Transactional analysis: an easy-to-understand pathway for improvement

Every client that comes to RISE is matched to a clinician who would work best with them, depending on their needs. Clinicians have different tools they introduce to the client to work with them. For RISE Clinician Benita Lawrence, Transactional Analysis is one of her preferred models alongside the RISE programmes.

Transactional Analysis, commonly referred to as TA, includes concepts to help people analyse their mental and emotional processes and change behaviours. The best-known concept that TA uses is the ego-state concept. From birth children lay down their neural pathways through learning and observing. By the age of three 85 percent of these neural pathways are established. These pathways make up one’s behaviours, thoughts, and feelings for the rest of their life. TA categorises them into three ego-states: the Child, the Parent, and the Adult. Within these ego-states are all the beliefs we have accumulated about ourselves, relationships, and the world.

The ego-states

While each ego-state has sub-parts and there is more detail to the model, on the simplest level these three ego-states interact in ‘transactions.’ Benita helps clients identify their ego-states, increase their perception of the presence of the ego-states, and identify the transactions. Often one ego-state is dominant in key situations. Once a client becomes more aware of these transactions, they can adjust their behaviours.

The Child ego-state is dominated by emotions. It contains the beliefs that are core to us around how we feel about ourselves, who we are, and how we behave. It is developed from the reflections of our parents (or caregivers in our early years). Because the Child ego-state is a reflection of what others tell us, the emotions that are associated with it are rarely if ever true. Still, they dominate the intimate way we feel about ourselves. “I’m not good enough,” “I’m not worthy or valuable,” and “I was born a bad person,” are statements one makes in their Child ego-state.

The Parent ego-state is formed from the things we perceive that our parents/caregivers did when we were a child. We mimic these behaviours as adults and they include beliefs that are more general about the world, about right and wrong, and good and bad. “If someone commits a crime, it is fair to be punished for it.”

The Adult ego-state is the here and now, the present. It is how we feel about ourselves in the absolute moment of now. This is the part of us that can observe the other two states and be analytical and reflective. It is our rational self.

Using TA with clients

Benita introduces TA to all of her clients over several sessions. Those who find it helpful and useful pursue it further. “I believe TA shows us the lens through which we all walk through life,” she says. “Those who identify with it really start to see the ego-states in everything they do.

“Once a client expresses an interest in TA, I ask them to start observing themselves more closely. Can you hear and see the Child or the Parent in things you do or say?”

Benita calls this listening to your internal dialogue. When you’re thinking inside your head and having a conversation with yourself, this is often the Parent ego-state butting heads with the Child ego-state.

“Most people pick up the Parent very easily, especially the critical Parent. They hear messages like ‘you’re not good enough’ or ‘you’re doing this or that wrong’ or ‘you’ll never learn how to do that properly.’ These are things a parent has said to them once that they held onto and now tell themselves.”

Once clients start becoming more aware of their inner voice and the things they say and do to themselves and others, they recognise how they can behave differently.

I wasn’t born bad

“My clients are always fascinated, if not relieved, to learn that the beliefs of the Child ego-state are not true. Statements from the Child ego-state are ones perceived at very early ages, at the same age the neural pathways were laid. Back then the child was making sense of what someone else said or did to them. It wasn’t something they did. So clients are often relieved when I say these negative thoughts and beliefs are not theirs and, most importantly, that they can be changed.

“When a client realises that change is possible, I know we’re getting somewhere. I’m having an impact. And that’s very rewarding.”

Benita has discovered that TA can be particularly effective for male users of violence. When they learn that the dialogue from their Child ego-state isn’t their own truth, they understand they are not to blame for their negative self-perceptions.

“They no longer feel that they were born bad, that they can’t be good and that they don’t have a choice. They do have choices and they are not to blame for what they experienced as a child. I can often help them see and understand that they were innocent children, not bad children who were destined to stay bad for life. That’s the moment where they see change is possible.”

Behaviour patterns

“TA is fantastic for people who have damaging, repetitive patterns of behaviour,” Benita says. “It can help them understand how their ego-states have been filtering out signs and signals that are different and healthier for them and instead allowing them to choose what is familiar and unhealthy. Their brains simply aren’t picking up those healthy signals.”

For example, woman clients sometimes ask Benita, ‘why am I attracted to men who abuse me?’

“Men who are attracted to them who would not abuse them send signals that are not familiar to them,” she says. “So they don’t notice those men at all and don’t even interact with them. It’s almost as if those men don’t exist, even though the men are sending signals. The brain filters the signals and absorbs the familiar ones that come from abusive men. Because of this, women interpret that they only attract unhealthy men. But once they pay more attention to the unhealthy signals and become more aware, they can change their filters.”

Benita has had great success with TA, with clients telling her it is easy to follow and understand and that it gives them a pathway for improvement.