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Communication and
Presentation Skills III.
Transactional analysis
Transactional analysis
• Basic egostates
• Transactions
• Drivers, allowers
• Scripts
• Games
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Why TA?
• It may help you to
o Recognize how you communicate with others
o Consider your options for how you can
communicate differently to improve the
communications you are involved in
o Improve effectiveness of your communication
Transactional analysis
• Model of communication that can provide
useful insights into ourselves and into how we
communicate with others
• The core idea is that we can think of ourselves
as having three parts of our personality
three ego states
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Basic ego states
parent
adult
child
Basic ego states
Parent ego state
Behaviors, thoughts and feelings copied from
parents or parent figures
Adult ego state
Behaviors, thoughts and feelings which
are direct responses to the here and now
Child ego state
Behaviors, thoughts and feelings replayed
from childhood
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functional ego states
Caring parentCritical parent
Free child Adapted child
Adult
transactions
• Smallest unit of communication consisting of
transactional stimulus and response
• OR: exchange of strokes
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types of transactions
• complementary
types of transactions
• crossed
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types of transactions
• ulterior
Communication rules
• As long as transactions are complementary,
communication can continue endlessly
• In case of crossed transaction there is a
change in communication
• Result of ulterior transactions is based on
psychological level
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DRIVERS
INJUNCTIONS
ALLOWERS
GAMES
Drivers
• Taibi Kahler – transactional analyst who
describes seven drivers / minispcripts that
“drive” us throughtout our lives. They usually
come as a result of our parents influence.
• Mavis Klein – chose five drivers and worked
with them. Made a test of drivers.
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Mavis Klein - Drivers
Be perfect.
Please me. Live in order to please others.
Be strong
Try hard
Hurry up.
Miniscript / driver test
• Be perfect: 2 4 6 22 23
• Be strong: 9 12 13 15 19 21
• Please me: 1 11 14 17 25
• Try harder: 3 8 10 18 24
• Hurry up: 5 7 12 16 20
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Allowers
• I allow myself to be or behave in certain ways.
• Allowers are fighters for harmony in ourselves.
They may “soften” or “strenghten”, i.e. modify
drivers:
– D: Be perfect A: being perfect is not normal
– D: please me and be a good girl A:
Injunctions (rackets)
• Evolve from anxiety, fear, insecurity,
authorities
• Are important part of our ego/states
• Set of behavior which comes usually from
childhood script in order to manipulate the
environment to rather match our script than
solve the problem
• Goal: experience these racket feelings and feel
internally justified in experiencing them
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Injunctions (rackets)
Mr & Mrs Gouldings
• Don’t be.
• Don’t be yourself.
• Don’t be a child.
• Don’t grow up.
• Don’t make it.
• Don’t (act).
• Don’t be important.
• Don’t belong.
• Don’t be close.
• Don’t be healthy.
• Don’t think.
• Don’t feel
• ….What else???
Life script
• Script is how we navigate and what we look for in our life
• We are partially aware of and it is confirmed by a variety of
situations, which reassure us in experiencing them.
• Manifested in situations of pressure, manipulation, threat.
• Narrows our decision making, choices and alternatives.
• Is decided upon in childhood in response to perceptions of
the world and as a means of living with and making sense of
the world.
• Reinforced by parents (or other influential figures and
experiences).
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Life script
• Winner
• Successful person
• Conqueror
• Pursuer/chaser
• Loser
• Defender
• Instigator/provocateur
• Critique
• Clever Dick
• Victim
• Rescuer
• Advisor
• Observer
• Judge
• Hero
• Happy person
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Eric Berne
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basic features of games
• A game is an ongoing series of complementary
ulterior transactions which leads to a welldefined,
predictable outcome.
• Patterns: we learn them as children and then
we follow them in the future.
Payoffs
• Superficial contact with others, time filling
• Avoidance of intimacy, responsibility and risk
(of directly asking for stroke)
• Spending time in socially acceptable way
“with friends”
• Way of avoiding bad feelings
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Childhood games
• Older brother = stalking horse/cat’s paw
• “he did… she did…”
• “Mum, he…
• “So, what?”
• I do it for your good
• Yes, but…
• Because of you…
• “Good girl”
Parent children games
• Yea, but…
• I do it for your good.
• Because of you…
• I mean it well to you.
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Adult games / with myself
• ?
YES, BUT…
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Yes, but…
• “I’m bored with my studies.”
• “So why don’t you change it?”
• “Well, but I’m in the 3rd year and I don’t want to lose all that
time.”
• “So why don’t you enroll more interesting courses?”
• “Yes, but I have to go to the compulsory ones and there are a lot
of them and then I don’t have any free time left.”
• “I’m sure that you could find at least some that are OK.”
• “Yes, but they are always full.”
• “Always?”
• “And if they are not they are usually at times of the compulsory
courses I have to attend.
• “So why don’t you talk to your teachers about it?”
• “Because I hardly see them and they are always busy.”
Analysis
• What keeps happening?
– What is the theme of what keeps happening?
– How does it start?
– What then?
– … (1st mystery question)
– And then?
– … (2nd mystery question)
– How does it end?
– What do you end up feeling?
– What do you imagine “they” end up feeling?
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Mystery questions
• What was your secret message to the other
person?
• What was their secret message to you?
Yes, but…
Social level
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Analysis
• Thesis: see if you can find a solution I can’t
find fault with.
• Aim: reassurance
• Roles: helpless person, advisers
• Social paradigm: adult – adult
• Psychological paradigm: parent – child
• Advantages: ???
Game levels
• Soft: acceptable by society, may be pleasant
• Hard: “behind the door”
• Tragic: ends in the courtroom, hospital, prison,
cemetery
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Thesaurus of games
• life games
• marital games
• party games
• sexual games
• underworld games
• consulting room games
• good games
How to handle a game
• avoid it if you don’t like it (ignore a bait)
• play it and later analyse it
• offer alternative
• confront the players with the fact they have
been playing (with the game)
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Final assignment
• Write an essay focused on application of
transactional analysis and Eric Berne’s book Games
People Play. Choose among following topics:
1. Games I play with people around me,
2. Games I play with myself (body with soul, with
conscience)
3. Games someone I know well play
4. TA study from social environment (e.g.media),
could be an interview, should analyse
transactionas and games in it
• Lenght: minimum 3 pages
• Deadline: 20th of January
Final essay topics
1. Analyse a chosen communication between
two people in terms of TA
2. Analyse your internal dialogue and egostates
3. Analyse games you play with other people