This form of therapy and thinking was developed by Eric Berne in the 1950's. He adopted a humanistic view of personality. It has many applications in personal and organisational development. Eric was influenced by Sigmund Freud and Dr Wilder Penfield.

Transactional Analysis (TA) is effectively a language for describing what is going on in conversations and how we can influence their outcomes and maintain good relationships between different ego states. Freud and Penfold were psychologists with strong humanist leanings. Eric Berne explained his ideas in books such as 'The Games People Play' and 'What Do You Say After You Say Hello?'

Transactional analysis generally seems to be glossed over in psychology textbooks, both as a form of therapy and as a personality theory. However, people I know who have tried TA as therapy have often seemed to find that it works. My students also often find that TA offers plausible explanations of interpersonal communication, especially of communication breakdowns, and find it particularly useful in analysing interactions involved in the development of their practical work. Ego states

Ego States
Fundamental to TA is the notion that our personality consists of three 'ego states':

In a 'transaction' (an interaction with one or more other people), one or other of these ego states will predominate in us and other people in the transaction. Particular communicative behaviours are associated with each of these ego states, but it is important to understand that they are not necessarily associated with chronological stages of psychological development. An adult can exhibit child-like communicative behaviour and a child can exhibit adult-like behaviour. Thus, according to Berne, as the diagram on the left shows there are three ego states.

If we examine people's personality more closely, we don't discover more ego states, but we may discover components of those ego states, as shown on the right. As you can see from the graphic, Berne accepts that the Parental ego state proves to be composed of two states, one deriving from the mother, and one from the father. Further, within the Child ego state, we will find Parent, Adult and Child states. It's important to realise that there is no implication that we would use one only in a transaction. It is quite likely that we will move from one to the other, since we all have these three ego states as part of our personality.

Heider's Balance Theory
It seems likely that peoples' attitudes all cohere, in other words they all fit together without contradicting one another. They do not contradict one another, because they derive from some underlying core system of values. This view of the internal consistency of attitudes seems to be supported by, for example, what is referred to by the psychologist Eysenck as the radical-conservative factor or liberal-conservative factor.

Its interesting that those people who display a liberal attitude in one of the fields tested will also tend to display a similarly liberal attitude in most of the other fields tested. The same consistency applies to those on the conservative side of the scale, to those in the middle and those at any other points on the scale. Generally speaking, their attitudes will be consistently liberal, conservative or middle-of-the-road.

Cognitive Consistency
Psychologists have studied this logic of our attitudes and beliefs under the label cognitive consistency. The idea underlying cognitive consistency is that we all actively strive to be consistent in our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Any inconsistency acts as a stimulus to change them so as to bring them back into a coherent whole.

Attitudes and perception
Our desire to maintain such consistency and avoid changing our attitudes if we possibly can accounts for the results of Allport's and Postman's study (1954). Subjects were asked to describe a picture which showed a white man arguing with a black man. The white had an open razor in his hand. As the story was passed from one to another the details changed. Those who were prejudiced against blacks changed the details so that it was the black who held the razor.

TA Theory & Model
TA has become the method of examining a transaction by using Eric Berne's 3 Ego States. To get an idea of what this means visit:
http://www.clinicalupervision.com/TA%20Presentation_files/frame.htm

THE PARENT is the ingrained voice of authority, learned from those providing the parenting role, such as mum and or dad, teachers, older people, neighbours, etc. This information comes from the outside-in. We get it from the words used, mood adopted and body language displayed. You hear judgemental words and see patronising gestures, posturing and finger-pointing.

THE CHILD is the reactions and feelings that come from the inside-out. This is the sensory information that overrides reason or logic. Emotions associated with events dominate. You hear baby talk, emotional reactions and see victim posturing, tantrums, shrugging shoulders, giggling, etc.

THE ADULT is the ability to be reflective and think to determine an appropriate reaction that reflects the data as presented. The "adult" keeps the "parent" and "child" within us under control. The ability to take a helicopter view brings a top-down perspective. An attempt to see all sides and seek understanding, compromise and fair play. You will hear reasoned statements, responsible language and see an attentive attitude, non-threatening demeanor, etc.

More recently TA has been explored and enhanced into aspects of personality theories, neuro-linguistic programming, emotional freedom technique, facilitation theory to name but a few.

Life Positions

The OK diamond shows the possible life positions:

They are:

I'm not OK You're OK [I - You +] position
I'm not OK You're not OK [I - You - ] position
I'm OK You're not OK [I+ You - ] position
I'm OK You're OK [I + You +] position

Berne sees these positions as being universal across all humanity. A principal reason for adopting the 'I'm not OK' position is likely to be a lack of rewards in childhood. We have seen elsewhere that the ability to give rewards in interpersonal communication is a fundamental communication skill. The lack of "strokes" (rewards) may be due to uncaring parents; it could also be due to unfriendly or hostile peers - there is ample evidence, for example, that children with facial deformities have a very hard time in school.

The I - You - position is the futility position. If you see yourself and others as not-OK, you might as well give up, kill yourself or go crazy, according to Berne. The time-structuring adopted could well be the extreme one of withdrawal.
The I - You + position is the depressive, melancholic position. There is evidence that we will tend to seek out others' judgments about us which confirm our self-image. Thus, people with high self-esteem will tend to attend to and remember complementary comments and those with low self-esteem will remember negative comments. The latter are those in the I- position.
The I + You - position is seen by Berne as being for the most part the position of mediocrities, the paranoid. These are the people who sneer at their spouses and send their kids off to the youth club. At worst, this is the killer's, the warmonger's position, killing off all the not-OK others. At best this is the meddler's position, the do-gooder's position, forcing themselves to help or rescue the not-OK others. It could also be the position of the high achiever. This sort of person will have the self-confidence to communicate with all and sundry and will have the ruthlessness to push his/her wishes through. At the same time, s/he may appear arrogant and uncaring, behaving 'correctly', but not giving strokes to others. This is typical of the sort of person identified by McLelland, who has high n-ach (need for achievement) accompanied by a low need for affiliation, tending not to care greatly what other people think about him/her (see the section on Motivation).
The I + You + position is the mentally healthy position.

More info at: http://www.businessballs.com/transactionalanalysis.htm
Read: I'm OK - You're OK by Thomas A. Harris

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