IMPART Workshop 5

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS AND

REDECISION THERAPY

Eric Berne

With Claude Steiner, Eric Berne’s associate

Practice & Philosophy of TA

• People are OK.• Everyone has the capacity to think.• People decide their own destiny, and

these decisions can be changed.

CRITICAL: COMMANDS, ORDERS(DATA OF UNVERIFIED AUTHENTICITY)

NURTURING: CARING, LOVING

PROCESSING DETAILS, RATIONAL THINKINGCAUSE & EFFECT RELATIONSHIP REALITY

ADAPTED: BORROWED EMOTIONS

NATURAL: CURIOSITY, SPONTANEOUS EMOTIONS, CREATIVITY, FUN, JOY,SEXUAL EMOTION, INTUITION

EGOGRAM

Complimentary Transaction

P P

A A

C C

P P

A A

C C

The transactional vectors are parallel and the ego state addressed is the one which responds. It can be from any ego state to any other ego state.

S

R

S=StimulusR=Response

Crossed Transaction

P P

A A

C C

The transactional vectors are not parallel or the ego state addressed is not the one which responds. In a crossed transaction the response comes from an unexpected ego state.

Ulterior Transaction(Angular)

P P

A A

C C

A transaction is overtly directed at one (social) level, but covertly at another (psychological) level.

Both the persons involve in a more important secret (psychological) transaction underlying the overt (social) transaction.

P P

A A

C C

Ulterior Transaction(Duplex)

How do we remember?

Memory = Event + EmotionRecall = Emotion + Event

We remember through

emotions!

Strokes

• Positive, Negative & discounting• Conditional & Unconditional• Verbal, Non-verbal, action

The strokes are

food for mind.

Claude Steiner’s

Stroke EconomyDON’T GIVE +VE STROKES

GIVE –VE STROKES

DON’T ACCEPT +VE STROKES

ACCEPT –VE STROKES

DON’T SELF-STROKE

Stroke Economy

DON’T GIVE +VE STROKES

DON’T GIVE –VE STROKES

DON’T ACCEPT +VE STROKES

DON’T ACCEPT –VE STROKES

DON’T SELF-STROKE

Common Script BeliefsCOMMANDS

• You mustn’t exist.• You mustn’t be you.• You mustn’t be a child.• You mustn’t grow up.• You mustn’t make it.• You mustn’t do anything.• You mustn’t be important.• You mustn’t belong.• You mustn’t be close.• You mustn’t be well (sane).• You mustn’t think.• You mustn’t feel.

BELIEFSI mustn’t exist.I mustn’t be me.I mustn’t be a child.I mustn’t grow up.I mustn’t make it.I mustn’t do anything.I mustn’t be important.I mustn’t belong.I mustn’t be close.I mustn’t be well (sane).I mustn’t think.I mustn’t feel.

Life Script

• Each person decides upon a plan for his/her life beginning in earliest childhood.

• It is constructed in the form of drama with a clear-cut beginning, middle, & end.

• Script payoff: Closing scene of the script

Life course depends on…

• Heredity• External events• Life-script• Autonomous decisions

Early Decisions

InjunctionsCommandsAttributesModelling

Early experiences

Decisions & Scripts

Psychological positions

Script-reinforcing behaviours

What decides our behaviour?

Life Positions

• I’m not OK, You’re OK.• I’m not OK, You’re not OK.• I’m OK, You’re not OK.• I’m OK, You’re OK.

I AM NOT OK YOU ARE OK

One down position

Get away from, helpless

I AM OKYOU ARE OK

Healthy position

Get on with, happy

I AM NOT OKYOU ARE NOT OK

Helpless position

Get nowhere with, hopeless

I AM OKYOU ARE NOT OK

One up position

Get rid of, Angry

I AM O

KAY WITH

ME

YOU ARE NOT OKAY WITH ME

I AM

NO

T O

KAY

WIT

H M

E

YOU ARE OKAY WITH ME

Tragic Script Outcomes

• Killing or Harming self

• Killing or Harming others

• Going crazy

Racket and Racket FeelingsRACKET FEELING: A familiar emotion, acquired in

childhood, and expressed later under stress. It is a substitute for another feeling prohibited in family of origin.

RACKET: A set of manipulative thoughts & behaviours intended outside awareness to justify in experiencing a racket feeling.

Each time a person gets strokes for a racket or racket feeling, she will interpret this in Child as confirmation of her script beliefs.

Questions to elicit racket feelings• How do you express when you fail in exams?

• What do you tell to your Boss/Wife when you arrive late?

• What kinds of topics do you like most?

• What aspects do you expect from your favorite film star?

• While talking for long time with your friend in mobile,What excuse do you give to your mother?

A Racket System

SCRIPT BELIEFS

Beliefs about: 1 Self 2 Others 3 Quality of life (Intrapsychic process)

Feelings repressed at the time of script decision

REINFORCING MEMORIES

Emotional memories (‘trading stamps’) provide evidence & justification

RACKETY DISPLAYS

1 Observable behaviours (stylized, repetitive)

2 Reported internal experience (somatic ailments: physical sensations)

3 Fantasies

RACKET SYSTEM

Time StructuringWithdrawal: Being to oneself

Procedures: Give & take

Rituals: Wishing each other

Pastimes: “Mine is better than yours”

Activities: Action and satisfaction

Games: Transaction with a switch > negative strokes

Intimacy: Opening with others without walls > positive strokes

Persecutor Rescuer

Victim

Arena of the Games:Karpman’s Triangle

Applying TA Therapy

• Help client close escape hatches.• Develop therapeutic contract.• Describe specific tenets & terminology of TA.• Create awareness of scripts.• Reinforce redecisions.• Enforce cognitive/rational domain of behaviou.r• Challenge to change current pattern.s • Enhance client autonomy to reduce dependence.

Closing Escape Hatches“You need to promise yourself that- You will never, in any circumstances, kill or harm

yourself, try to kill or harm yourself, or set up to kill or harm yourself, accidentally or on purpose.

- You will never, in circumstances, kill or harm anyone else, try to kill or harm anyone else, or set up to kill or harm anyone else, accidentally or on purpose.

- You will never, in any circumstances, go crazy, try to go crazy or set up to go crazy, accidentally or on purpose.”

Therapeutic Contract: Why?

1. To have the client actively involved in the counselling process

2. To provide a mental set towards change3. To know when the work is complete4. To guard against imposition of the therapist’s

goals on the client.5. To discourage pursuit of covert agendas

Effective Contract-making1. Is the contract goal feasible?2. Is it safe?3. Is it stated in positive words?4. Is it observable?5. Is it placed in a clear context?6. Does this mark a movement out of script and

into the autonomy for the client?

Confront Script – Invite Autonomy

Tasks of Therapist

INTERVENTION- Effective- Harmful- Ineffective

Techniques of TA

• Active listening skills• Finding the script• Confrontation for redecision process• Role-play• Contracts to achieve target• Enhance redecision process: get commitment

to change• Self-scripting

ELICITATION WINDOW

Dr VINOD CHEBBI, Bangalore

Discovering Racket & Racket Feelings

When things go wrong for you, how do you feel?

Do you recognize this as a familiar feeling of yours?

Is it a feeling you experience in response to a wide range of different situations?

When did you last feel these feelings?

What was the situation in which you felt it?

With hindsight, how far would you say you had a part in setting up that situation, though you are not responsible?

Did the feeling you felt help you to get your needs met in the here-and-now?

When you were a child, was this feeling favoured or rewarded in your family?

Suppose you were using this favoured feeling to cover up another feeling that was prohibited or punished when you were a child, what would you guess is this original feeling you were covering up?

Discovering Racket & Racket Feelings (Contd.)

Outdated Beliefs

• Redefining: Distorting of self, others & world

• Discounting: Ignoring / minimizing contrary evidence

• Detect clues in behaviour. • Help to update script beliefs,

resolve script feelings, and move out of scripty behaviour.

Therapy Through TA: 1

Challenging Out-Dated Beliefs

• Working with racket feelings• ‘Peeling the onion’• Confronting the games• Confronting the discounts• Moving to intimacy at Switch

Making New Decisions (Robert and Mary Goulding)

Making the contractClosing the escape hatch

Providing safe setting

Therapy Through TA: 2

Making a Redecision: 1

• Establish a session contract.

• Invite a client to re-experience a problem scene.

• Invite a client to re-experience a related scene from childhood.

• While client is in child ego state invite to the present resources (the Adult ego state).

When during the Child ego state, invite client to make a new decision and watch the shift to authentic feeling.

Bring client to Adult ego state; invite to anchor the re-decision immediately in the “Here-and-Now”

Carry out Adult to de-brief, the meaning of the new decision.

Negotiate with client a contract to practice new decision.

Making a Redecision: 2

TA: Advantages

• Quick psychoanalysis: Understood on a "here-and-now" basis.

• Universal usage: Utilized in day-to-day communication with others, irrespective of age, sex & situation.

• Repairing relationships: Used in understanding and managing relationship with another.

• Self-analysis: Used to understand and change oneself.• Restructuring PT: Used in restructuring psychotherapy