![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/TA-Headline-Picture.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDr Eric Berne, a Canadian born psychologist designed Transactional Analysis, or TA as it is often known today, as a system that seeks to provide guidance on the interactions of people and to help improve their social environments. Berne\u2019s body of work has been used extensively over the past 35 years and, in this brief presentation we will look at his overall theory and two particular aspects of it which still have high acceptance today.<\/p>\n
\nTA needs to be considered carefully as a way of helping us to better understand people\u2019s learned behaviours. We should note that it assumes:<\/p>\n
- \n
- People are OK<\/li>\n
- Everyone has the capacity to think<\/li>\n
- People decide their own destiny (and these decisions can be changed)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
All of the different parts of Berne\u2019s theory can be seen in the diagram below. This diagram holistically shows that each part of the TA theory relates to another part, building from the more covert \u201cEgo States\u201d theory at the base of the diagram to the more overt or visible behaviours such as the way we structure our time and engage in relationship games at the top.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/TA-Full-Diagram.jpg\")
<\/a>Berne made complex interpersonal transactions understandable when he recognised that people can interact from one of three “Ego States” – Parent, Adult or Child – and that these interactions can occur at overt and covert levels.\u00a0 Although all of Berne’s theories relate to one another, the two major ones that have had most use are “Ego States” and the so-called “OK Corral”.\u00a0 Let’s therefore look at one at a time.<\/p>\nEgo States<\/strong><\/p>\n
According to Berne all individuals have three discrete parts to their personality or what he terms the inner “Ego”.\u00a0 For Berne these aspects of our personality are filters through which we see the world (and all have been learned over time usually very early on in our childhood).\u00a0 Berne called these personality filters “states”.\u00a0 Every individual therefore communicates predominantly through one of the three “Ego States”.\u00a0 Berne drew these “PAC” states (as he called them for short) in diagrammatic form and this is shown below”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/TA-PAC.jpg\")
<\/a>These three \u201cEgo States\u201d operate as follows:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nParent Ego States (Taught)<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\nThis state contains the attitudes, feelings and behaviour incorporated from external sources, primarily parents. In outward behaviour it is divided into two parts:<\/p>\n
- \n
- nurturing parent: concerned with caring, loving, helping<\/strong><\/li>\n
- controlling parent: criticising, censoring, punishing<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
When a person is in his or her parent state, he\/she responds automatically, almost as if the individual has a memory recording, playing in his or her head. Everyone has Parent memory recordings \u2013 some are helpful \u2013 they enable us to carry out routine tasks automatically without having to think too much about them. Other memory recordings can create problems \u2013 if a Parent memory is triggered automatically in an inappropriate situation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
Adult Ego States (Thought)<\/strong><\/h5>\n
A person\u2019s Adult Ego State is his or her thoughts, feelings and behaviour in the here and now that is calmly appropriate to the external stimulus being experienced at any one time. The state has nothing to do with the person\u2019s age. It contains those behaviours concerned with collecting information, organising and analysing. It operates dispassionately and without emotion.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
Child Ego States (Felt)<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\nThis state contains all the impulses that come naturally to an infant. But just as the Parent has different aspects or characteristics which relate to this state, so does the Child state. The Child develops into two parts \u2013 the Natural or Free Child and the Adapted Child\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- The Natural\/Free Child: <\/strong>Is spontaneous, energetic, curious, loving and uninhibited, the part of you that feels free and loves pleasure. Many adults repress their natural child and exaggerate the parent.<\/li>\n
- The Adapted Child: <\/strong>Your Adapted Child developed when you learned to change (adapt) your feelings and behaviour in response to the world around you. Learned feelings of guilt, fear, depression, anxiety, envy and pride are all characteristic of the Adapted Child. The Adapted Child can become the most troublesome part of our personality.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Each one of the Ego States is a system of communication with its own language and function; the Parent\u2019s is a language of values, the Adult\u2019s is a language of logic and rationality and the Child\u2019s is a language of emotions. According to Berne, effective functioning in the world depends on the availability of all three intact Ego States (although the Adult State is ideally the \u201caccess door\u201d to the other two.<\/p>\n
One of the manifestations of the Ego State transactions that we receive as individuals (and the Games that we engage in) is that in the long term we become \u201cdriven\u201d in certain ways and consequently seek particular kinds of what Berne called \u201cstrokes\u201d from other people. In combination, this leads us to one of four \u201cLife Positions\u201d or types of behaviour that can be plotted on what Berne called the \u201cOK Corral\u201d or Grid as can be seen below:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/TA-OK-Coral.jpg\")
<\/a>Berne suggested that each individual will eventually (often in his or her late teens) make a decision on how they will generally relate to others and themselves. Berne called this their Life Position and once decided upon, the Life Position influences how the person thinks, feels and behaves (although through greater awareness it can change over time).<\/p>\nRelating this back to Ego States:<\/p>\n
\nThe I\u2019m OK, You\u2019re not OK<\/strong> quadrant is the dominant Parental Ego State<\/p>\n
- \n
- the I\u2019m not OK, You\u2019re OK<\/strong> quadrant is the dominant Child Ego State<\/li>\n
- the I\u2019m OK and You\u2019re OK<\/strong> quadrant which is the healthy Adult Ego State<\/li>\n
- the I\u2019m not OK, You\u2019re not OK<\/strong> is a problem for everyone. According to Berne 99.9% of people fall into the three quadrants other than the one at the bottom left.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Most of us do not consistently act from a single Life Position and our positions can change from situation to situation. However, we may adopt a single Life Position with a particular person every time that we meet them until such time as the parties deliberately decide to change the relationship.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/h4>\n
Berne\u2019s ego states theory has been used extensively to help better understand communication between individuals with different Ego states (where we want to avoid Parental and Child state conversations in particular).<\/p>\n
The OK corral theory has been applied in the areas of communication but more extensively in the realm of leadership development. In the latter, the aim is to get leaders to operate as much as possible from an I\u2019m OK, you\u2019re OK<\/u> stand-point when working with individuals and teams. This allows them to avoid over-doing the parental role (which many leaders naturally slip into) and the child ego state, where the leader over-does the friend role and fails to stand back from the team in order to give firm direction and lead strongly when it is important to do so.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Jon-Warner.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n
\nDr. Jon Warner is a prolific author, management consultant and executive coach with over 25 years experience. He has an MBA and a PhD in Organizational Psychology. Jon can be reached at OptimalJon@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Discipleship-Colin.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Colin is the Director of ResourceZone International. He has 30 years of ministry experience as a pastor, college lecturer and consultant\/coach to consultants, denominational leaders and local church pastors. He can be reached at info@resourcezoneinternational.com<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/h5>\n
\u00a0Related Resources<\/strong><\/h5>\n
- \n
- Transactional Analysis Theory (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n
- TA Ego States-Adult: Training Handout (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n
- TA Ego States-Child: Training Handout (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n
- TA Ego States-Parent: Training Handout (PDF<\/a><\/li>\n
- TA Game Playing: Training Handout (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n
- TA Life Positions: Training Handout (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n
- TA Time Structuring: Training Handout (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr Eric Berne, a Canadian born psychologist designed Transactional Analysis, or TA as it is often known today, as a system that seeks to provide guidance on the interactions of people and to help improve their social environments. Berne\u2019s body of work has been used extensively over the past 35 years and, in this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-leadership-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3681,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions\/3681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.resourcezone.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- TA Ego States-Adult: Training Handout (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n
- the I\u2019m OK and You\u2019re OK<\/strong> quadrant which is the healthy Adult Ego State<\/li>\n
- The Adapted Child: <\/strong>Your Adapted Child developed when you learned to change (adapt) your feelings and behaviour in response to the world around you. Learned feelings of guilt, fear, depression, anxiety, envy and pride are all characteristic of the Adapted Child. The Adapted Child can become the most troublesome part of our personality.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- controlling parent: criticising, censoring, punishing<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- nurturing parent: concerned with caring, loving, helping<\/strong><\/li>\n