Transactional analysis was developed by Eric Berne in the 1950s, similar to the beliefs of Sigmund Freud it was based on the idea that one's personality was made up of 3 parts.
Berne believed these parts were what informed us in our communication and also in how we process information. He called the three parts that make up our internal system; the Parent, the Child and the Adult.
The Parent is made up of experiences we have as children that are accepted without filtering. These are external events. It is suggested that this is how and where we learn ‘rules’ and the difference between ‘right and wrong’.
For example: These are the experiences of where we learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and to not run with scissors. To know that shouting indoors is bad. These will differ culturally and from individual to individual.
These are internal events. These are the parts of our personality that we pick up ourselves in the first few years of our lives. They are the internalisation of the emotions and feelings we have in the early stages of our lives and they can and are activated under certain circumstances. A good example of this is our reaction to being in trouble, do you find yourself feeling resentful or sulking, acting childlike? These experiences can also be the beginning of where our fears originate, whether that be a fear of the dark or clowns. These experiences also inform our feelings of joy, for example the joy and exhilaration experienced from cycling a bike downhill or the comfort we get from being held.
This is the part of us that deals with the here and now, that processes information.This is the problem solver in us, the objective part of us that weighs up the pros and cons of a situation. It gets stronger through use, through self work and introspection.
The Adult can be overwhelmed though at times and it is during these times that we can revert to the Child, or the Parent, by becoming passive and making decisions and taking action according to our outdated rules that have no bearing on the present situation.
Creating the means to identify when we are reverting to childlike or Parent like behavior is essential to healthy relationships. Please see below for an illustration of what this may look like in an average / everyday scenario.
Adult 1) Where is my tie?
Adult 2) I don’t know, I am sorry.
But there can also be unhealthy communication channels where we can revert to the Child or the Parent role even when speaking with another Adult:
Adult 1) Where is my tie?
Child 1) Why should I know?
Parent 1) You should always leave it in the same place then you wouldn’t lose it.
What we will work towards in therapy is identifying these communication transactions, working through the unhealthy ones and to establish healthy communication pathways going forward.
