TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS-KEY POINTS*

EGO STATES--Everyone has three ego states which reflect the attitudes we have developed since childhood. The three ego states are: Parent, Adult, and Child.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS (T/A) is a simplified way of looking at the transactions that take place between two or more people.

Types Of Transactions Between Individuals' Ego States

STROKING- Physiological and psychological needs or "hungers." Everyone has the need to do something with his or her time between birth and death. The hungers for touch and recognition can be appeased with strokes which are:

A stroke is any act implying recognition of another's presence. Strokes can be positive, negative, or mixed.

TRADING STAMPS - People make collections of archaic feelings and then later cash them in for a psychological prize. When a person collects his stamps, he manipulates others to hurt him, belittle him, to anger him, to frighten him, to arouse his guilt, etc." The collection of trading stamps leads to a particular behavior desired.

Collecting stamps -----> growing resentment -----> justification for behavior

Stamps can be white for purity, red for anger, blue for depression, etc.

GAMES - A recurring set of negative, destructive transactions with a "gimmick" and with three specific elements which must be present:

1. An ongoing series of complementary transactions which are plausible on the social level.
2. An ulterior transaction which is the underlying message of the game, and
3. A predictable payoff which concludes the game and is the real purpose for playing.

Some games are:

Why Don't You--Yes, But . . .
Bear Trapper
The Harried Executive
Now I've Got You, You S.O.B.
Kick Me (sometimes played with
If It Weren't For You
Rapo
Ain't It Awful

STOPPING GAMES - Games can be terminated by withholding the negative payoff (don't Kick the person when they want it, for instance). There are enough wins for everyone.

LIFE POSITIONS-

Jerk or [YOU'RE O.K.] [I'M OK ]
Depressive [I'M NOT O.K.] [YOU'RE OK ] Game Free

Loser or [YOU'RE NOT O.K.] [I'M OK ] The Sulk/Zealot,
Non-job holder [I'M NOT O.K. ] [YOU'RE NOT O.K.] Wants Distance

SCRIPTS- Transmitted by parents unknowingly. Its basic plot will determine how we live the rest or our lives. The decisions we make about ourselves. We're the casting director and the director.

"A psychological script is a person's ongoing program for his life drama which dictates where he is going with his life and how he is to get there. It is a drama he compulsively acts out, though his awareness of it may be vague."

Organizations and even nations have their life scripts (Organizational culture? National character?)

T/A APPLIED TO BUSINESS WRITING - Writing found in letters and memos can reflect these transactional analysis factors. The objective is to write on an adult-to-adult level and to avoid psychological games. On occasion, it may be desirable to write from, say, the Nurturing Parent Ego State to activate the Child in the reader, comfort that person, and try to get back quickly to an adult-to-adult level so that the correspondence is more effective.

QUESTIONS FOR COLLABORATIVE WRITING:

1. Which ego state is it best to operate out of in business situations?
2. Which ego state do you find gives you the most trouble and why? 3. Can you give an example of a positive and a negative stroke that you have recently: (a) given (b) received?
4. Which psychological games have you noticed people playing in work situations?
5. What is the best way to stop a psychological game?
6. Give an example of the life position of someone you know. Do they seem to be locked in a pattern of behavior they can't stop?
7. Are you aware of business letters and memorandums which have violated good rules of T/A such as writing to employees from the Parent to the Child ego state?

*Source: Transactional Analysis (film), CRM/McGraw-Hill; and, Born to Win, by James and Jongeward, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1971.