Ego states and Transactional analysis

Eric Berne was a practicing psychiatrist. He treated hundreds of patients. In one counseling
session, Berne treated a 35 year old lawyer. During the session, the lawyer (a male) said Im not
really a lawyer; Im just a little boy. But outside the confines of Dr. Bernes office, this patient
was a successful, hard-charging, attorney. Later, in their sessions, the lawyer would frequently
ask Dr. Berne if he was talking to the lawyer or the little boy. Berne was intrigued by this, as
he was seeing a single individual display two states of being. Berne began referring to these
two states as Adult and Child. Later, Berne identified a third state, one that seemed to
represent what the patient had observed in his parents when he was small. Berne referred to this
as parent. As Berne then turned to his other patients, he began to observe that these three ego
states were present in all of them. As Berne gained confidence in this theory, he went on to
introduce these in a 1957 paper one year before he published his seminal paper introducing
Transactional Analysis.

Ego states: Eric Berne defined an ego-state as a consistent pattern of feeling and experience
directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behavior. It is the totality of a persons
experience of himself or herself and the external world at a given moment.
Berne defined the three ego states as: Parent, Adult, and Child.
Parent The parent represents a massive collection of recordings in the brain of external events
experienced or perceived in approximately the first five years of life. Since the majority of the
external events experienced by a child are actions of the parent, the ego state was appropriately
called Parent. Note that events perceived by the child from individuals that are NOT parents (but
who are often in parent-like roles) are also recorded in the Parent.

Child In contrast to the Parent, the Child represents the recordings in the brain
of internal events associated with external events the child perceives. Stated another way, stored
in the Child are the emotions or feelings which accompanied external events. Like the Parent,
recordings in the Child occur from childbirth all the way up to the age of approximately 5 years
old.
Child is typified by I statements, I want, I need etc. Child ego state is a function of
impulses and desires to find pleasure and be happy.

The Natural Child (free child) ego state represents a playful and spontaneous part of human
behavior, from infancy to an old age.
The Adapted Child When the child needed to wipe his nose, he used his handkerchief instead of
his sleeve, even though the sleeve might be more convenient. Very early on in the life, child had
understood that Father likes him better when he is quiet.
Thank you .
I hope so .
Perhaps .
Ill try that .

The rebellious child There are other times in the childhood when child rebelled against these
rules and expectations that his parents seemed to be setting for him. Sometimes when the child is
on his own, he gives his nose a really good wipe on the sleeve, just because child found tha using
that handkerchief is irritating.
When the child behaves in these ways, it is as if the child is taking my parents' rules and turning
them around backwards. Instead of adapting to their expectations, the child does as much of the
opposite as he could

Eg:
Let me see what happens
I dont care
what most can you do to me ..
I quit
why me etc
Adult ego state
This ego state is not related to the persons age, more to a developmental state. It is a logical,
rational way of contacting reality. The Adult ego state is principally concerned with
transforming stimuli into pieces of information and processing and filing that information on the
basis of previous experience

Structural analysis
As a theory of personality, TA gives us a picture of how people are structured psychologically. To
do so it uses a three-part model known as the ego-state model. The same model helps us
understand how people function how they express their personality in terms of behavior. The
process of analyzing personality in terms of ego states is called structural analysis. It is important
to remember that ego states do not have an existence of their own, they are concepts to enable
understanding.

Transactional analysis (TA)

If two or more people encounter each other sooner or later one of them will speak, or give some other
indication of acknowledging the presence of the others. This is called transactional stimulus. Another
person will then say or do something which is in some way related to the stimulus, and that is called the
transactional response.
This gives us the formal definition of a transaction

Transaction = transactional stimulus + a transactional response.

Berne referred to the transaction as the 'basic unit of social discourse'.

Transactional analysis
When two people communicate, one person initiates a transaction with the transactional stimulus. The
person at whom the stimulus is directed will respond with the transactional response.
In the analysis of transactions, we use the ego-state model to help explain what goes on during this
process of communication. Transactional Analysis involves identifying which ego state directed the
stimulus and which ego state in the other person executed the response.
Types of Transactions

1. Complementary communication occurs when a response comes from the ego state to
which it was addressed. This is the natural order of healthy interpersonal communication.
Example 1: Consider that a surgeon is surveying A patient. Based upon the data
before him/her, his/her Adult decides that the scalpel is the next instrument
required. The surgeons Adult holds out his/her hand, providing the transactional
stimulus to the nurse. The nurses Adult looks at the hand, and based upon
previous experiences, concludes that the scalpel is needed. The nurse then places
the scalpel in the surgeons hand.
Example 2: The fevered child asks for a glass of water, and the nurturing mother
brings it. In this, the Child of a small child directs an inquiry to the Parent of
his/her mother. The Parent of the mother acknowledges this stimuli, and then
gives the water to the child. In this example, the small childs request is the
stimuli, and the parent providing the water is the response.

Example 1

Example 2

2. Crossed In a crossed transaction, an ego state different than the ego state which
received the stimuli is the one that responds. The diagram to the right shows a
typical crossed transaction.
An example is as follows:
Husband: Do you know where my cuff links are? (note that this stimuli is
directed at the Respondents Adult).
Wife: You always blame me for everything!10
This is one the classic crossed transactions that occurs in marriage. Instead of the
Respondents Adult responding with I think theyre on the desk, it is the
Respondents Child that responds back.
It is important to note that when analyzing transactions, one must look
beyond what is being said. According to Dr. Berne, one must look at how the
words are being delivered (accents on particular words, changes in tone, volume,
etc.) as the non-verbal signs accompanying those words (body language, facial

expressions, etc.). Transactional Analysts will pay attention to all of these cues
when analyzing a transaction and identifying which ego states are involved.

3. Covert (Ulterior) transaction occurs when there is difference between social and

psychological levels of meaning, that is, when we say one thing and mean another,
conveying hidden or ulterior meanings. Sarcasm is a great example of this. When we are
sarcastic what we say is the opposite of what we mean.

Life-script
Each of us, in childhood, writes a life-story for himself or herself. This story has a beginning, a
middle and an end. We write the basic plot in our infant years, before we are old enough to talk
more than a few words. Later on in childhood, we add more detail to the story.
Most of it has been written by the age of seven. We may revise it further during adolescence. As
grown-ups, we are usually no longer aware of the life-story we have written for ourselves. Yet
we are likely to live it out faithfully. Without being aware of it, we are likely to set up our lives
so that we move towards the final scene we decided upon as infants.
This unaware life-story is known in TA as the life-script.
The concept of life-script ranks with the ego-state model as a central building-block of TA. It is
especially important in psychotherapeutic applications. In script analysis, we use the concept of
life-script to understand how people may unawarely set up problems for themselves, and how
they may set about solving those problems.
Analysis of life positions (Script)
Berne suggests that the young child, early in the process of script formation, '...already has
certain convictions about himself and the people around him.... These convictions are likely to
stay with him the rest of his life, and may be summarized as follows:

These four views are known as life positions.' Some writers call them basic positions, existential
positions, or just positions. They represent fundamental stances a person takes up about the

essential value he perceives in himself and others. This means more than simply having an
opinion about his own and other people's behavior.
Once the child has adopted one of these positions, she is likely to construct all the rest of her
script to fit in with it. Berne wrote: 'Every game, script and destiny is based on one of these four
basic positions.'

I'm OK, You're OK:

As a realistic assessment, it means that in my opinion I am OK inspite of my deficiencies. it
means that I feel good about myself and that I feel good about others and their competence. I will
neither punish myself for my deficiencies nor totally I will ignore their existence. Other people
too have deficiencies but this does not mean that they are second class citizens ans cannot be
trusted.
Conflicts and criticism tackled from this life position aim to achieve results with underlying
message that I care considerably about you to argue and fight with you rather than criticize you
to belittle you.
I'm not-OK, You're OK:
This is a common position of persons who feel powerless, not good enough, or less important
when they compare themselves to other. Such people are self-deprecating and readily accept
criticism and negative strokes from others. Cannot accept the positive strokes easily. Will
discount the positive stroke by saying - "No, I could have done better." "I don't think that I look
as good as you describe me."
I'm OK, You're Not-OK: Get-Rid-Of
Attitude of superiority and distrust. This is the position of persons who feel victimized or
persecuted, so victimizes and persecutes others. They blame others for their miseries..
I'm not-OK, You're not OK: Get-Nowhere-With
This is the position of those who lose interest in living, who exhibit eccentric behavior, and in
extreme cases, may commit suicide or homicide. It is the black outlook. If a person demonstrates
this image for a long time, he is likely to show extreme apathy and will not be productive.