Universidad del Valle de Guatemala ELT Program Classroom Management Discipline Approaches Transactional Analysis Approach

Evelyn Diaz Virginia Escobar Ana Leticia Santos

It is a rational approach used in psychoanalysis therapy focused to understand behavior. It states that everybody: Trust themselves, Think for themselves, Make their own decisions. It if based on the premise: Every person is born to be a winner and according to this model, people have the ability to identify behavior they want to change. When used as an approach to discipline, teachers, should have the ability to implement the change. The idea is that in general, and in our case students, must identify their own ego-states. The ego-states are pre and permanent recorded scripts in everybodys brain. When we communicate, we do it in one of these ego-states. Parent = language of values Nurturing / Controlling (or critical) Adult = language of logical and rationality Grown up rational person (ideal self) Child = language of emotions Natural child / Little Professor / Adaptive Child Transaction: It is the basic part of the TA and it is made up a stimulus and a response. These can proceed as any of the ego-states to another. The Transactional analyst recognize which egostate people transact from and follow the transactional sequences in order to intervene and improve the quality and effectiveness of communication. These transactions may be: Complimentary: the effective transaction (Parent child and childparent) Crossed: ineffective communication, create discomfort. The transactional response is addressed to an ego-state different from the one which start the stimulus (Parentchild and chidadult). Whenever a disruption of communication occurs, a crossed transaction caused it. Duplex: implied communication along the primary communications. Communicator Receiver stimulus. Convert: people say one thing and mean another.

Strokes: is the recognition that one person gives to another. Strokes are essential to a persons life. The very young children need actual physical stroke in order to remain alive. According to TA, people differ in two ways: contamination and exclusion. In contamination, PA-C system overlaps. For example, when Parent and Adult overlap, we have a Parent contaminated Adult. This results in Prejudice. When Adult and Child overlap, we have a Child contaminated Adult. This condition causes delusion. In exclusion, the communication from one of the P, A, or C is cut off. For example, when Child is cut off, the person cannot play at all and is very rigid and serious, causing neurotic behavior.

When the Parent is cut off, the person does not have any conscience at all. If his Adult is also contaminated with Child, the person will be psychopathic. According to this system, psychosis results when the Adult is completely blocked from Parent and Child. This is called decommissioned Adult. If the blocking out of Adult is periodic, the result is Manic-Depressive personality. Life positions: In the process of developing an identity, people define for themselves, early in life, what the meaning of their life or existence is. Im OK, youre OK. Im OK, youre not OK. Im not OK, youre OK. Im not OK, youre not OK. Teacher in the discipline approach: The role of the teacher is to stay in the adult ego-state and teach students to apply TA principles as they interact with each other. When using TA, teachers must understand the principles and know how to apply them successfully in their own lives. When they interact with students, teachers not only use TA principles, but also teach how to use it in regulating their verbal transactions with others. Children need to understand TA and know how to apply it with their teachers, as well as fellow students. Concepts that could be taught to students include: Three ego states Four life positions How to treat others, so that they feel accepted and capable (stroking) How to analyze transactions How to increase the power of the Adult and regulate the influence of Parent and Child in transactions with others.

Sources: - Changing Minds 2002-2012- Transactional Analysis http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/ta.htm Psychology4all.com Transactional Analysis (TA) 2001 http://www.psychology4all.com/ta.htm