NHS Yorkshire and the Humber Mentoring for Success Masterclass Transactional Analysis (TA) for Mentors
with
Keith Tudor Clinical, Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst accredited by the
International Transactional Analysis Association
Definition of transactional analysis (TA)
Transactional analysis is a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change.
(The International Transactional Analysis Association)
TA is
A theory of personality (of people, groups and systems) based on ego states.
A theory of child development and psychopathology based on scripts. A theory of communication (between people, groups and systems) based on transactions.
The four pillars of TA
Ego states Transactions Scripts Games and rackets
TAs value base
1. People are OK Im OK, Youre OK and Theyre OK (Berne, 1972).
2. Everyone has the capacity to think.
3. People can decide their own destiny.
Autonomy
is manifested by the release or recovery of three capacities: awareness, spontaneity and intimacy (Berne, 1964/1968, p. 158). Is the aim/goal of TA in practice. Is Adult, which is characterized by an autonomous set of feelings, attitudes, and behavior patterns which are adapted to the current reality (Berne, 1961/1975, p. 76).
NB Critique of autonomy as self-responsibility in terms of more relational and social approaches; homonomy (Angyal, 1941), and relational needs (Erskine & Trautmann, 1998).
Health psychology
Health is different from illness.
Mental health is different from illness (Tudor, 1996)
Studying what is diseased doesn't necessarily help us understand what is healthy (Antonovsky, 1979). Positive psychology emphasises strengths, and happiness (Seligman, 2003). You will grow the most in your areas of greatest strength. (Buckingham, 2007, p. 54).
Health psychology in TA
Co-creative TA
(Summers & Tudor, 2000, 2005)
Ego states Personality a way of understanding yourself and others. Transactions Relationship ways of initiating or maintaining creative contact with other people. Games Confirmations understanding and influencing repeating patterns of positive or negative interactions and their predictable outcomes. Script Identity ways of understanding yourself in the context of your past and present culture and shaping the histories you construct about yourself, others and life.
Ego states (structural analysis and model) Ego states are a consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behaviour (Berne, 1966, p. 364). Adult ego state - The Adult ego state is characterized by an autonomous set of feelings, attitudes, and behavior patterns which are adapted to the current reality (Berne, 1961/1975, p. 76). Child ego state - The Child ego state is a set of feelings, attitudes and behavior patterns which are relics of the individuals own childhood (ibid, p. 77). Parent ego state - A Parental ego state is a set of feelings, attitudes, and behavior patterns which resemble those of a parental figure (ibid, p. 75).
Recognition and diagnosis of ego states
Behaviourial diagnosis (central to Berne) observable words, voice tone, gestures, expressions, posture and attitudes. Are you behaving in a parental way e.g. telling someone off, or a child-like way e.g. sulking? Social diagnosis - observing the kinds of reactions the person elicits from others.
Are others around you behaving in a complementary fashion. If others are being child-like, this might indicate that you are operating from Parent ego state?
Historical validation - that a past experience did actually occur, Does you attitude or behaviour remind you of one of your parent figures, or yourself when you were younger? Phenomenological diagnosis or felt sense - on the basis of subjective examination. Do you feel as if you of one of your parent figures, or yourself when you were younger? Diagnosis requires all four and requires the observation and cooperation of the subject (empirical and phenomenological), although it is usually done on an behaviourial and intuitive basis.
exteropsyche Introjected Parent ego states
neopsyche integrating Adult
archeopsyche Archaic Child ego states
