There have been times when communication breaks occurred. You’ve experienced the feeling. You’re in an innocent conversation with someone else, and the next moment you’re fighting with someone or the other is stopped talking. In both instances, there’s an interruption. The conversation cannot accomplish its purpose regardless of whether it’s listening, solving an issue and feeling connected, making an important decision, and so on. This happens frequently. A conversation takes a few seconds to change from a positive, connected exchange to a negative one.
Negative interactions also impact our relationships. Research shows that we require five positive interactions to compensate for each negative encounter we share with people near us. What is the reason for this? Based on Transactional Analysis, communication breakdowns occur because we’re not engaged when we talk. Instead of responding to the moment in the present, we’re communicating through different “ego states”. When these ego states get crossed, there is conflict.
Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis (TA) is a psychological theory that Eric Berne created in the 1960s. It is a theory that helps to explain how we think and behave in the manner we do. TA asserts that we can better understand how we interact with those close to us. Transaction refers to a conversation/interaction between two people.
The most effective way to use TA is understanding conversations that you’re with that is not your acquaintances or colleagues and for transactions involving sensitive, sensitive subjects like sex or money, jealousy, and just about anything else that triggers, i.e. triggers a deeply-rooted emotional response within you or another person. TA is based on three concepts:
- Everyone has three “ego states” (Parent, Adult, Child)
- Everybody has interactions (with others as well as internal to us)
- Everybody (unconsciously) engages in an ego state when we conduct our business, which can result in tension, negative emotions, pain, etc.
Essentially, the analysis process is focused on identifying the ego states present in your interactions to help you become more aware of your behaviour and thoughts and have more positive interactions with the people closest to you. One can connect with TalktoAngel for Online Counseling.
TA in Relationship
As we engage with other people in social settings, we’re playing games ranging from the power of games to sexual and competitive games. Many of these games can be harmful and are played without conscious awareness. When we understand and recognize what games are played, we can manage our reactions and build more satisfying and secure connections.
The main goal of TA treatment is to improve the client’s maturity. This is accomplished by using skillful questions and techniques to determine what triggers the client to switch into child or parent ego mode and to develop strategies for these times to maintain their adult self instead.
Script Analysis
TA believes that our experiences as children, especially from birth to age five, profoundly affect our behaviour and responses to social interactions; consequently, importance is given to our environment and upbringing. This process is often called script analysis, which analyzes and examines the scripts we developed during the early years of our lives. Scripts are beliefs we have not consciously constructed and perceptions we have about ourselves, our fellow humans, and the world. They are the beliefs and views developed to help us make sense of our external and internal environments based on our first encounters and experiences.
During the analysis of scripts, any negative or positive encouragement we received when we were children to behave or not behave in a certain manner will be analyzed along with the life-changing messages we received. I.e. “only the fortunate get rich’ or ‘you need to be enslaved to be successful. The people will also examine whether they replicate or copy how they observed their parents or authoritative figures acting.
Furthermore, subtle messages we receive as children will be examined (referred to as injunctions), for example, having been told to keep silent when your parents were talking to others, which could instill the notion that ‘no people want to hear my voice or that what I wish to say isn’t important These would be discussed in therapy, along with the way they affect our interactions today.
Structural Diagram
The adult, parent, and children diagram, also known as the ‘structural diagram,’ as Berne described it, is a valuable instrument that TA practitioners utilize as an effective visual aid to assist clients in understanding the three states that they experience within them that affect their social and behavioural interactions, and as a means of helping them see how these different states interplay with one concerning specific circumstances and with the individuals they interact with.
It can be utilized for short-term therapy in a quick, solution-oriented way or in a more intensive longer-term approach that focuses on improving our understanding of our subconscious world, improving relationships with other people and decreasing conflicts. The TA method is flexible and is a great tool to use with your counsellor in couples psychotherapy, psychotherapy for individuals, or family counselling. It is also beneficial to other professionals to apply to working with patients, such as teachers, and nurses, as well as in other fields like sales or business training.
A Counselor Online using TA may aid people in gaining more insight into their actions, reactions, thoughts, and feelings that they may not be aware of previously and provide the individual with more awareness of themselves.
