is the opposite of his parents. David did not often seem to accept his parents more conservative and self-disciplined lifestyle. It appears that he reacted, swinging to the more liberal side.
     There are many other “script" types in TA that the serious student may learn upon further study.


 INTEGRITY, WISDOM AND MEANING  ARE ON THE PATHWAY OF RELATIONSHIPS.

“American women at midlife [find] integrity, wisdom and meaning . . on the path of intimacy and relatedness. . . The American woman invests in relationships with her spirit, grows through them, and derives her sense of meaningfulness from them.  . . The experience of integrity and accretion of wisdom in middle adulthood is created when one’s intimate relationships and generative activities evoke a sense of transcendent meaning.”

Ruthellen Josselson
Santa Barbara, CA.
In Young-Eisendrath, P. (et al.) The Psychology of Mature Spirituality: Integrity, wisdom, transcendence

Intrapsychic and interpersonal analysis (3)

The third step in the process of using Transactional Analysis is seeing one's own P-A-C functions. It is perhaps easier to understand how the Critical Parent boss or Critical Parent married partner can create a NOT OK Hurt Child feeling inside another person. It is another thing to understand that a person can put himself or herself down. Such a person mutters to himself/herself (intrapsychically), “Oh, dumb me. I did it again!” People generate their own NOT OK Hurt Child feelings by allowing themselves to put themselves down (internally, intrapsychically). Criticisms help us learn, true, but excessive self criticism increases the amount of inner guilt. If I criticize myself for making a mistake, and use that to affirm what I am going to do better next time, then I am mobilized forward and healthier. If I spend too much time in self-criticism, that is irrational and will produce neurotic guilt (imaginary guilt). Excess neurotic guilt can have just as much negative effect on my emotions as real guilt. This illustrates a common internal problem. Excessive, irrational and neurotic guilt is a fundamental problem in many personality disorders. There is insufficient space in this textbook to elaborate other problem intrapsychic scripts.

     David doesn't appear to have had sufficient strokes at important times in his life, to boost him over hurdles. People spotted his lack of a strong self-controlling Parental ego state and his sometimes excessive Natural Child ego state behaviors. Most people loved him, but he proved untrustworthy to some. That cost him earnings and employment.

Game analysis (4)

Game Analysis is the fourth step in using Transactional Analysis for therapy and self-analysis. In a previous paragraph Hyacinth played the game, “Why don't you... Yes, but...' She was either avoiding Adult behavior, or enjoyed staying in Hurt Child, while verbalizing Critical Parent about her husband. Her game produced a payoff of sorts, but didn't solve anything Adult-Adult. Eric Berne described other games; some are easily understood just by seeing the name of the game. Here are some of Berne's “Games People Play” (1964).

     “Uproar” (loud voice, slamming door)
     “Ain't it awful?” (Hopelessness)
     “You Got Me Into This” (Blame game)
     .There I Go Again.” (Dumb me)
     “Let's You and Him Fight.” (Sic-em!)
     “Schlemiel” (breaks things)
     “SWYMMD” (See What You Made Me Do)
     “NIGYSOB” (Now I Got You -- SOB)
     “Wooden Leg” (“But I can't, I have a problem...”)
     “Frigid Woman” (“All you think about is sex.”)
     “Poor Me” (Victimization of self)
     “Rapo” (“I didn't seduce you, you raped me.”)

     These games are played when the Adult ego state is overly contaminated by either Parent (CP & NP) ego states, or by Child (NC & AC) ego states, or combinations of them all. It should be obvious that these are not really games where people have fun, but games to keep the ego states contented and in their place. Bary and Huffard (1990) remind us that people are not enthused about change. They recall the principle of “homeostatic balance,” indicating that humans fix their lifestyle patterns early, and unconsciously fight against change. Game analysis of each person's “games” helps the person see how s/he is protecting himself/herself from change. In a sense, a “game” is like a script which needs to be rewritten-reprogrammed.     
     David doesn't fit the games listed above. He, like most people, had a very privatized and specialized game. David's game was SMILE. “If I am hurting, I'll smile! The smile will get me strokes.” Remember that a “game” in TA is only a way of describing an irrational behavior. The “Smile” game doesn't resolve problems any more than the “Blow up” game. David's parents played the “Smile” game most of their lives. The family has no recollection of either parent getting emotional. David's parents seldom said how they felt, or raised their voices about problem issues. The “Smile” assumed that the players would all like each other more if no one got upset. The “It” one smiled his/her hurts into thin air. The other players were all supposed to sense the hurt, the disappointment, or the agony, and mentally evaporate it. There was an unwritten rule; you couldn't talk about the hurt, only be tough and “Smile.” David learned this game at home, but it's really a game that large segments of society play.

G. TRANSACTIONAL ADVICE FOR PARENTING

Transactional Analysis is mostly a diagnostic model. Yet, it teaches some fundamentally good parenting philosophy. Ultimately, the optimum goal for any person is the life position - I'M OK, YOU'RE OK. Transactional Analysis believes this is how a child begins life. Children  trust until they learn not to trust. So, all child-rearing practices need to be geared to helping the child maintain the I'M OK, YOU'RE OK life position. The circles and the arrows (lines) do the teaching in somewhat unscientific picture language. How the circles “contaminate” each other, or “exclude” each other, sheds light on both interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics. The circles say a lot. The circles picture an optimum real-life parent and an optimum real-life child. If you draw circles to represent a problem personality, you can identify what has happened. You instinctively know where to return. The picture is a beacon to guide people home.

Parenting to preserve the adult ego state

    

The fundamental base for the Transactional Analysis model is that all people have a Parent, an Adult, and a Child. That includes infants and continues up through great-great grandparents. Everyone has an Adult and needs to relate Adult to Adult as much as possible. Yes, even one-year-olds have an internal Adult ego state, and that Adult ego state is showing itself more with each passing day. The one-year old will decide which food tastes best and when s/he wants to awake and sleep. The one-year old has the demanding power of a teenager and the acting power of trained performer. The one-year old will defend his/her toys with the power and swiftness of a defensive line-backer. The one-year old is so Adult s/he can out-maneuver or one-up a trained psychologist.


 A one-year old was sitting on his grandfather's lap at the dinner table. As 8 other guests watched, the grandfather humored the grandson with table antics and the grandson found it extremely enjoyable. He laughed and laughed. The video cameras recorded it all for several minutes. The one-year old was the center of attention and enjoyed it. As the conversation shifted from the one-year old to his psychologist uncle, the one-year old went off to play with other toys. After about 20 minutes the one-year old came up to the psychologist uncle and touched him on the leg, looked up kindly and lovingly and said, Hi! The one-year old knew that he and the uncle had something in common. They had both shared the spot-light for an equal length of time. Everyone at the table saw that one-year old communicate almost as maturely as any adult.

     Parenting skills need to be predominantly positive as in Figure 6-22. The Adult ego state of the child starts growing early. Sadly, it can be easily deformed, so that it becomes excessively passive or hostile, foolish or irrational. The Adult ego state of young children is fragile. Excessive amounts of Critical Parent behaviors can cripple the Adult ego state in a real-life small child. Excessive yelling, spanking, beating, abusing has the power of making a child miserable and have problems all the rest of his/her life. If the life position of the real-life parent is mostly I'M OK, YOU'RE NOT OK, the real-life child will ultimately adopt the life script for himself or herself, I'M NOT OK, YOU'RE NOT OK. These children have lowered self-esteem and negative attitudes. Almost no real-life child can experience being told s/he is NOT OK, without finally believing s/he is NOT OK and then living a NOT OK lifestyle. Also, excessive amounts of Nurturing Parent behaviors during elementary years can cripple the Adult.

Adult to adult parenting

Adult-to-Adult parenting is when a 25 year old parent relates to a child, but not in a Parent-ego-state-to-Child-ego-state way. That sounds like a contradiction but not to Transactional Analysis. Real-life parents need to keep the Adult image in mind when teaching or disciplining a child. A real-life parent can't afford to humiliate a real-life child. That is cruel. Eventually, excessive humiliation creates a rebellious attitude. It is unfortunate for a real-life parent to become an excessively large Critical Parent, because the real-life child ends up being dominated by an internal Hurt Child. Excessive Hurt Child generally turns inward into varying degrees of  withdrawal, or outward into varying degrees of  defiance of authority. Transactional Analysis can't define the exact point at which appropriate amounts of “criticism” turns into excessive amounts of Critical Parent to Hurt Child, but there is a turning point. Research reported in this textbook has shown the relationship between past unloving or abusive treatment in early life and later deviant behaviors. Every hug, every compliment, every act of listening toward a child, becomes balanced out with every punishment, every yell, and every abuse. Since no one is perfect, the basic expectation is that every parent keep the score on the positive side. That's the lesson from Transactional Analysis as drawn from the its circle pictures.

H.  TA DIRECTING  POSITIVE  MARRIAGE

Transactional Analysis, though not widely used, quickly creates a picture of certain areas of potential conflict. By the time a person reaches age 25 there are thousands of “tapes” in the person's inner Parent, inner Child, and inner Adult. Some partners have learned to appreciate more Parent tapes (rules). Other partners lived with fewer rules and more self-indulgence or self-assertion (Child). An imbalance in the size of the P-A-C in both persons can create endless tensions.

Marriage Problem — The Adaptive Child Exploder


People will tend to explode when criticism increases. In Transactional Analysis terms, an accumulation of NOT OK feelings in the Child ego state sometimes erupts outwardly (verbal or physical violence). Sometimes it erupts inwardly (mental illness). The eruption is an explosion of anger and an attack. This can be described as Hurt Child firing up the person to deploy one's own Critical Parent in order to punish the person who has criticized excessively. When Hurt Child fires up but does not deploy the Critical Parent outwardly, then the anger gets internalized, which generally leads to problems and deviant behavior later. In the diagram below we simply see the accumulation of I'M NOT OK, turn into YOU'RE NOT OK.
     Both Jim or Demitri could follow this pattern. Notice that the Adult ego state (left pair of circles) is completely obscured when Hurt Child fires up the person into becoming completely dominated by its pent-up hostility. The explosion can be verbal, but probably will get physically violent over time. It is retaliation and revenge that worsens the problem. It is a counterattack which will escalate the conflict. This is a crossed transaction, with its consequences.
     The more one allows the Adult ego state to be contaminated (overly influenced) or excluded (blocked) from operating, the more likely that his/her relationships will flip-flop from passive receptivity to cruel attack. If a person can become conscious of the power of the Adult ego state, healthiness can be reinstated. When a person gains insight about the predictability of crossed transactions to explode, then the person can reclaim the role of the Adult. New scripts can be written and installed by a process of self-talk. In Transactional Analysis, the image of the various sizes of circles enables persons to use their cognitive processes to smooth out their emotional ups and downs.

     Children will mostly copy the behavior they see, but sometimes the effect on children is worse. In exploder homes  the children suffer from an excessive amount of Negative Strokes. First of all, the explosion of verbal or physical anger creates an excessive amount of fear, putting all systems into a more  narcissistic and withdrawing survival position. The fear cannot turn to “fight” against one's parents, so probably turns to “flight.” Children cannot leave home, so they are forced to take their fear on a “flight” inward. That is suppression and repression with varying degrees of unhealthy consequences over time. Secondly, in exploder homes some of the exploder fights develop around children's behaviors. The children develop an excessive amount of unnecessary guilt, when they see explosive conflicts over how they have behaved. The guilt is irrational, unrealistic, and imaginary, but even this guilt creates Negative Strokes. These Negative Strokes have the power to lower self-esteem, undermine ego strength (Adult ego state), and produce depression. These things affect school performance.

Marital Problem — Co-dependency Child ego states

Co-dependency is a problem. Co-dependent partners need each other but not for Adult-to-Adult relations. Co-dependency illustrates what can happen when one partner is overly Nurturing, not because that partner has so much to give, but because that partner needs so much to be loved. Co-dependency is a style of relating to a dependency-oriented person. The other person may be an alcoholic, cannabis (pot) smoker, overweight eater, or person dependent on someone else or something else for their Positive Strokes. The co-dependent person and the addiction-prone person sometimes get together because they are basically nice people having fun around the “habituated” behavior. Over time habituation-addiction behaviors deliver more Positive Strokes, so the mate (of the habituated partner) feels stranded with an insufficient supply of Positive Strokes. In this weakened Adult ego state this mate becomes dependent on a diminishing supply, complains about it, but that alienates more. The only way to keep what s/he has is to be quiet (dependent) about the lessening supply. That makes him/her become more Nurturing Parent in outward behavior, but less satisfied all the time. This is how addiction works; increase in outlay for the supply with decreasing satisfaction. Finally, s/he's hooked and can't escape.

    

Neither person in the diagram on this page is functioning Adult-to-Adult  much of the time. Therefore, there will be more unreasonable back and forth behaviors coming out of Parent and Child. The Adult ego state functions will have less influence, less power to control and pick a course which has more predictable behaviors. The person who needs affection and support so badly goes anywhere to find strokes. That person decommissions his/her Adult to find that affection and support in the quickest way possible. This behavior is heading for more disappointments. The more one can image the function of a rational Adult ego state, the more stability that person will find.


Polarized parenting and delinquency

When therapists counsel a juvenile  delinquent, they quite often find the parents are polarized. One parent is too strict and the other is too lenient. One parent is coming out of a stronger or larger amount of Critical Parent ego state, and the other parent is coming out of a stronger or larger Nurturing Parent ego state. The strict parent believes the lenient parent is too lenient, and the lenient parent believes that the strict parent is too strict. The strict parent crabs at the lenient parent, and the lenient parent pokes fun of the strict parent. The child is in the middle, perplexed, confused, angry and wishing the parents would give a clear message.
     Every child wants leniency. They want the parent to be less Critical Parent and more Nurturing Parent. They want to have the benefits without the responsibility of balancing an Adult-to-Adult relationship. They want the favors. They dislike rules and restrictions. Therefore, the lenient parent is generally the “nice guy” in the eyes of the child or adolescent. Naturally, children will side with that person. They will seek out that person's permission. The lenient parent wants to see a happy child so makes happiness-inducing decisions, which are more often lenient decisions. That angers the stricter parent. The lenient decisions set up the opposite parent to become Critical Parent. The stricter decisions set up the lenient “nice guy” to become the hostile one. Now the child has two hostile parents. It doesn't take long for a child to enjoy the benefits of parental conflict, because they can get away with a lot. While parents fight, they run off and do as they please, frequently so hurt and angry that they do deviant things and get into trouble.
     The solution is not to be irrational about a lenient position or a strict position. There is no best or worst. A parent cannot psychologically move totally into the Nurturing Parent style, nor totally into the Critical Parent style and stay there. One gages his/her decision to be Critical Parent or Nurturing Parent by how many Positive Strokes and how many Negative Strokes are accumulating in the real-life child in the process. A parent moves in and out of Critical Parent and Nurturing Parent as situations require. A parent may be 100% correct in being Critical Parent on some issue, but if Critical Parent on this issue yields a Negative Stroke score higher than a Positive Stroke score, don't make an irrational judgement that its OK to be excessively NOT OK to someone you love. No one buys from people they do not like.

Motivational power in TA

The positive influence of Transactional Analysis is in the diagnosis as well as in the rescripting process. If a person is able to diagram the problem, that person is more able to resolve the problem. Resolutions are made possible by rewriting some of the bad “scripts” that cause imbalance in P-A-C dynamics. Transactional Analysis creates an awareness of ego state circles, contaminations and blockages are drawn on paper. The structure of Transactional Analysis provides the opportunity for insight. Insight unlocks mysteries, and opens the mind to understanding. Insight does not guarantee change, but increases the possibility of change. People have a deep need to become free. Transactional Analysis helps people achieve autonomy (Berne, 1964; Steiner, 1974), that is, freedom to become healthy and happy. Once people see the factors holding them in bondage, the truth of insight has the power to set them free. Transactional Analysis is that emancipator for some persons.

SUMMARY DEFINITION OF TERMS
used in Transactional Analysis

Adult ego state. The Adult ego state is predominantly the central computer of a person. This computer assimilates information from other ego states, integrates it with messages from body-mind-spirit/value systems, and sets up a course of action.
Child ego state. The Child ego state is made up of feelings and behaviors experienced and learned during childhood, which influence persons all throughout life.
Child, Adapted (AC). The Adapted Child ego state is that part of the Child ego state which has resulted from both the positive and negative interactions with the parents (early care givers).
Child, Hurt. The collective amount of negative residue which exists after major single negative experiences, or numerous smaller negative experiences.
Child, Natural (NC). This is the impulsively playful side of the Child ego state, which exists in all ages or persons and continues throughout life.
Contamination. Contamination is generally an overload of Parental ego state functions, or Child ego state functions. (Either a person is excessively duty-bound, or the opposite, excessively impulse-oriented, or flip-flopping back and forth.)
Discounting. A person can discount the receipt of some Positive Stroke by excusing it as unreal or unmerited (negative thinking). A person can discount himself, others, and things that happen. One can discount the existence of a problem, the seriousness of the problem, or the possibility of fixing the problem.
Exclusion. Exclusion is like blocking off either the Parent ego state of the Child ego state, so it has diminished (or zero) influence on the Adult ego state.
Games and Payoffs. TA games are not playful, but are problem-producing scripts which are deeply imbedded. Games are unconscious behaviors which insulate and isolate people from reality. The payoffs are various; freedom from guilt, freedom from change, getting the Negative Strokes one feels s/he unconsciously deserves, etc.
Life position. Early experiences in life set up a style of relating that has four possibilities. 1. I'm OK, You're OK. 2. I'm OK. You're not OK. 3. I'm not OK, You're OK. 4. I'm not OK. You're not OK.
Parent ego state. The Parent ego state is composed of memories “tapes” which came from both the negative and positive experiences of parents (early care givers), family, friends, community and society.
Parent, Critical (CP). The Critical Parent is the side of the Parent ego state which learns and collects experiences of harsh criticism, abusive power, and cruel punishment, and how they can be used for controlling others, punishing others, being abusive and demanding. In a proper proportion CP keeps up appropriate defenses, appropriate self-expectations, and appropriate self-discipline.
Parent, Nurturing (NP). The Nurturing Parent is the other side of the Parent ego state that experiences love and care and generates love and care. Its major strengths are, being reassuring, protective and stroking.
Script. The script of an ego state is its basic way of responding. Once a person becomes aware of its theme, the person can rewrite the script and replace the behavior.
Strokes. A stroke is a unit of nourishment that empowers the human psychological system.
Strokes, Positive. Positive Strokes come from several categories; 1. Human: compliments, touching, acts of love, 2. Thrills: sights, sounds, 3. Self-made: achieving goals, hobbies, mental stimulation, 4. Inanimate objects: natural scenes, new car, new house, new (anything!), 5. Vicarious enjoyment: reading books, etc.
Strokes, Negative. Negative Strokes come from unwelcome and painful experiences. They result from abuses, accidents, disasters, personal failures, and disappointments. They also from distortions within the psyche where the psyche functions with self-inflicted or self-generated irrational beliefs.
Survival Quotient. Each persons has a specific amount of Positive Strokes s/he needs in order to function the best and survive in a hostile world.
Transaction. A transaction is an exchange of strokes through words, actions and emotions. They can be complementary transactions, meaning they run parallel but from two different ego states. They can be crossed transactions, meaning that either or both are misunderstanding and either or both will feel NOT OK as a result. They can be ulterior transactions, meaning that a person can relate in one way (overt), but have another set of meanings (covert).
(More complex terms and definitions await the advanced learner of TA in another course.)

    

SUMMARY OF OPTIMUM PSYCHO-SOCIAL LIFE SKILLS

If you go to a counselor, you might come away with the idea that there are certain “lifeskills” which help solve certain problems. That is partly true. That is the medical model.  However, each of the optimum lifeskills one learns is also helpful when it is combined to resolve a different problem. You need to have a repertoire of “lifeskills” from which you can choose, to create your own happy, helpful and winning style.

LIFESKILLS FOR MOVING UP                                ORIGINATOR OF THE SKILL
                                                                                          or well-known user/promoter

Positive Strokes,  libidinal nourishment (Ch. 1, 6)      Sigmund Freud, Eric Berne
Values clarification (Ch.2)      Gordon Allport, Milton Rokeach
Self-actualization (Ch. 2)      Abraham Maslow
Stroking (Ch. 2, 6)     Eric Berne, Claude Steiner
Support groups (Ch. 2, 3)     Alcoholics Anonymous
Catharsis (Ch. 2, 4)     Freud and Breuer
Rational replacement of irrational ideas (Ch. 2, 5)     Albert Elli
Focusing (Ch. 2)      Eugene T. Gendlin
Owning feelings (conscience) (Ch. 2)     Many psychologists & Marriage Encounter
Mentoring for accountability (Ch. 3)      Alcoholics Anonymous
Aggression Replacement Training (Ch.4)     Barry Glick & Arnold Goldstein
Assertiveness Training (Ch. 4)     Wolpe, '58, Robert Alberti & Michael Emmons
Personal Growth Log (Ch. 4)      Alberti and Emmons
Programming “Stages” of growth (Ch. 5)      Erik Erikson
Fear reduction in Stress Management (Ch. 5)      Hans Selye
Relaxation (Ch. 5)       Herbert Benson, Edmond Jacobson, Johannes Schultz
Systematic and In Vivo Desensitization (Ch. 5)      Joseph Wolpe, Alan Kazdin
Self-disclosure (Ch. 5)       Sidney Jourard
Rescripting past behaviors via TA (Ch. 6)      Eric Berne, Claude Steiner, St