Transactional Analysis by Eric Berne

This article explains the Transactional Analysis, developed by Eric Berne in a practical way.
After reading it, you will understand the basics of this powerful communication skills theory.

What is Transactional Analysis?

Transactional Analysis (TA) is part of social psychology and was developed by the Canadian
psychiatrist Eric Berne in 1958. His goal was to cure people, instead of just making progress in
treating them. Transactional Analysis is based on the idea that people’s early life experiences
determine the decisions they’ll make. These can be both positive and negative decisions that
influence their quality of life. This is also referred to as the script.

Script
The script is central to Transactional Analysis and can be viewed as a well-described approach
people use because they already learned and experienced it as a child. One example of this is that
many men refuse to ever cry in public, because they learned during childhood that ‘boys don’t
cry’. There are also less innocuous scripts that make people repeat their behaviour and lead
to conflicts with their environment.
Transactional Analysis makes it possible to analyse these scripts. Behavioural change can help
alter the scripts. Negative scripts inhibit any individual’s growth and development, whereas
positive scripts have a motivating effect. Within Transactional Analysis, three different types of
scripts are distinguished; the Winner, the Loser and the Non-winner (neutral). All three scripts
can be going on in the same person.

Egos
Berne distinguishes three different ways to experience the world around us in Transactional
Analysis. Based on these three perspectives, people behave differently depending on the
situation. These are called the egos, in which thinking, feeling and behaviour are the main
factors. There’s the Parent, the Adult, the Child, which can be compared to
the Winner (parent), Loser (child), and the Neutral (adult). These three egos are present in each
person as well. The Child and Parent are rooted in the past. The Adult handles based on the
presence.

Each ego can interact with others. Eric Berne calls that transactions. Within Transactional
Analysis, such a transaction is two-way communication. On the one hand there is the actual and
intended communication, and on the other there’s the implied psychological sublayer.
Parent Ego
The Parent ego is the deeply rooted voice of authority that people think, feel and express in the
way parents do towards their children. The Parent ego stands for power and authority, and is
pedantic and know-it-ally. The Parent ego is judgemental, critical and uses patronising language.
The ‘raised finger’ is typical for this ego.
Adult Ego
The Adult ego lives in the here and now. This ego has the ability to carefully think and take
action based on available facts and data. If you want to change the Parent ego or the Child ego,
it’s best to do it through the Adult ego. This ego is verbally skilled and asks many open-ended
questions and bases its opinion on facts. The Adult ego also makes comparisons to other
situations in order to form an objective opinion. The most important characteristics are showing
interest in others, emphatic ability and patience.

Child ego
The Child ego thinks, feels and behaves like a small child. This can be positive; for instance
feeling excited about an upcoming holiday. Often though, it’s expressed negatively in the form
of difficult behaviour, disagreeing with others, wanting to get their way, rude behaviour or anger
and rage. Emotion takes over the Child ego and removes all inhibitions. The Child ego enjoys
bragging, twisting the truth and making things seem worse than they are to impress others.

Strokes
Each person has a need to feel noticed, appreciated and liked by others. Eric Berne has described
this need for attention as wanting strokes. There are different ways to get strokes and they can be
either positive or negative. That’s also the case for the two meanings of the word ‘stroke’;
‘gentle touch’ and ‘hit’. By using an action or words to elicit a response from someone, you get a
stroke. That makes a stroke part of a transaction. On the one hand, people get recognition
through positive strokes such as compliments, friendly remarks and encouragement. On the
other, people can also receive negative strokes in the form of humiliation, cynicism, hatred etc.

Combinations of transactions
A transaction is an exchange of the previously mentioned strokes. According to Berne, there are
three ways for this transaction between people to happen:
1: Complementary transaction
The equal and therefore effective communication between Child-Child, Adult-Adult, Parent-
Parent.
2: Ulterior transaction
The equal communication, followed by for instance the Parent ego to the Child ego.

3: Crossed transaction
The communication takes place between two different egos. On the one hand, one person for
instance starts as the Parent ego and the other as the Child ego. This leads to inequality and
different expectations. The communication is no longer effective and can even turn hostile. The
combination of ego styles is then unfavourable.

Communication levels
According to Eric Berne, verbal communication is paramount in human social relationships. In
particular, it’s about face-to-face communication. When one person starts to talk, it’s called the
Transaction Stimulus. When the other responds, it’s called the Transaction Reaction. In addition,
people communicate on two levels.

1: The level of the social message

This is about what’s actually being said. For instance, someone says, ‘Thank you for arriving so
early!’

2: Level of the psychological message

This is about what is truly meant. If the earlier sentence is spoken sarcastically, it gets a very
different meaning. The message recipient can respond from his Adult ego by indicating that he
doesn’t like the way the sender said it and ask them why they did that. From the Child ego, he
can respond emotionally to the psychological message and become enraged.

It’s Your Turn

What do you think? Have you ever heard of the Transactional Analysis? Do you recognize the
practical explanation or do you have more suggestions? What are your success factors for
personal happiness and well-being?