Presonality and Psychology: Interdependence and Interplay (summary note)

              Winning a game called life:

            

     Every human being is a new, unique creation, something that has never existed before. Each is also born with an unquestionable ability to win at life. Along with all the potentials and talents, the limitations also come along. Winning here has many meanings but it certainly does not mean defeating someone. A winner is someone whose responses to situations and people are genuine, authentic and spontaneous. A winner is a credible, trustworthy individual who does not feel compelled to wear different masks. He is just himself as his true self, always.

     No one is a complete winner or loser in life overall-remember personal limitations? But there are ways and means to transform oneself into an outstanding winner and this section of the blog has been written to assist you on your onward march to triumph and glory.

Defining winners:

·       Achievements are important. Authenticity in response and behaviour is even more important.

·       Authentic people actualize their own unique potentials and appreciate the potential in other. They don't feel jealous because they know that any comparison between two completely unique individuals is unfair and unnecessary.

·       Winners do not project an image and then try to live up to it. They have the confidence to reveal their true self, without arrogance or apology

·       Winners are not afraid to make their own decisions because they aren't afraid of failing. Even when they fail, the basic self-belief always remains there.

·       Winners do their own thinking and use their own knowledge. They know that they do not know everything and do not pretend to act otherwise. 

·       They admire and respect others but never feel inferior.

·       Winners do not act helpless and blame others. They take the responsibility for their life in their own hands, no matter how terrible the circumstances or consequences.

·       Winners treat others with dignity and care for others significance, worth and well being.

·       Winners do the right thing at the appropriate time. They know when to laugh   and when to cry.

·       To winners time is precious and they live in the here and now; learning from past and looking forward to future.

·       Winners are natural and spontaneous. They do not behave in a rigid or pre-determined ways. They are able to love and be loved.

·       Winners enjoy life and everything in it, without making enjoyment the purpose of their lives.

·       A winner cares for this world. He never believes he is insignificant and powerless. He works to make this world a better place.

Defining losers:

     People begin their journey of life being totally dependent and helpless as an infant. Winners learn to first become independent and then appreciate the delicate interdependence of all people and things around them. They understand that no one is totally self-sufficient and we need others and God to help us. Losers, on the other hand, do not face the challenges involved in becoming independent. They live in a comfort zone of dependence where someone else is responsible for everything that happens to them. And because losers continue being dependent, the question of their ability to be of value and service to others simply does not arise Losers avoid responsibilities, including the responsibility for their own lives.

     It is believed that an unhappy childhood contributes to making people losers. A child struggling to cope against harsh, bitter and traumatic experiences learns to manipulate others and self in order to lessen the extent of pain and disappointment. These techniques are carried over to later life by the losers whereas winners work to get rid of them. In doing so, they limit their own potentials and capacity to experience and enjoy this life. The loser is either mourning the past misfortune or hoping for some magic or miracle in the future. While doing so, the present is wasted and destroyed, without even realizing it. Blaming others and making excuses for oneself are the loser's favourite hobbies. Losers lose themselves in an imaginary world of fantasies and anticipated catastrophes. The world of imagination is actually an escape from the current reality. They flight instead of to fight.

     Losers spend much of their life pretending, acting and manipulating rather than just being themselves. They put on a mask to deceive the world but ultimately, believe their own false image and end up deceiving themselves. A loser never responds spontaneously and authentically because he is unsure whether it will enhance his phony image projected to the outside world. Losers are afraid of anything new because then they will have to work all over again to build a new image.

     Honest, intimate relationships scare losers because they trust neither others nor themselves. They prefer to manipulate others and self to live up to some imaginary expectations and then drown themselves in self-pity when either one of them fails to live up to these unrealistic expectations. Losers use their intelligence to either rationalize or intellectualize. They rationalize to justify their own actions and intellectualize to deceive others from discovering the true motives behind their actions. In short, losers waste all their energies in living the life of a person that they were never meant to be.

How to change:

     There are two psychological tools for people who want to identify and weed out the "losing streak" in them. No one is 100% winner or loser so everyone needs these tools.

Gestalt therapy (by Frederic Perle)

Transactional analysis (by Eric Berne)

Gestalt therapy: Based on the Gestalt psychology, gestalt therapy aims at bringing wholeness into one's personality. Frederic Perle perceived many people’s personality to be fragmented. Such people are aware of only some parts of their personality. The other often weak, dark or unpleasant parts of the personality are unknowns to them or they do not wish or claim to know them. For example, a mother may not know or admit that she brutally beats her child just as her own mother did. A man, carrying the self-image of a strong, macho personality, may  refuse to admit that at times even he wishes to break down and cry like a little baby.

Gestalt thereby helps people become whole and self-sufficient. The therapy includes role playing, deliberate exaggeration of symptoms or behaviour to understand the feeling or emotion behind it. It also uses fantasy, staying with the feeling at the present moment (i.e. being in the 'here and now'), becoming aware of bodily senses and signals. The subject is asked to talk 'to' rather than talk 'at' and use 'I' rather than "it" So as to assume responsibility for the action and behaviour

Talking of fragments, people may also have split personalities where the person has two equally strong and totally contradictory selves. For example, helpful and angry; aggressive and afraid; Shy and arrogant etc. Such people often operate in an either/or manner – either aggressive or afraid, shy or arrogant, wicked or righteous etc. Such people are fighting an internal war.

The technique used in the gestalt therapy is the double chair role playing with one of the chairs as the 'hot seat'. The subject sits on the hot seat and then imagines her other parts of personality to be sitting on the opposite chair. Then a self-dialogue begins and the subject changes chair whenever the roles are changed. People act out each role and try to understand the emotion or reason behind the action or behaviour of any role from the opposite chair. In this manner, they gain self-awareness and consciousness.

Perle also talked about dreams as another way to gain self-awareness and integration of personality. In a dream, everything is related to the dreamer. Each person or objects in the dream is some aspect of the dreamer's personality. This person has 'projected' his own feelings, desires, fears into the dream. By re-living the dream, one can understand the source of such feelings, the dreamer's own mind.

The gestalt therapy provides both emotional and intellectual insights in to one's personality but with greater focus on emotional.

Transactional analysis: Like the gestalt therapy, this also provides both emotional and intellectual understanding about one's self, but with greater focus on intellectual. It’s a thinking, analytical process where the person frequently concludes 'so that’s how it is!’

     Dr. Berne says his theories of transactional analysis evolved by observing the changes in behaviour of a patient, whenever a new stimulus came upon him. This stimulus could be in the form of anything, including a word, gesture, and sound from other people. The changes in behaviour ranged from facial expressions, tone of voice, body movements, gestures, postures, carriage (walk and gait), muscular spasms (twitching or tics), type of words and sentence structures. It seemed as if there were several different people inside one person and at any given time, one of them was commanding the behaviour.

     From analyzing the behavioral changes, some sort of pattern emerged that made it possible to define and classify these multiple personalities within a person. It was observed that these different 'selves' of an individual dealt or transacted with other people in different, peculiar, ways. These transactions could be of simple, straight nature or with an ulterior motive, intended to manipulate others into psychological "games and rackets." It was also found that people behaved in a pre-determined, predictable fashion as if they were acting on stage from a theatrical script. All these ideas evolved into the unique theory of "Transactional Analysis" (abbreviated to TA)

     TA has helped a lot of people become more aware of themselves because it’s simple, direct and logical. It does not use psychological or scientific jargon and finds universal application. Anyone who ever understands it wishes to share the knowledge with others as a token of gratitude to the great masters. This chapter is my salute to them and my effort to take it to all corners of India, where it’s badly needed.

I'm ok, you’re ok:

     Psychology is a very interesting subject and people like Sigmund Freud have given it mystical proportions. I am not a student of psychology but I came across two beautiful books on the subject. One was 'Born to win' and the other was 'I am ok, you’re ok'. Both are bestsellers and I would like to discuss some of the concepts from these books to apprise the readers about the psychological aspects of personality and its role in the individual’s success and fulfillment. I can vouch for their effectiveness because the books have transformed my life in many ways and at many levels.

     Most of us think that we know ourselves very well. However the truth is that there are many facets of our personality which we deny or avoid knowing because they may be hurtful, unpleasant and embarrassing. We carry on with our lives without taking into consideration this hidden side of our personality which often is the cause of recurring failures, both professional and personal. It’s like running a marathon with a heavy baggage at our back. We go a certain distance, become breathless and give up. It would be too early to comment on the content of this excess baggage but it definitely involves emotional issues. Unless we take out time to examine the handicap of our personality and systematically discard them we would be spending the rest of our lives feeling helpless, directionless and utterly bitter. The same patterns of try- lose- give up will keep repeating itself.

Let us begin our learning with a concept that is called ‘Jo-Hari Window’

Quadrant I – I know, others don't know.

     It is those aspects of our personality, both positive and negative, which are only known to us.

    

Quadrant II –    I know, others know.

     Aspects of our personality which is common knowledge!

Quadrant III – Others know, I don't know

     These are often our flaws and weaknesses, but not always, which others have observed in their interaction with us but we are not aware of them or we refuse to acknowledge them.

Quadrant IV – Other don't know, I don't know

     This is the dark, hidden corner of our mind which is unknown and unexplored.

 In this section, we are going to try and open up the area for you so that you can understand yourself better and then put your best foot forward to become a winner which the creator always intended you to be.

     Let me make it very clear that the contents you are going to read in the forthcoming pages are nothing mysterious. It is merely better understanding with fresh insights. There is nothing you will find that’s dramatically new. You will slowly realize that it’s already within you.     

     "You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself."                                                                                                                   - Galileo     

     This journey of self-exploration is sacred because its purpose is to do good to yourself and  a man who is good to himself can only be expected to be good to others. Naturally, when you are good to others, life becomes worth living. So let us take the first step and answer these questions.

• Do you feel that you are not always at the best of your behaviour despite the best of intentions?
• Do you think that sometime other people behave in a very incomprehensible, unpredictable and unreasonable manner?
• Do you find maintaining relationships an insurmountable challenge? Is there a pattern to how your relationships progress or end?
• Are you sometimes astonished at the ugliness of your own thoughts; intensity of your anger or uncontrollable mood swings?
• Do you sometime feel as if these is a stranger living within you? 

Chances are, you have said 'yes’ to all the questions above. The theories I am going to expand upon now are a part of the 'Transactional Analysis' developed by Eric Berne, the great author of 'Games People Play'. Transactional Analysis (from hence forth referred to as TA for simplicity & convenience) are purely intellectual insights into the way personalities develop and its effects on our interactions (transactions) with others.

What is meant by personality?

     All of us know that a man's behaviour changes according to situations and circumstances. We are one thing in front of family, another at work and something else with strangers.

     'Man is but an actor on stage'

                                                       - Shakespeare

     We change when the roles we are playing also change. It is as if there are many persons inside us and at any moment, one of them is in command. All the characteristics that we exhibit while playing our different roles could be called, in totality, as our personality. This total personality consists of different parts and each part has its own very peculiar characteristics

What is a transaction?

     Every time one person interacts with another, in psychological sense, a 'transaction’ takes place.

     'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction'

     To understand a 'transaction', let us take an example.

 “You go to a friend house expecting to spend some time with him. When you reach there, he tells you that he is busy studying and asks you to come another day. You are disappointed and feel hurt. You decide to dump this inconsiderate friend forever.”

 This is an example of a 'transaction'. A 'transaction' involves two people or more.

Modality of a transaction:

     In the example quoted above, visualize what you were thinking and how you were feeling while going to your friend’s house.

-You were thinking of all the things you would talk about?

-You were feeling happy, expectant, and playful?

     And now, while coming back how you were feeling?

-You were thinking about the reasons for your friend’s unpleasant and inconsiderate behavior?

-You were feeling sad, sorry, angry, insulted, disappointed?

     So, what happened here?

Stimulus (action)                                   Response (reaction)

     Your act of going to your friend’s house was the 'stimulus' and his refusal to let you in was the 'response'. Every transaction begins with a 'stimulus' and concludes with a 'response'.

Psycho-analysis:

     Psycho-analysis is the study of human behavior and the psychological reasons for such behavior. Psychology   is based on the premise that mind controls our thoughts, actions and behavior and psycho-analysis tries to decipher and understand the working of human mind. Psychiatry is the science of mental disease and psycho-therapy is the treatment of mental illness.

Components of psycho-analysis:    

Structural Analysis: It involves analysis of the individual personality, the various states of mind, the characteristics of a particular state of mind, its effect on the individual’s behavior, the good and bad about each state of mind.

Transactional Analysis: It involves analysis of what people do and say to one another, the source of a specific kind of behaviour, impact of the 'transaction' on relationship and the types of transactions.

Game Analysis: A game is a 'transaction' with an ulterior motive. The games are played for an anticipated 'pay off'. A 'game' looks like a 'normal transaction' but the purpose is not 'normal’.

Script Analysis: The underlying presumption here is that we compulsively play out our roles in life dramas with specific script. This 'script' is shaped (written) by the events and experiences in our early life (0-8 years of age). This script determines our behavior pattern in a given situation. In other words, our actions in similar situations will be identical and it is possible to predict the patterns of behavior in future too. That is how people develop personality 'labels' like cranky, smart, stupid, shrewd etc.

(Note: This concept is the basis of all forms of psychological testing and behavioral assessment conducted by interviewers).

     Now we shall try to understand the various components of Psycho-analysis one by one.

Structural analysis:

Imagine that our personality was composed of different parts, each part distinct from each other but joined very closely together. Let each parts have its control room from where, decisions regarding what to do or what to say are made. Only one part can be activated at a time. The choice to switch on and activate the control room of a given part is, more or less, ours. Every part has its own programming (like a computer) and will always act\work in a pre-determined manner. The various parts, which form the structure of our personality, are called 'ego states' 'Ego states can be compared to the mental or emotional state of a person.

Ego state: 'Ego' means 'I' so, ego state is the mental or emotional condition that I am in and it will influence my thought, speech, action and behaviour. Technically, ego state represents an established pattern of feelings or expressions which can be directly related with a corresponding pattern of behaviour. Simply put, how you feel is how you act and it is possible to discover a pattern to our feelings and corresponding behaviour.

How do ego states form?

 To understand this process, we will have to use an analogy?

 Ego states can be compared to a magnetic tape (cassette). Our experiences and the resultant reactions are recorded in our brain and nervous issues and they get stored there. This recording of experiences, takes place from 0-8 years and our 'library' is 'stocked' with many sets of recordings. Then, when we are faced with a situation, we search into our 'library', search for a recording (history) of similar situation and choose an action similar to the one we had chosen before in the past. For every situation we will be able to locate a previous experience and act in a similar fashion. That is how behaviour takes on a pattern and becomes predictable. We learn how to behave in a given situation and that becomes the model that is copied again and again.

     Now, does this mean that we have no control over our actions our behaviour? Even though we are greatly influenced by our past experiences, it is very much possible to be more in command of our own behaviour. If change wasn’t possible, it would have been such a waste of time to discuss such issues. In the forthcoming pages we are going to discover the sources to the whole range of human behaviour.

Structure of ego state:

     Despite all the talks of individual uniqueness, everybody has just three major ego states!

1. Parent ego state

2. Adult ego state

3. Child ego state

     If everybody has just three ego states, how come people are so different from each other? Because the experiences recorded in these ego states is different and unique. Every tape plays its own special song!

Parent ego state: Contains the attitudes and behaviour we have incorporated from external sources, primarily parents.

 Parent ego state is active in two dimensions;

 One, outwardly demonstrated behaviour and two, inner directing messages and their likely influences on our behaviour.

 Outwardly, it reveals itself in prejudicial, critical and nurturing behaviour (the way we saw our parents behave) and inwardly, it sends messages (like parents' guidance, instruction, strictures, lessons, morals etc) which influence the child ego state.

Adult ego state: First of all it is not related to age, legal or biological. It is oriented to current reality or our judgment of it.

This ego state concerns itself with objective gathering of information and functions by testing reality, estimating probabilities of success for a decision or action and computing dispassionately.

It is visible in organized, adaptable and intelligent behaviour. This ego state deals with factual information and unbiased processing. It tends to eschew (avoid) emotions and is critical to our survival in this world.

Child ego state: it contains all the impulses and inner instincts that come naturally to a child. The four fundamental emotions, i.e. happiness, sorrow, fear and anger are incorporated in this ego state. Child ego state comprises the recordings to child's early experiences and the child's natural, instinctive response to it.

Child ego state is expressed as archaic (old) behaviour from childhood.

     Another important aspect of the child ego state is the ‘life position' that we assume about self & others.

Life positions:

     Life position is an attitude. It’s about how we think of self and the rest of the world. How we arrive at a life position is determined by our early childhood experiences (generally 0-8 years but mostly 0-2 years). If we are treated well and looked after well, we assume the life position "I'm OK, You're OK". Other life positions are similarly arrived at. Every individual operates pre-dominantly from one of the life positions. Life positions are fundamentally our attitudes toward self and others. Our life position has a direct impact on our behaviour and interactions with others. Given below is a diagram that depicts the four life positions.

Life Positions Grid Diagram

    According to structural analysis, each person may respond to a specific stimulus or event  in quite distinct ways, deciding to activate one of the ego states and operating from it. Ego states of the stimulus provider and response giver may be sometimes in concert (harmony) and sometimes in conflict. Following are some of the examples of behaviour flowing from a particular ego state.

     Criticizing – Parent ego state

     Problem solving – Adult ego state

     Joy & laughter – Child ego state

Personality tilt: Each ego state has its own programming (or recording), encouraging behaviour of a particular type. However, some people may, as a matter of habit, choose to respond more from one ego state than others. That is how personalities become one dimensional or tilted. This personality tilt can be correlated with the ‘comfort zone’. It’s a type of behaviour that we are habituated to and therefore; go on repeating it without much thought or concern.

Development of ego state:

     As soon as the child is born the development of ego states begins. Even a child that is only one day old has all the three ego states.

     Rational thinking – Adult ego state

     Nurturing, protecting behaviour – Parent ego state

     Rebellious, stubborn behaviour – Child ego state

Analyzing a transaction:

     The currency of exchange to materialize a transaction is a "stroke". Two strokes (stimulus and response) or more are needed to complete a transaction.

     What is a stroke?

“A stroke is an action, in acknowledgement or recognition given to the other person, using a smile, a frown, an abuse, a verbal greeting, a touch, a pat, a kick etc”.

Please remember that any stroke would emanate from a particular ego state and carry a certain message for the other person in front. Then the other person, who has received the stroke, will decode (read) the accompanying message. Thereafter, he will choose a stroke of his own (which would also have emanated from one of the ego states) and return the stroke with an accompanying message. This completes the transaction loop.

Stroke (stimulus)                                                    Stroke (response)

(Send a message)                                                  (Read the message, then             

                                                                                 Return a feedback stroke)                                                      

Types of transaction:

The transactions are of the following types;

Complementary transaction: When the responses are predictable, expected and socially appropriate. Complement means to complete.

Crossed transaction: When the responses are not on anticipated or expected lines.

Note: Here is the clarification regarding what are the expected and unexpected responses. For example, I request you for a favour. I ask you to lend me some money to buy medicines.   I send you the stroke from my child ego state. I expect nurturing (caring) response from the parent ego state in you. If you  said in a kind tone ‘Oh dear! Why not”, then that would be a complementary transaction because that is the kind of response one would expect from a kind parent figure. But if you, instead, growled and looked displeased, it would be a response from your own child ego state. It is the way a child would behave when put into an inconvenient situation. It wasn't what I expected from you and therefore, it was a crossed transaction.

Direct & indirect transaction:

Diluted transaction: Half hostile, half affectionate transaction. The opposite of diluted transaction would be straight forward transaction.

Weak transaction: Superficial, perfunctory transactions that lack in emotional intensity. The opposite would be an 'Intense Transaction.’

Ulterior transaction:   Most complex of all transactions. Such transactions always involve more than (the normal) two ego states. An ulterior message is sent under a socially acceptable disguise.

Gallows transaction: In this kind of transaction, a message is sent that will reinforce the destructive behavior of an individual. For example, an inappropriate smile at a wrong time or laughing at someone's misfortune.  

Non verbal aspects of stroke:

     Every stroke carries a message with it. The verbal aspect of a message i.e. the words or phrases are important to convey the meaning. But what is equally, if not more, important is the non-verbal aspects such as tone, gesture, facial expression, body language etc. So much so, that sometimes a world of message could be relayed without using a single word.

The games people play:

     What is meant by games in a psychological sense?

 A game is a recurring set of transactions, which are often of a repetitive nature and which seem to be rational but only superficially. The motive for playing a game is concealed and is not verbalized or expressed. The real motive is different from the stated motive.

You could call it a sort of gimmick with a hidden agenda.

Elements of a game:

·       A game would contain a series of socially acceptable, plausible and complementary transaction.

·       Buried underneath is an ulterior transaction which contains the true, underlying message of the game.

·       The game gives a predictable pay off to both the players and that is the very purpose of playing the game. With the pay off attained, the game concludes.

Psychological games prevent honest, intimate and open relationship between the players. Yet, people indulge in them because they help to fill in time. Think of the life as a really long span of time which you must fill with some activity to avoid a sense of boredom. Games provoke others to pay attention and reinforce the early opinions about self and others. (I.e. confirm that the assumed life position was correct) and fulfill a sense of destiny. It is dangerous because it encourages a fatalistic 'I-just-can't help it' attitude. “What is going to happen is going to happen anyway”, is a loser's line. This sense of satisfaction that the assumed life position was correct is the pay-off for which people play games. This ensures that negative behaviour and attitude carries on and the loser makes no efforts to make any changes.

Degree of games: Depending on the seriousness of consequences and damages, the games have been classified into three categories;

First degree: Socially acceptable, rather harmless.

Second degree: Concealed from public eyes because they may be ugly and unpleasant. These games do not cause any permanent or immediate damage.

Third degree: Frequently, these kinds of games end in emergency ward of a hospital, courtroom or a morgue, causing Irreparable and permanent damages.

Days of decision:

     Our sense of self worth and worth of others is shaped between our birth and eight years of age. Our experiences are recorded in our conscious and sub-conscious mind and it provokes us to assume one among the following four life positions.

I’m OK, You’re OK

I’m OK, You’re not OK

I’m not OK, You’re OK

I’m not OK, You’re not OK

Psychological positions

     The importance of the psychological position is in the fact that our behaviour in later life will flow from it and the resultant experiences would only re-affirms our psychological position and a misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And if it does not happen to be the 'healthy ' I'm OK, you're OK life position, our negative attitude and behaviour will keep following a destructive pattern, year after year. We would behave negatively and experience failure. The failure will make us frustrated and it will make us believe that our negative opinion about self and others was right. It’s a downward spiral to doom and failure.

Sexual and psychological life positions:

     Till the age of eight, when our sense of self-identity is in its formative stage, a person takes two positions (or appraisals) about his or her self. One is a general position and the other is a sexual position (i.e. views regarding one's own sex and the opposite sex). Sometimes, these positions are similar and sometimes, different.

     Some people take a position that one 'sex’ is OK and the other sex is not OK. Once a position is assumed then the person tries to keep his or her world predictable by reinforcing this life position, again and again. We called it comfort zone. It becomes a life position from which games are played and life scripts acted out compulsively. The more severe is the pathology, the more compelled the person feels to reinforce it. We could depict this process in a flow diagram.

experiencees           Life Position         Behaviour        Reinforce life position

Let us understand this with the help of a simple example.

There is a child who was born to a woman prisoner. The child is obviously neglected and uncared for. The mother, out of sheer helplessness and frustration, ill treats the child. The recurring negative experience forces the child to conclude, “I’m not OK, and you’re not OK”. This child grows up without caring for anyone or anything. He is sucked into the drug trade and he willingly joins because it hardly matters what happens to his life. And because he doesn’t like this world and its people, he turns into a cold-blooded murderer.

Introduction to script analysis:

     A life script could be briefly defined as the life plan, very much like the script of a stage drama. An individual feels compelled to play out this drama because life script also provides a sense of reality. Reality here could be defined as something that one believes in, with emotions. And the person tries to act true to this perceived reality. A script is related to the early decisions and positions taken by the child. It tells the child what to expect from others and self. Then, behaviour is made to fulfill the expectations. An OK position means an OK expectation and vice-versa.

     "The ultimate goal of transactional analysis is the analysis of (individual’s) script, since the script determines the destiny and identity of the individual"

- Eric Berne

The human hunger for 'strokes' & time structuring:

     Every person has the need to be touched and to be recognized by other people, and every person has the need to do something with the time between birth and death. These are biological and psychology needs that Eric Berne calls "hunger".

     This "hunger" for touch and recognition can be satisfied with "strokes". As a child grows older, the early primary hunger for actual physical touch is modified and becomes recognition hunger. The 'Recognition strokes" also keep the nervous system of the child from ‘shriveling'. Some people need a great deal of recognition in order to feel secure and function well. Anyone who works with people is confronted with these varying human needs for recognition or need for strokes. Effective managers and leaders are often those who are able to touch and recognize others appropriately.

Positive stroking: It takes 'positive strokes' to develop an emotionally healthy person. An emotionally healthy person is someone with a sense of OKness. Positive strokes may vary from any little kind gesture, such as a warm ‘Hello’ to some very deep, intimate, touching encounter.

Listening with full attention and without being judgmental about the other person is one of the finest strokes one person can give to another.

     Everyone needs strokes and if they do not get enough positive one's they often provoke negative ones. A child/adolescent taking to drugs could be an example of this attention deficit behaviour. Studies have shown that if a job place is sterile of feelings, the overall productivity goes down and conflicts emerge. It appears that for everyone, negative attention is better than no attention. This was evident in a massage written on one greeting card,

 "It's OK if you don't love me. Hate me but please don't ignore me."

Hunger for strokes is the human need for deep, meaningful and fulfilling relationships.

Discounting & negative stroking: A discount is either the complete lack of attention or negative attention that hurts emotionally or physically. The message being transmitted is "You're not OK or you’re not important”.

 Being discounted is always painful. If discounting or negative stroking were to occur between parents & children; it leads to personality pathology (disorder) creating painful losses. Between grown-up adults, it leads to unhappy human relationships. Negative stroking or discounting feeds into our life script and encourages destructive behaviour. Going nowhere or hopelessness programming in life script is also due to negative stokes or discounting.

     Battering a child (brutal treatment like hitting hard) is an extreme form of discounting usually carried out by parents who were themselves brutalized in their own childhood. Child battering parents usually need professional treatment and often want it. Most of them have an inadequate programming of their parent ego state as well as a hurt child ego state. They have to go through a 'sensitization' process where they are made sensitive to the defects in their scripting.

"Throwing marshmallows”: Many parents, when not wishing to pay attention to the child seeking it, resort to giving something like toys, sweets, money (throw marshmallows) to 'brush off' the disturbing nuisance. Fundamentally it’s patronizing behaviour and hurts the child emotionally. Marshmallows, no matter how tempting, can be no substitute for the parental love, care and attention.

The hunger for structured time: We have already talked about the human need to utilize the time between birth and death. The pressing, compelling need to be occupied; this explains why our work and professional life is so important to us. Not doing anything and being bored for very long time hastens emotional and physical deterioration in much the same may as inadequate stroking does. We referred to it as shriveling!

That is why the retirees suddenly start falling ill with increased frequency and intensity. Here is the punch line to drive home the point.

“An empty mind is devil’s workshop”.

 The social consequences of unemployment can be easily understood against this backdrop of hunger for structured time where people take to crime rather than sit idle at home. Once again we have demonstrated why our work and career is so important.

Ways of structuring time:

·       Withdrawing from other people (physically or psychologically)

·       Engaging in rituals or pastimes (polite, superficial) e.g. gossiping

·       Play (Psychological) games

·       Work together (activities)

·       Experience a moment of intimacy (free of games and free of exploitation)

* Intimacy involves genuine caring for each other.

In modern times intimacy seems risky. Most of the relationships are engaged at a superficial (politely tolerating) level. The truth is that the intimacy is frightening because it involves the risk of being hurt. In an intimate relationship, the people are highly vulnerable to the fear of being rejected, betrayed, manipulated, exploited or left alone.

Time is structured in three ways:

·       Receiving strokes

·       Giving strokes

·       Avoiding either giving or receiving strokes

     Withdrawing, physically or mentally from other people is a way of avoiding strokes. Rituals and pastimes provide minimal stroking at a superficial level. Games are also a source of strokes – mostly negative in character and consequences. It is only 'activities' & intimacy' that allow for positive strokes that are befitting a winner.

The drama of life scripts:

     According to Frederic Perle, each person has two stages to act out one’s life script-one, the private stage where, in the hidden world of secret thoughts, one continually rehearses for future and two, the public stage where a person's acting can be seen.

A psychological script is a person's ongoing program for the drama called life. This psychological script dictates (or determines) where the persons is going with his or her life and the path that in going to lead there. It is a drama an individual compulsively acts out, though one's awareness of it may be quite vague or obscure.

     Different individual life scripts contain varying degrees of constructiveness, destructiveness or non-productiveness (going nowhere). This will have a direct effect on the quality of life the individual shall lead and the extent of success he or she will achieve in her professional career. For example, a healthy script encourages one to be constructive i.e. do something useful and productive. A destructive script makes the person destroy everything including career, family and even one’s own life. A non-productive script will force the individual to do nothing, be nothing. In short, good for nothing!

Cultural scripts:

     Just like an individual has its own unique psychological script, it is possible for an entire group (culture, society, community, nation etc) to have a collective script. The group then follows its own destiny by following a universally accepted and expected life pattern.

 Religious hatred, xenophobia, jingoism etc are manifestations of a cultural script. Individuals who belong to a particular culture, by and large, end up blindly following their cultural script. That’s where the unfortunate "herd mentality" flows from. However, it is possible to carry an individual, autonomous script in the midst of a hostile society and intolerant cultural script.

“The great Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat, was an example of this. In a Muslim dominated culture where hatred for Israel is extremely overpowering, he dared to sign a peace agreement with the most hated enemy. Later, the culture exacted its vengeance from the maverick leader. Anwar Sadat was assassinated for thinking and acting beyond the cultural script.”

Sub-cultural script: There is a possibility of conflicting sub-cultural scripts to exist within the same culture.

Family script: These are the unique set of life scripts (dramas) pertaining to a family with well defined individual roles for the members. Family scripts drive the interplay of personal relationships within the family and are quite distinct from cultural and sub cultural scripts. Families proclaiming that they are soldiers or saying that business is in their blood are revealing that they follow a family script.

     To change a family script of losers, a very strong corrective, in the form of an individual's conscious decision not to act out from the loser's script, may have to be applied. It is worth noting here the enormous influence of family on an individual’s success so it’s really a team which is playing, whether to win or to lose. Saddest part is that so many of them are playing to lose.

Psychological script of an individual: Nearly all human activity is programmed by an ongoing script from an early childhood, as if on an auto-pilot system. So, the feeling of autonomy or that sense of control we have over our lives is always a falsehooc, a chimera, an illusion. Very few individuals are capable of authenticity, spontaneity and intimacy. For the rest of us, it’s a life of being mere objects that will be compulsively manipulated by their own sub-conscious mind to play supporting roles in reinforcing their individual psychological scripts. It’s a vicious cycle that makes people come back to the same point in their life all over again. Emotionally and sometimes even financially! Starting with a big zero and ending with a fat zilch!

How scripting occurs: The first and foremost stroke that a newly born child receives is the physical touch. The physical touch could be pleasant or unpleasant. The amount of touch may be adequate or inadequate.

The touches exert the most powerful impressions on our script and impart a sense of OK-ness or not OK-ness.

 Later, the touch is replaced by expressions, both verbal and non-verbal, of approval or rejection. Approval reinforces OK- ness and rejections reinforces not OK- ness. The early feelings of a child about themselves are likely to remain the most powerful force in their life-dramas. If all the world’s parents knew this fact, probably the world would be a much different and much improved place. So many criminals and psychopaths would be eliminated even before coming into existence. All of us receive scripting messages about many areas in our lives and not all of them are good.

Script with a curse: Although parental messages contain varying degrees of constructiveness, destructiveness or non-productiveness (implying no parents are all saints or all evil), some parents, because of their own pathology, send blatantly destructive messages and injunctions to an unsuspecting child. Statements like “I wish you were born dead”, or “you’re so ugly, only a frog will marry you” feed a curse into the Child's psychological script. The child is incapable of handling such humiliating rejection. Moreover, the poor thing actually believes what is being said. Thereafter, the child keeps bringing the curse upon himself or herself through self-destructive behaviour. The child starts carrying a death wish.

Roles of themes in life drama:

     Life dramas, on analysis, yield some stereo-type roles and recurring themes.

     One of the two most common roles are

Top Dog: dominating but reckless type.

Underdog: Submissive but cunning type.

People assume one of these roles when they are vying for control in any given situation. This wrestling and wrangling for power in one of the most common features of life dramas, and it is played at all levels, starting from decision-marking power in a family to the highest seat of power in national and international politics.

     Another way of describing roles is as follows.

These are legitimate and realistic roles we can see all around us. People actually behave the way these roles are described below;       

Persecutor: the law maker; Sets necessary limits on behaviour and enforces rules.

Victim: The sufferer; Exploited, hurt or abused; Seeks deliverance from the threat, pain or torture.

Rescuer: The saviour'; Helps a victim, who is inadequately functioning, to become rehabilitated and self-reliant.

We have talked about games before. It would be interesting to see how people play games. It’s rather simple. The legitimate roles we have just talked about i.e. persecutor, victim and rescuer are used as masks for indulging in manipulative behaviour. These illegitimate roles are the positions from which games are initiated, played and concluded with a 'pay off'. (We shall use capital letter in the beginning of illegitimate roles)

Persecutor: Sets unnecessarily strict limits on behaviour; Enforces rules, with sadistic brutality; Enjoys brutality and the power to afflict pain.

Victim: Raises false alarm and pretends to be unjustly victimized; Miserable, whining and full of self-pity.

Rescuer: In the guise of being helpful, wishes to keep others unnecessarily dependent on him; Enjoys other’s helplessness.

From what has been said before in the chapter so far, we can infer the following about games.

Only people with a sense of non-OKness, about self, about others or about both, will indulge in games. People with a sense of OK-ness engage in honest, real and intimate relationships. The people with a sense of not-OKness initiate the games from child ego state and assume manipulative roles. The motive is to conclude the game with an outcome that only reinforces their early psychological positions. This confirmation of their sense of non-OKness is the ‘pay off’ for which they indulge in games.  It is similar to the sense of satisfaction in being able to tell,” see I told you!” It is easy to see that as the script is reinforced and views hardened, with passage of time, the games will only get nastier, uglier and with terrible consequences. This is the undoubtedly the script of losers.

     Here is a list of some common script themes. People adapt their behaviour to the themes in their script.

·       Losing my mind

·       Being the Best

·       Saving sinners

·       Being helpful

·       Having a ball

·       Trying hard

·       Bossing others

·       Stumbling but recovering 

·       Succeeding, then failing

·       Never getting anywhere

·       Saving for a rainy day

·       Driving people crazy

·       Committing suicide

·       Carrying my cross

·       Building empires

·       Being miserable

·       Walking on eggs

·       Missing the boat

·       Sorry for being alive

·       Getting stepped on

·       Looking for a pot of gold

There are some characters in Greek mythology that could be used to depict the themes which people build their life around and keep playing a series of games or play a single game throughout. Now, you have reached a certain level of knowledge, I hope, where you can identify the life position of the person living with these themes.

Atlas (wears the mask of a nice guy) Perpetuates his own misery by trying to carry everyone's problems and responsibilities and somehow, enjoys it.

 Prometheans: He is always against the established rules and norms of living.  Challenges authority and gets into trouble for rebellious behaviour.

Zeus: Sets rule for everybody, he is obsessed with trying to control others.  He Himself is a pleasure seeker.

Hera: She is the jealous wife of the playboy Zeus. Trying to catch Zeus red handed. Always playing the game of cops & Robbers!

Echo: Cannot think for herself. Only repeats what others say.

Pygmalion: A woman hater at heart. Creates a statue of woman with unmatchable beauty and then falls in love with it. Expects the impossible standards from the opposite sex!

Narcissus: Falls in love with himself. Doesn’t care or bother for the rest of the world. Self obsessed.

Daphne: A coquette. Flirts with everyone but when someone pursues her, runs crying to "daddy for protection.

Then, there are some themes which come from story books.

1. The Beauty & the Beast theme.

2. Cinderella Theme:

Giving up games: Psychological games may really take up a lot of time i.e. structure time and may even have some entertainment value but the end result is always the re-enforcing of an already flawed script. It results in seriously negative consequences for everyone involved anyway! Winners don’t play games and it is possible to give up games.

·       If you can identify a transaction as game, refuse to play or refuse to give the pay-off.

·       It is possible to give a feedback and alert the other party that what is going on is a hopeless no-one-wins game.

·       When you anticipate that a game is about to be played by someone, face off and level with your body. When your body is facing the other person directly, it is harder to play a crooked game.

·       Give up discounting the other person completely. That is often the pay off the other guy is looking for (Kick Me!)

Winners allow themselves the freedom to relate to the other person at an intimate level and try to follow the mutual interest into activities. It’s fun working together and activities blossoms into intimacy.

Parenting & the parent ego state:

     Parents create and establish an emotional climate which, like atmospheric climate, is hot or cold, mild or harsh, conducive or destructive to growth. Parents give their children firm, but tender loving care through positive strokes, thus encouraging constructive scripts. Or they may frequently discount them, thus encouraging destructive or non-productive scripts. The best thing parents can do for their child is to evaluate their own script and then decide whether it is worth passing on to another generation.

The parent ego state: It is the incorporation of the attitudes and behaviour of all emotionally significant parent figures, especially mother and father.

Second order structural analysis: It is the further analysis of each of the three main ego states. Every Ego State, Parent, Adult & Child, has sub-parts within its own structure. This analysis of sub-parts of an ego state is called second order structural analysis.

Ego states within parent ego state:

    

Outward expression of the parent ego state:

     Parent ego state expresses itself during child rearing either in the form of caring, loving nurturing behaviour or in the form of reprimanding, scolding, critical behaviour. One of the most usual expressions of Parent Ego State is protective behaviour towards other. People show their parent ego state orientation through postures, stances, gestures and body language. When people are speaking from their parent ego state, they frequently use word such as should, have to, must (the idea of you ought to do this). Some psychological games are also played from Parent Ego State.

Inner influence of the parent ego state:

     Parental messages to the child get stored in the memory tape and there it keeps playing back and forth. Since children are not born with an inner censor to check thoughts or behaviour, their first pangs of conscience results from the early parent/child transactions only. Our sense and sensibility regarding what's 'restricted', ‘forbidden’ and 'taboo' basically arises from the inner parental instructions and warnings. Some kind of prohibited 'No’s are necessary but overly restrictive parental messages inhibit the expression of joy, sensuousness and creativity. Too many restrictions lead to 'tyranny of the shoulds’ and make people guilty about having fun and pleasure. Such people may end up becoming 'workaholics".

Conflicting inner dialogue: Parents unknowingly send many messages that contradict each other and confuse the child. It leads to a self-torture game where parent ego state in top dog position troubles the underdog child ego state. The person is torn apart in this dilemma of conflicting parental 'dos' & 'don’ts'. 

Nurturing parent & critical parent: The sympathetic, protective and nurturing part of our personality is from Nurturing parent and critical, judgmental, prejudicial, moralizing and punitive part from the critical parent.

Prejudicial parent : Contains opinions that our parents passed on to us, directly or indirectly, about religion, politics, traditions, expectations from sexual roles, life styles, child rearing, proper dress, appropriate speech and all the facets of cultural and family scripts. These opinions, sometimes irrational, have not been objectively evaluated by the Adult Ego State and hence may be prejudiced.

     The prejudicial parent is often critical of others. A person acting from the critical side of the Parent Ego State may come on as a bossy, know-it-all type whose overbearing behaviour intimidates the child in other people.

Incomplete parent ego state: Loss of one or both of the parents or prolonged absence of a parent leads to an incomplete parent ego state, some of the symptoms of an incomplete parent are:          

·       Constantly seeking 'lost' parents in other people.

·       Rejecting any parental figure or behaviour and has difficulty in accepting love of other people.

·       Playing the game of 'wooden leg' (what can you expect from me?)

     People with a deficient parent may turn out to be poor parents themselves because they lack a role model to base their behaviour on. Such people always encounter difficulty in sympathizing appropriately to another adult.

Re-parenting (for a drastically incomplete parent ego state):

      It is possible to learn to be a good parent (even with a drastically incomplete parent ego state) by substituting another good parent figure and picking up appropriate behaviour and expression. This will be done through Adult Ego State. It is a conscious decision to learn and adopt good behaviour.

Summary on parent ego state: Parental transactions are often of a nurturing or prejudicial nature. These patterns are used in transacting with grown-ups as well as with children. For example, the nurturing parent is appropriately used to respond to a Co-worker who is hurt or ill or in some way suffering a temporary dependency need. The parent ego state is inappropriately used when nurturing, criticizing or discounting is forced upon another person who neither wants it nor needs it. You own Parent Ego State is likely to be a mixture of helpful and hurtful behavior. Awareness of your own parent ego state gives you more choice over your behavior, which enhances your chances of being a winner.

     Childhood & the child ego state:

     "No two children, even in the same family, have the same childhood."

     The child ego state: Each of us carries within our brain and nervous system, permanent recordings of the way we experienced  the world, the way we felt about this world that we  experienced, and the manner in which we adapted ourselves to these multitudes of experiences. The child ego state is the inner world of feelings, experiences and adaptations.

     A person who responds from child ego state would exhibit the following behavioral characteristics;

Inquisitive, curious, affectionate, playful, selfish, mean, whining, manipulative, aggressive etc.

Second order structural analysis of child ego state:

     The child ego state develops into three discernible parts:

·       The Natural child

·       The Little professor

·       The Adapted child

Natural child: The characteristic behaviour of a person acting from the Natural child is that of a very young, impulsive, untrained and expressive infant. This ego state contains two sets of behaviour exhibited by the self-centered, pleasure loving baby. First is the cozy, affectionate self when needs are met. The second is angry, rebellious type when the needs are not met.

Little professor: It is the unschooled wisdom of the little child. It’s intuitive, responding to non-verbal messages and plays hunches. With it, a child figures out when to cry, when to keep quiet and how to manipulate an angry mama into smiling. The Little professor is also highly creative.

Adapted child: This is the modification of the Natural Child’s inclinations and impulses. The behaviour of Natural child is unrestrained but Adapted child behaves in a very controlled manner. This adaptation of natural responses is due to the child going through traumatic experiences, forced training and most importantly, facing demands from strong authority figures such as parents.

     A degree of restrain in necessary for social acceptance but overly adapted child loses all the peasant and interesting qualities of the child and lives a very dull life. Adapted child learns to be submissive and eschews all kinds of risks.

Characteristics of natural child: Affectionate, impulsive, sensuous, uncensored, curious, aggressive, fearful, self-indulgent, self-centered, pleasure seeking, rebellious, fantasizes about pleasure and aggression.

     Natural child adds charm and warmth to a person's personality and is fun. However, the temper tantrums associated with Natural child, if used in adult life, becomes self-defeating behaviour.

Characteristics of the little professor: Intuitive, creative, manipulative, perceptive, superstitious

     Little professor has the ability to figure out things and situations and it often believes in magic. When used in conjunction with objectivity of Adult Ego State, little professor can purposefully express its creativity and artistry. The manipulative skills of little professor may sometimes be necessary for survival in adult life but over dependence upon them leads to a game playing, cliché level of living. Here me some of the games emanating from Little Professor part of the child ego state

-"Omnipotent" (top dog position), has delusions of special powers and irrational self-righteousness. Tries to rule the lives of others!

-"Helpless"- (underdog position), refuses to assume or accept any responsibility! For ever a child!

-Waiting for Santa Claus"- It’s about wishful thinking and hoping some magical event to change your life. The truth, that Santa is not real and will never come is not accepted or simply avoided. It always persists in a secret part of everyone’s sub-conscious mind and never really goes away. We all keep waiting for Santa to turn up one night.

Characteristics of the adapted child: The natural expressiveness becomes overly inhibited, complying behaviour, withdrawal, procrastinating, sulking, blaming.

     The game "why does this always happen to me" is an expression of the adapted child. There is a marked preference for self-isolation (i.e. staying alone) and can be shown by hobbies that may be pursued all alone. Adapted child goes into a physical as well as emotional withdrawal. The favorite pastime is fantasies and the persistent self image of the person is that of a loser.

     Some adaptation of the natural impulses is necessary, but unduly repressive training by the parent is bad for child's feeling of OK-ness. When children are adapted rationally, they learn to be aware of other people’s feelings, to share responsibilities, to take turns, to be courteous and to be sociable. They learn social skills that help them to relate to others and fulfill their own needs in a socially accepted fashion. Adapted child is often the troubled part of the personality, indulging in self-pity and sorrow.

Shifts between the natural child & adapted child:

     In case of persons whose parents permitted the child happiness and pleasure only when the child met a certain rigid condition, it is seen that as a grown up, the confused inner child may pursue an insatiable quest for approval. An apologetic kind of clumsiness replaces authenticity in their social behaviour. The adapted child may comply with the parent’s expectations or simply withdraw, feeling not-OK. This search for parental approval that is never forthcoming can so preoccupy people that they cannot function in the 'here and now' in their current relationships. The excess emotional baggage of the past hinders all authentic expressions and relations. The person starts feeling like a social misfit and goes deeper and deeper into an isolated shell, fearing social encounters as potentially embarrassing or discomforting.

Activating the child ego state:

·       When injured ill, tired, worried or otherwise under stress, it activates the Child Ego State in us.

·       When another person operates from his/her Parent Ego State, if 'hooks' the child in us.

·       Child to child also hooks it.

However, we don't always have to respond from our child Ego State when someone tries to "hook" the child in us. Let Adult Ego State handle some of the situations.

Personal & sexual identity: Since every new born baby first experiences everything from the child ego state, all primary impressions are stored in it. Child ego state contains a person's first sense of self identity, the life scripts, games played, assumed life positions and most importantly, winning and losing streaks. All these are likely to be reinforced by the parent ego state.

Names and identity: Paramount to a person's identity is his or her name. Even though the name should not change one's character, it often contributes to the person's script, whether negatively or positively because of the message it sends to the child. Eric Fromm calls it "psychic-symbiotic union". The name, acting as a symbol, influences a person's psyche. Post marriages, when surnames are changed or altered, it does affect the person. Often, nick-names that are unfair or unrealistic, script the child negatively especially nick-names that pertain to physical appearance or a particular style of behaviour.

Identity acquired through play:

     Two kinds of identity may result;

Active child & Passive Child!

Active play: personally involved and also physically in the play.

Passive play:  merely observing others play and living vicariously.          Participation was not permitted by overly strict parents or was not possible due to some physical deformity.

·       If the natural child engages in active play, there are likely to be giggles, laughter and shrieks of joy.

·       If the adapted child is playing, beating the opponent may become more important than having fun.

     Some active play is essential as a rehearsal for future grown-up roles, both personally and professionally. People, whose most of the free time is spent watching others play, do not develop their own body skills, cooperativeness, competitiveness or creativity. Their power of natural expressiveness is stunted and they adapt themselves to just observing life than living it. As an adult, this person is likely to sit around the fringes of social gatherings, watching others dance, laugh, and swim and have fun. They may perhaps even resent those who are attention getters or simply feel helpless, inadequate and miserable.

Childhood psychological games & role identity:

     Childhood games are rehearsals for future games in adult life, when it is played harder and the Adult Ego state is used to cover up the ulterior motives.

     The roles assumed in childhood games tend to continue up to the adult life.

Sexual identity: This is about the sense of OK-ness or not OK-ness about one's maleness or femaleness. Children, whose sex is rejected (disapproved or not welcomed) by their parents are likely to reject their own sex. Homosexual tendencies or behaviour can occur for a variety of reason's including psychological, sociological, biological or situational circumstances. People who do not have a good, adequate role model of their own sex tend to resent and at worst, distrust people of that sex. They reveal their dislike by isolating themselves from that sex. Often, the parents set the example for that gender type and the child may or may not accept their style and attitude. Mother typifies female gender and the father represents male gender.

Sexual stereotyping and role identity:

     Many women strive to appear shy, emotional, delicate, fragile, sentimental, helpless and intellectually incompetent to live up to their adapted image of a 'real' woman or to appear 'feminine' to others.

 On the other hand, men try to be tough, objective, striving, achieving, unsentimental and emotionally unexpressive to be like a 'real' man or to appear ‘masculine’ to others.

 These are stereotyped sexual images that we have been culturally scripted in and therefore conditioned to deeply believing it.

     We need to realize that every person has both masculine and feminine components, and all aspects of a personality need to be recognized and developed for the personality to be whole and functional.

Sexual expression:

     A young child is naturally pleasure seeking and uninhibited. It enjoys fondling its own genitals and is curious about others. This behaviour, however, has to be adapted for social acceptability as the child grows up. If any of the activity that’s sexual in nature is punished by slapping, scolding, threatening or nastiness of any kind from the parent’s side the child is scripted into thinking of sex as something nasty or dirty. The child wouldn't have a normal, healthy attitude about sex in adult life and may indulge in deviant behaviour.

Stamp collecting & rackets: Before we proceed any further, let us refresh the various functions attributed to each of the ego state.

Parent: Contains opinions and traditions, biases and prejudices.   

Adult:   Gathers factual data and dispassionately computes. Practical and realistic.

Child:    Contains natural and adapted feelings.

 Children are not born with their feelings or behaviour already programmed towards people or objects. It is learned here. However, children are born capable of all feelings including affection and rage. In the beginning, children respond genuinely with what they feel. In due time, however, children adapt their feelings to their experiences and environment, especially at home. Although each child experiences all feelings, eventually everyone adapts to a favorite feeling. It’s the feeling the child commonly felt when things "got tough" around the house. Some common parental ill-treatment and the resultant feelings were;

Beating: Afraid,

Make ashamed:  Guilty

Not trusting or believing: Hate or suspicion

     Later in life, people tend to deliberately seek out situations in which they may re-experience their favorite feeling. In fact, each of these experiences of favorite feelings is collected, like some people collect stamps!

Psychological trading stamps: In TA, the particular feelings a child ego state constantly accumulates, are called ‘Trading Stamps’. People, in order to be able to collect their favourite stamps manipulate others into hurting them, belittle them, frighten them, anger them, arouse their guilt etc. This manipulation is accomplished by provoking or inviting others to play certain types of roles, or by simply imagining that another person has 'done' something to them. When people manipulate others to re-experience and accumulate these old 'favorite' feelings, they are indulging themselves (often, with the tacit support of Parent Ego State) in what is described as a "racket".

     “Self indulgence in feelings of guilt, inadequacy, hurt, fear and resentment".

                                                                 - Dr. Eric Berne on "Rackets"

     By now, the reader should know that this is a game of Losers.

Note: Imagined stamps are 'counterfeit ' stamps. It is possible to be collecting counterfeit gold stamps, too.

The time of redemption for the stamps: The psychological trading stamps are collected for the ultimate prize, the redemption.

Instances of redemption are: Self injury, flunking a test, hitting someone, sitting endlessly brooding.

Ways of redeeming gold stamps: Seek ways to improve job, take a pleasurable vacation, and make new friends, patch up with old friends, give up a destructive relationship.

     The stamp collection grows in size when people do not periodically redeem them. It may be delayed for a bigger, more dramatic prize. Sometimes, a lifelong collection of stamps is redeemed for the ultimate prize, suicide or homicide.

The sweatshirt messages: The inner child, with the aid of the creative little professor sends pertinent messages to other people in order to engage them in rackets, games and stamp collecting. These messages are much like wearing a sign on one’s chest and are thus colloquially referred to as "sweatshirt messages".

These messages are sent across through manner of dressing, speech, body posture, facial expressions, eye contact and general appearance.

The adult ego state: Majority of people experience a sense of helplessness and pessimism about their lives. They assume that they are trapped in an unhappy situation and just forego to look at the ways and means of getting out. They focus on the problem, not the solutions and therefore feel miserable.

The bash trap phenomenon:

     This reluctance or refusal to look at the total situation results in missing the obvious solutions or the ways out. They are much like a ram, hitting a rock wall with its head to get to the other side and not realizing that there are ways around, if not through. They hope somehow that by trying harder and harder, they will be able to break through the barrier. It is common for people caught in a bash trap to make statements such as.

     "I try hard but never get any results!"

     "I just don't understand how I could ever achieve anything in this life!"

     It would need a strengthened Adult ego state to examine the situation objectively, test reality, to seek alternative solutions, to estimate the consequences of each solution and to make a choice.

Understanding adult ego state: We have already discussed that even a little child has an Adult Ego State. It is not related to the physical age of an individual.

“Adult Ego State is principally concerned with gathering and processing data objectively, evaluating stimuli for specific information, testing reality intelligently, estimating the consequences of alternative decisions and choosing one that would make survival possible and minimize failure.”

 Adult Ego State always bases its decision to act (i.e. behave) on the basis of available information so soundness of a decision always depends on how well informed the person is. Decisions, therefore, will go wrong sometimes because the information wasn’t sufficient.

Ego state boundaries: Each person has three ego states.

 The ego state that is active contains the free psychic energy (a sense of free choice) and the person experiences a sense of real self in that activated ego state.

 However, it is possible for this free psychic energy to flow to another ego state and activate that one. Of course, this flow of free psychic energy is controlled by our conscious and sub conscious mind. It is useful to think of each ego state as having boundaries, made of semi-permeable membranes through which psychic energy can flow in or flow out. In some highly effective people, the flow of energy may be quite rapid and in others it may be slow and sluggish. The workings of the ego state boundaries are not understood well but the consequences definitely are. This switching of psychic energy is needed to effectively adapt to changes in situations or people involved in the situation. For example, if you are playing with a child, chances are your own child or parent ego state is activated. Then one of your business associates turns up for an unexpected meeting. You would need to now activate your adult ego state in all likelihood.

Disorders associated with ego state boundaries:

Too lax boundaries: Person become too responsive to even minor stimuli and as a result becomes highly unpredictable and erratic in behaviour

 Too rigid boundaries: Psychic energy tends to get blocked in a single ego state. As a result, person tends to respond to most stimuli from one ego state. Obviously, this exclusion of other two ego state seriously impairs the ability of a person to respond appropriately and contribute to a complementary transaction.

Lax ego boundaries:

     People who are unable to choose an appropriate ego state to respond from, in any given situation are said to exhibit lax ego boundaries.

It is manifest in slipshod, unpredictable and suddenly changing behaviour. Even a minor stimulus provokes an immediate switch from one ego state to another, taking the people around by surprise. This person can be said to lack self-restraint or control.

Rigid ego boundaries:

     It’s a problem just opposite to the preceding one.

Here, the person always responds from a pre-determined ego state and does not change, even with a major change in the stimuli.

The phenomenon is called "exclusion", as if one state is always preferred and the other two are "excluded".

     A problem, somewhat less serious, is where a person chooses to activate a certain ego state more often than the other two. The following three situations are possible.

The constant parent: often treats others patronizingly, as if they were children. Either knowingly or unknowingly a constant parent collects people who are willing to be dependent or subordinate to them. One type of constant parent is the hardworking type who has a strong sense of duty. This person may be moralistic, judgmental and critical of others. He or she may be domineering, overpowering and authoritarian. A specific kind of occupation which allows authority over others attracts this kind of person.

Another type of constant parent is the perpetual nurturer, or rescuer who takes on the role of a benevolent dictator or a saintly person who is devoted to helping others. Such person may be drawn to a “nurturing (helping)” profession such as teaching or service industry but by keeping others unnecessarily dependent on oneself they do more harm than good. It blocks the full development of the other person.

Constant adult: It’s a very boring personality that is cold, calculating, and devoid of warmth or charm. Always concerned with facts and data processing, such people may seek jobs that are object or processes oriented and may avoid the ones that are people oriented. Naturally, they are unfit for service industry that  depends so much on relationship management. They are more likely to be found in sterile, emotion-less vocations such as accounting, computer programming, engineering, chemistry, physics or mathematics. These people have trouble supervising others as they neither have the child's capacity to have fun at work nor the parent’s ability to provide strokes.

The constant child: People who choose to become a constant child are the one's unwilling to grow up and accept responsibility. They are always on the lookout for someone who can "take care" of them and then attach themselves to this caregiver without feeling guilt or shame.

This kind of personality may do well in professions that involves popularity and mass adulation such a film stars and sport stars. But without the Adult executive in control, they may fritter away their success and earnings rather impulsively. The content child may also be attracted to jobs that are highly routine in nature involving minimal or no decision-making such as assembly line work.

Contamination of the adult:

     The clear thinking of an objective, rational, logical Adult may be often spoilt by contamination from either parent or child.  Ego state contamination occurs when the Adult accepts as true, without analyzing or verifying independently some baseless parental beliefs or perceptions and rationalizes or justifies distorted ideas and attitude of the child.

Contamination from the parent ego state:

     In extreme cases, contamination may result in "hallucinations".

When a person sees things that are imaginary, as real and hears voices that are non-existent, as authentic, it is called hallucination. To a lesser degree, parental contaminations are prejudices and dogmas that one has tenaciously held on to as truths, even when they aren't so. When opinions appear to be facts, it’s an indication of parent Ego state interfering with the correct functioning of the Adult. Sometimes, prejudices can sway a large group or even the whole community and a nation. They can distort laws, judiciary, and administration and render general peaceful co-existence almost impossible. Hatred of certain races, religions or castes are the examples of parental contamination.

Contamination from the child ego state”:

     When childish fantasies are believed to be true, it leads to delusions and that in how child Ego State contaminates Adult Ego State. The common delusions include the ones of grandeur, of being persecuted (being poisoned, spied upon or conspired against.) The milder contamination causes a distorted sense about reality. The distortion is due to interference of imagination with reality.

     It is possible for the adult ego state to be doubly contaminated. Instead of being objectively aware of the facts, the adult rationalizes or justifies the distortions and prejudices. The decontamination process would necessitate a closer examination of closely held beliefs and opinions in order to separate the truth from non-truths.

     e.g. “Nobody would ever like me” (contaminated)

            “Not everybody would like me but some may do” (de-contaminated)

Boundary lesions:

     Some particularly traumatic experience may damage a person's psyche so much that some "sore" point always remains. When some stimulus (event expression, action etc.) reminds the person of the past trauma, there is an irrationally strong outburst of emotion that surprises the onlookers. Riots, wars, brutal violence, rape are some instances of traumatic experiences that may leave a person hyper-sensitive to some person, place or thing.

The adult as executive control of the personality:

The Adult Ego State, when freed from negative or irrelevant influences of the child or Parent Ego State, becomes a source of sensible and autonomous decision-making. When the Adults Ego State is in executive control of the personality, it receives and processes most (not all) stimulus. The person stops upon receiving the stimulus, looks and listens and sometimes even count up to ten to think.

“The person evaluates before acting and accepts complete responsibility for personal thoughts, feelings and behaviour.”

 It chooses its response to a stimulus rather that act impulsively or habitually. Not all parental or child responses are wrong but they may or may not be appropriate in a given situation. The Adult decides the OKness of a response. Making a conscious choice means being in active control of the emotions (psychic energy) so that the suitable Ego state is active.

The Adult awareness knows about the short-comings of a parental response or the excesses of a child response. Sometimes, the Adult also acts as a mediator between the parent and child responses when they are conflicting or contradictory. It pays to please the parent and gratify the child in us at times to minimize the inner turmoil. Else, they may wreak havoc with the decision making process.

Pleasing your parent:

     The critical parent often sends messages to the inner child of a person that are brutal, threatening, punishing, or denying (withholding) affection and approval, whenever the person goes against parental permissions or commands.

     "Throwing a crumb" to the parental message basically means doing a little thing that might please the parent. Going to a place of worship is often an act of "throwing a crumb" to pushy, critical and cruel parents.

Pleasing the child:

     When people, for some unavoidable reasons, need to be constantly using their Adult Ego State, the child Ego state feels ignored and therefore, throws tantrums. It interferes with the working of the Adult and becomes a nuisance. It helps to do something that pleased you as a child and resume Adult control. Going for a movie before a major exam or listening to a favoring song before very intense meetings are examples of pleasing the child.

Activating and strengthening the adult ego state:

     Like strength training for muscles, Adult Ego state is strengthened by exercising it consistently and frequently.

Adult Ego State is involved in gathering organizing and evaluating data for achieving accuracy in decision making. Therefore, learning through education, experience and observation helps the Adult in its performance. However, the accuracy and quality of information being fed into any ego state would decide whether it’s going to function effectively or not.

In a constantly changing world, the learning too is an ongoing process to keep pace with the current reality.

 Contracts:

     A contract is a commitment made by an adult to oneself or someone else to make a positive change in feelings, behavior or psychological disorders. A contract is a TA tool for strengthening the Adult and executing favourable changes. It would include;

·       A decision (I'll do something about it)

·       A statement of clear goal in simple language

The possibility of achieving the goal

     Contracts can only be made and kept by a truly self-aware person because only they can find out or accept the deficiencies in their approach to life and factors that are causing discomfort or dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction often motivates change.

     Learning to make contracts, seeing them through, changing them when appropriate and moving on to the next problem and a new contract are signs of autonomy and strength, signs of a winner.

Raising the right questions:

     Once the problem in behaviour or feeling have been identified and an adult contract to change the inappropriate behaviour is made, it helps to frame a suitable question that the person will ask himself whenever be sees that the inappropriate behaviour is about to be repeated again. In the simplest form, the question is in the form of why/why not? Asking the right question is like pressing the button that activates Adult Ego State. Then, the person can use his intelligence, experience and wisdom to choose an appropriate response from any one of the three ego state. This saves him from an unthinking, habitual, old pattern of reactionary behaviour that’s hurtful or destructive.

Learning from projections:  

     A projection is a trait, attitude, feeling or a piece of behaviour which actually belongs to your personality but you don't know or accept that. Instead, you see it in others and believe that it is being directed at you. People may project any positive or negative trait that they have discarded from their conscious awareness. They don't own up to it and see it as only belonging to others.

One way to learn from our projections is to ask ourselves, every time we accuse or admire someone. "Could it be true that this trait, good or bad, may actually belong to me?”This awareness and self-knowledge makes one’s personality whole and complete. There are no fragments of our psyche that are alienated or disowned by us. We become self-accepting and more tolerant towards our own self. And till that happens, we shall continue to be restless, anxious, frustrated, suspicious and what not? Complete acceptance of one's self, flaws and all, is the first step in being a winner that we are all born to be. No super-person, no Santa Claus…

Learning from dreams:

     The Gestalt approach to dream is to integrate the dream rather than analyzing it. The process of integrating dreams is to consciously re-live the dream. By either writing it or telling it to someone. Re-living is done as if it is happening now. e.g." I am sitting in an airplane". The person includes as many objects or persons that he can remember but never adds anything or anyone that wasn't really there in the dream.

     The next step is to begin a dialogue, speaking out loud. As a help in getting started each person, object or event is asked, "What are you doing in my dream?" Then, the person himself answers, becoming that person, object and event, using an "I" to start the sentence. Just like in projection technique, each person, object or event appearing in our dreams is actually an extension or fragment of our own personality. We see the multiple facets of our personality through our dream. Re-owing and integrating these facets leads to a "whole" personality.

Days of despair:

     When a person activates the Adult Ego State and starts using it consistently, the initial response is despair because now they see their own life, themselves and people more realistically. They face that moment of truth when ugliness and sheer absurdity of life overwhelms them. They also begin to realize that the magic moment or person that they were waiting for to transform their life dramatically may actually never show up. This awareness leads to hopelessness and people slowly start to own up to their responsibility to improve their lives by relying on their own strengths and resources. Suddenly, life looks like a "do-it-yourself" project. No Santa Claus there!

     Like in every other situation in life, here again we have a choice between fight and flight. No two opinions on what the winner is going to do.

Autonomy and adult ethics:

The ultimate goal in transactional analysis is achieving 'Autonomy' which means being self –governing and determining one's own destiny; taking responsibility for not only one's actions but also feelings; and finally discarding patterns of behaviour and living that are irrelevant and inappropriate. So what is so difficult about achieving it when everyone is born free? It is called conditioning, the malady of only doing what one has been told to. Our first enslavement is to parents, then teachers, friends, boss, wife, children, preacher, media, so on and so forth.

The price for this enslavement is  to forego the freedom of choice and the reward for being an unquestioning slave is the freedom from thinking, deciding and taking responsibilities.

 People may suffer from an illusion of autonomy when they change the scene, people and events in their life drama but the truth is, the recurring pattern of behaviour, feeling and attitude remains the same.

     So who is a truly autonomous person?  According to Eric Berne, an autonomous person displays the following three capacities

ü  Awareness

ü  Spontaneity

ü  Intimacy

Awareness:

     Awareness is about knowing what is happening now, within your own mind and in the outside world.

 The person evaluates independently and derives his own conclusions rather than living up to someone's injunctions and opinions. An aware person appreciates nature and lives in the "now". He knows his own body messages and signals and listens to his own mind and heart. An aware person is also fully conscious of the people around him, listening and giving feedback actively while talking to them. An aware person's mind and body act in unison, never contradicting each other. Meaning, he doesn't pretend to be what he is really not. The first step to total integration of one's personality is to become aware. This person can see good or bad in self as well as others and then independently choose what to carry and what to leave behind.

Spontaneity:

     Spontaneity is the freedom to choose from a full range of behaviour and feelings, whether belonging to Parent Ego State, child Ego State or Adult Ego State.

 A spontaneous person is free; making choices and also accepting the responsibility or consequences of having made those choices. This person is free from the compulsion of living life according to a pre-determined pattern and life-script. Instead, he or she explores new ways of thinking, feeling and responding and thereby increasing the limits of their own range of possible behaviour. He does not become larger than life but rather, true to life. A spontaneous person, with Adult in the executive control, decided independently and doesn't remain at the mercy of "fate", circumstances and other people

     Unless a person makes decision, even when they may not be always right, the personal power of the individual remain underutilized or undirected and ethics remain unclear or unstable. Somewhere I read "many persons lie buried in their graves with the music still trapped within them”. Unused human potential is the greatest waste ever.

     To be able to consciously decide for oneself, despite the animalistic drives and instincts, despite inherited characteristics and traits, despite the environmental influences, is to become truly free and truly spontaneous.

     However, there is more to being a winner than merely making decisions. Unless a person acts on his decisions, the decisions are useless and meaningless. Only when the inner thought process and personal ethics match with a person's outward behaviour is the person congruent and whole. A spontaneous person is free to "do as he wishes to do" but not at the cost of others through exploitation, manipulation or even indifference.

Intimacy:

     Intimacy is expressing the Natural child feelings of warmth, tenderness and closeness to others.

 Many people find it difficult to accept or express intimacy or enjoy such closeness. We Indians are specially inhibited when it comes to openly show our affection or tender feelings. As Dr Covey Says "Man is a creature of habits" so this inability to express love and warmth is also a matter of habit and it would take at least 21 days of sustained practice, as outlined in another bestseller  "The monk who sold his Ferrari "by Robin Sharma, to change this habit

     In the process of learning this capacity for intimacy, a person becomes more open, revealing and drops some of the "masks" that he feels compelled to wear during inter-personal transactions. This person learns to avoid interacting with others in a manner that would prevent closeness. He does not discount others, shuns transactions that are "crossed" or inappropriate and does not indulge in "Playing games". This person attempts to be open and authentic and exists with the others in the "here and now". He also attempts to see each person in their uniqueness and does not allow distortions of past experiences to color his judgment about people.

     Let us understand this very clearly that the person who rejects the opportunity for awareness, spontaneity and intimacy, also rejects the opportunity to a happy life. This individual actually refuses to take responsibility for shaping their own lives and enjoying the powers to determine their own destiny. In contrast, an autonomous person allows his own capacities to blossom and encouraging others to uncover their own potentialities. They see and set realistic goals and purposes in life. They may sacrifice, but only the lesser value for a higher value and in accordance with their own unique value system. They are not interested in getting more but simply, "being more".

The integrated adult:

     The person who is most fully in touch with his or her own human potential is in the process of integrating the Adult. This person has the honest concerns and commitment toward others that’s characteristic of a good parent, intelligence to solve problems that’s characteristic of an Adult and the ability to create, show affection and express awe without inhibition that’s characteristic of a healthy and happy child. In the process that leads to an integrated adult, the person filters more and more parent and child material through their adult and learn new behaviour patterns rather than replaying the old archaic behaviour learnt during childhood.

     An integrated Adult develops the following;

Pathos: Concern for the world and its people, their emotions, passion, sufferings etc.  

Ethos: An ethical value system to run one's life.

Techniques: objective gathering and processing of information for arriving at the best decisions.

Charm: Openness, warmth, care, expressions of joy.

Perle believes that no person can be ever totally integrated. However, in the ongoing process of integration a person becomes more and more responsible for his own life.

The concept of "integrated Adult" appears to be similar to what Erich Fromm calls "The fully developed Person" and to what Abraham Maslow Calls "The self-actualized Person".

“Self-actualizing people not only take responsibility for their own well being but for others as well and yet, have a child like capacity for curiosity, awareness and pleasure. Such individuals invariably have some mission in their life that involves good of people in particular or of a country in general. They have a wonderful capacity to appreciate, again and again, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy; however stale or mundane these experiences may have become to other people.”

Adult feelings:

     A machine has no ethical value system, no emotional capacity. An unfeeling machine as the executive of the personality would create an inadequate personality because man in an emotional and instinctive being. An integrated adult would function only as a data processing machine.

     So where would the feelings in Adult come from. Either the Adult informs the child or parent of a situation and retrieve an appropriate feeling for it. Otherwise, it may have incorporated a set of feeling directly from the parent as well as the child. However, the feelings from the parent or the child undergo a processing in the Adult and takes on a suitable form.

Adult Ethics:

     The process of integrating the three ego states serves as a catalyst to motivate the person to re-evaluate the present value system that may have been parent/child programmed and in its place, design a reality oriented personal ethical code.

     Parents pass on their own ethical value system to us, some of which may be rational and wholesome but a part may be arbitrary, irrelevant or destructive. Similarly opinions passed on from the child ego state need to be scrutinized to filter out the unnecessary or self-destructive messages.

     The purpose of developing Adult ethics is to protect, enhance the well being of ourselves as well as the entire world, living or non-living, around us. An Adult ethical system is based on a mentality of "I'm OK- You're OK". However, it does not mean only looking at the positive and completely ignore negatives. It reflects a basic respect for oneself and for others until reality proves to be otherwise. Adult ethics are supportive of human life in its entirety – supportive of winners.

     What are the parameters for an ethical decision?

 It would enhance self-respect; develop personal integrity and integrity in relationships. It will dissolve artificially created barriers between people, build a core of genuine self-belief and trust over others and facilitate the actualizing of human potentials without bringing harm to others.

     A decision is not ethical if as a result, a person in exploited or used inhumanly. If human life is threatened for ulterior purposes, if barriers are created between people, If human potentials are belittled, blocked or ignored and if it renders free choice difficult or impossible.

     The genuineness of one's value system can be judged by the way a person relates to, not only people and world, but all things around, including inanimate ones. The inanimate world of land, water, air and animate world of plants and animals are at our mercy. We may enjoy them, enhance them or destroy them. However, in destroying them, we put our own continual survival at risk.

     An ethical person does not ignore or discount problems. Rather, he believes in people working together to overcome the problems. He is a noble warrior against all the ills that inflict the human race. He champions the cause of the sufferers, the losers. An ethical person is aware that being indifferent to crime, unfairness and injustice is as good as being a partner in them. An ethical person works for a change and the change is for the betterment. He not only wins for himself but also helps others become winners.

The last word:

     It takes courage to be a winner; not a winner who beats someone else; but a winner at responding to the challenge called life. It takes courage to exercise the freedom that comes with autonomy because you are responsible for all your decisions. There is no one to take the blame. It takes courage to open up to another human being and risk being hurt that comes with intimate expressions and experiences. It takes courage to be an authentic person and risk being ridiculed or unpopular rather than hanker after others’ approval of us. It takes courage to be the unique person that we truly are meant to be when the entire world is trying to mould us into something else according to their own expectations and prejudices. It takes courage to walk a path in life that no one has walked before and risk being lost in the wilderness called career. But then in a world of limited knowledge and insufficient evidence, courage is all that we have. New ways are uncertain ways and they may frighten the child in us but the Adult knows that there is light at the end of every tunnel, a silver lining to every cloud and a rainbow after every rainy day.

     This path is never easy but a winner knows that once he gets to know his own losing streaks and decides against "using" them, the victory is never far away. In fact, it’s just round the corner.