Transactional analysis

Transactional analysis – TA for short – is a model of personal development developed by the American physician Eric Berne in the 1960s. Its basic idea is simple: several inner states are at work in every person, and we move between them, usually without noticing. Anyone who notices which state they are speaking from regains a measure of choice.

One thing first: we present TA as a model for observing oneself, not as a diagnostic procedure. It is a map, not the terrain. Where mental distress persists, or in the case of depression or anxiety, support belongs in medical or psychotherapeutic hands.

The three ego states

TA distinguishes three inner states a person can act from:

• Parent – adopted sentences, rules and judgements. We repeat what was shown to us: admonishing, caring, sometimes both.
• Adult – the examining, present-tense part. It perceives what is actually the case now and decides accordingly.
• Child – what was felt and lived early on: curiosity and playfulness just as much as defiance, hurt and compliance.

None of these states is good or bad in itself. What matters is whether it fits the situation. The Parent state is in its right place at a child’s bedside and rarely so in a factual discussion. The useful question is therefore not Who am I? but Who am I being right now – and do I want to be that here?

Injunctions: sentences that became inner rules

Children learn not only from what is explained to them but above all from what they hear often. TA calls such sentences injunctions or scripts. They are usually well meant, intended to make the child fit the world around it – but they go on working long after their time has passed. Every injunction has its counterpart, a permission:

Rewriting such a sentence is what TA calls metaprogramming. It is unspectacular and takes repetition: a sentence rehearsed for twenty years does not give way in an afternoon. It gives way when one notices it as it surfaces – and sets the other sentence against it.

Racket feelings: the substitute

People want to feel. Where the good feelings are missing – joy, curiosity, success, satisfaction – substitute feelings move in: anger, worry, guilt, shame, resentment. TA calls them racket feelings. They are familiar, they are available, and they fill the place where something else is absent.

Anyone who grew up in a setting where people mainly moved between such substitutes has simply seen little else. That is neither a fault nor a defect. The usable question is: which genuine feeling is missing here – and what would it take? (see imprinting and self-care).

The games people play

Berne called recurring relational patterns games. Nothing amusing is meant by this, but a well-rehearsed sequence with a predictable outcome, in which both sides know their part. The best known is Yes, but: someone presents a problem, everyone offers solutions, each is met with yes, but – and in the end everything stays as it was. What was sought was not the solution but the attention.

Others run similarly: If it weren’t for you (handing one’s own irresolution to somebody else), Ain’t it awful (lowering the mood together until everyone feels bad), I’m only trying to help you (exerting influence under the sign of care).

Two points matter to us here. First: these patterns are descriptions, not labels for other people. Anyone who uses them to sort their fellow human beings has turned the model against itself – one observes oneself with it first. Second: recognising a pattern does not mean being able to drop it at once. It only means that next time there is a choice.

What the model does – and what it does not

TA explains well how a behaviour runs its course. It explains less well why a particular person became this way – that would take their own history. And like every model it is an abstraction: it orders reality, it is not reality. Anyone who takes it as final has turned a map into a terrain.

As we see it, its practical value lies precisely where it stays modest: it makes automatic reactions visible. And that is a precondition for everything that follows – someone who does not know their rehearsed responses easily mistakes them for inner guidance (see consciousness and mind). In a wider frame this is also what the model of the eight circuits of consciousness describes: transactional analysis belongs there among the tools of that level at which a person begins to observe their own reactions instead of merely following them. Insight alone, however, does not carry far; it holds only once it is practised (see mental training).

What does this mean in practice?

• Notice who is speaking. Parent, Adult or Child – and whether that fits the situation.
• Turn one single sentence around. Not all of them at once. The one that surfaces most often.
• Watch for your own yes, but. It is the most reliable sign that you are not, in fact, looking for a solution.
• Apply the model to yourself, not to others. Otherwise a tool becomes an accusation.
• Seek professional help where distress persists. The model is no substitute for treatment.

By D. Harald Alke