In 2018, I was always on the cusp of transitioning professionally from being a pure acting coach to becoming a trainer who teaches communication training in companies. I had previously studied the usual suspects of communication theory (Watzlawik, Fritz von Thun, etc.). I still found their approach to be overly theoretical, so I kept looking and remembered a name that I kept coming across during my speaker coaching sessions at the Scherer Academy: Vera Birkenbihl. Birkenbihl was something of a legend among speakers, as she was considered highly competent and original, probably because she appeared with baggy pants, an oversized microphone dangling from her neck and an overhead projector. Even my father, a hairdresser from Hamburg, was familiar with her. Apparently she had given some lectures for the Wella company in the 70s, but the content of the lectures passed my father by. So I bought Birkenbihl's book “Communication Training”, because I couldn't find another book that summarized my needs so aptly and to the point.
Interestingly, it was actually only about one concept: transactional analysis. As I read the book, my enthusiasm for this concept grew by the minute, because a) I didn't know of any concept that represented complex psychological processes so aptly and simply, both linguistically and graphically. And b) I understood all the patterns and behaviors that I had observed not only in myself, but also in my acting trainings, here in a theoretical context. The Meisner Technique and TA also met in an almost uncanny way: If Meisner spoke of “one gram of behavior having the meaning of a kilo of words”, TA was concerned with analyzing interpersonal transactions. On what? By our behavior.
What is transactional analysis?
Die Transaktionsanalyse ist ein, in den USA entwickeltes, Konzept der Persönlichkeitsstruktur und der zwischenmenschlichen Kommunikation. Sie wurde in 1950er Jahren durch den kanadischen Psychologen Eric Berne begründet und im Laufe der Jahre durch TransaktionsanalytikerInnen immer weiter entwickelt. Ziel der TA ist es die KlientenInnen zu einem autonom geführten Leben zu ermutigen, indem sie alle ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Ressourcen nutzen können. Im Laufe des Coachingprozesses werden die KlientInnen in die Konzepte der TA eingeführt, sodass diese das Konzept verstehen und es verschiedenen Situationen anwenden können. So wird ein tiefes Verständnis von inneren Prozessen und der Dynamik von menschlichen Beziehungen etabliert. Eric Berne war es sehr wichtig, das sein Konzept von vielen Menschen verstanden wird, und sie schnell damit umgehen können. Daher sind die Begriffe in der TA einfach verständlich und haben starken Bezug zum alltäglichen Leben. Die Grundhaltung der TA ist:
- Everyone has the ability to think.
- Everyone is allowed to change their mind.
- Communication is open and free.
The following summary is by no means all-encompassing, but is merely intended to provide an overview of the concepts of TA.
The ego state model
The most famous concept of TA is probably the ego-state model, in which the human personality is divided into three ego-states.
The Parent ego
The part of the personality that contains values, prejudices and rules that we have adopted from other caregivers.
The Adult ego
The part of our personality that allows us to make decisions in the here and now, using all the resources available to us.
The Child ego
The part of our personality that makes up our self-made experiences and beliefs.
People can act from different ego states. They can change these in different situations and the ego states can be different. Transactions are communication units and are initiated from a specific ego state and address an ego state in the other person. The aim is always to activate the adult ego and derive decisions and processes from it. The adult ego is our ability to act in the here and now and thus solve problems. However, it is important to note that all three ego states are fundamental to our lives and our actions in them.
This video offers a nice introduction:
Transactions
TA got its name from the so-called transactions, which, according to Eric Berne's concept, take place between people and represent communication. Transactions can be communicated verbally, but there is always also behavior (facial expressions, gestures, voice). By analyzing the nature of the transactions, we can determine whether they are complementary, crossed or covert transactions.
The life positions
The life positions are a very well-known aspect of TA. The TA describes four of these positions, also known as OK positions:
- I am ok - you are ok
- I am not ok - you are ok.
- I am ok - you are not ok.
- I am not ok - you are not ok.
People choose these ok positions as small children and they represent a kind of basic attitude. They are used to define beliefs according to which people shape their lives.
Strokes.
The stroke concept describes the way in which people get the strokes they need to survive. There are four types:
- conditional positive strokes
- Unconditional positive strokes
- conditional negative strokes
- Unconditional negative strokes
There are also so-called plastic strokes. These are worthless strokes filled with no interpersonal content.
The script
TA assumes that up to the age of 7, people create a life script, a kind of script of life. These are a series of decisions with which people react to the situation in which they grow up and make the decisions that are important for survival to get Strokes. It doesn't matter whether these are positive or negative. We use the script to determine how our lives will turn out from an early age.
Scripts are responsible, for example, for people behaving to their disadvantage when viewed from the outside, always following the same patterns.
Psychological games
From the very beginning, Eric Berne was concerned with games played between adults. These can be social, sexual or criminal games. One of the best-known games is “You could-yes, but”. Games generally have very simple, easy-to-understand names.
Scripts are there to confirm our decisions that we have written into the script, in that something happens to us “again and again”, we know “no way out”, “no one” can help us and sometimes “everyone” seems to be against us. Games are scripted.
A good introduction can be found in this video
TA offers various models for analyzing a game:
- The game formula
- The Drama Triangle (By Steve Karpman)
- The transactional model
A good introduction here:
The concept of TA is much more comprehensive, but this is beyond the scope of this introduction.
