Transactional

Analysis
- Psychiatrist Eric Berne
during the late 1950s
Theory of personality
& communication
 ROLE PLAY
• GROUPS OF 6

• 3 Boss - Subordinate pairs

• Performance Appraisal Feedback time

EGO STATES

Child
Parent Adult
Parent Parent

Adult Adult

Child Child
 Reciprocal / Complementary
Transactions
• A: "Have you been able to write the report?" Adult

• B: "Yes - I'm about to email it to you." Adult

Child
• A: "Would you like to skip this meeting and go
watch a film with me instead?"
• B: "I'd love to - I don't want to work anymore, Child
what should we go and see?"

Parent

• A: "Your report should have been ready by now!"

• B: "Will you stop hassling me? I'll do it eventually!" Child
Parent Parent

Adult Adult

Child Child
 Crossed Transactions
Adult
• A: "Have you been able to write that report?"
• B: "Will you stop hassling me? I'll do it Child
eventually!"

• A: "If you don't change your attitude, you'll get Parent

fired."

Parent
• A:"Your report should have been ready by now!"
• B: "Yes - I'm about to email it to you." Adult
 Duplex or Covert
Transactions
• Adult Statement with Child Ulterior Motive
 What ego state would be
diagnosed?
A man says, “On July 5th, 2010 the alignment of
the planets will create a magnetic field so large that
there will be the biggest tides in half a century”

• If that man was of a dishevelled appearance, had not

shaven for 2 days and was sitting on a park bench
drinking out of a bottle in a brown paper bag.

• If that man was in an observatory wearing a white coat

and carrying a clip board.

The Context
 Corresponding
Freud States
Parent Super Ego

Adult Ego

Id
Child
 Games

• A game is a series of transactions that is complementary

(reciprocal), ulterior, and proceeds towards a predictable
outcome.

• Regardless of when, where or by whom they were played,

each game tended towards very similar structure.

• Each game has a payer with the aim of earning sympathy,

satisfaction, vindication, or some other emotion.
 Some Common Games
! ▪! IFWY: If It Weren't For You
! ▪! WAHM: Why does this Always Happen to Me?
! ▪! SWYMD: See What You Made Me Do
! ▪! UGMIT: You Got Me Into This
! ▪! LHIT: Look How Hard I've Tried
! ▪! ITHY: I'm Only Trying to Help You
! ▪! YDYB: Why Don't You, Yes But.

White: I wish I could lose some weight.

Black: Why don't you join a gym?
White: Yes but, I can't afford the payments for a gym.
Black: Why don't you speed walk around your block after you get home from work?
White: Yes but, I don't dare walk alone in my neighborhood after dark.
Black: Why don't you take the stairs at work instead of the elevator?
White: Yes but, after my knee surgery, it hurts too much to walk that many flights of stairs.
Black: Why don't you change your diet?
White: Yes but, my stomach is sensitive and I can tolerate only certain foods.
 Strokes
• Strokes are the recognition, attention or responsiveness
that one person gives another.

• Strokes can be positive (nicknamed "warm fuzzies") or

negative ("cold pricklies").