Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Table of Figures
Preface
Semantics
PART I General Considerations
CHAPTER ONE Introduction
A What Do You Say After You Say Hello?
B How Do You Say Hello?
C An Illustration
D The Handshake
E Friends
F The Theory
References
CHAPTER TWO Principles of Transactional Analysis
A Structural Analysis
B Transactional Analysis
C Time Structuring
D Scripts
Notes & References
PART II Parental Programing
CHAPTER THREE Human Destiny
A Life Plans
Magda
Della
Mary
B On Stage and Off Stage
C Myths and Fairy Tales
The Story of Europa
Little Red Riding Hood
A Martian Reaction
A Little Red Riding Hood Script
D Waiting for Rigor Mortis
The Waiting for Rigor Mortis Script
The Story of Sleeping Beauty
E The Family Drama
F Human Destiny
G Historical
Notes & References
CHAPTER FOUR Prenatal Influences
A Introductory
B Ancestral Influences
C The Conceptive Scene
D Birth Position
E Birth Scripts
F Forenames and Surnames
Notes & References
CHAPTER FIVE Early Developments
A Early Influences
B Convictions and Decisions
C Positions – The Pronouns
D Winners and Losers
E Three-handed Positions
F Positions – The Predicates
G Selection of the Script
References
CHAPTER SIX The Plastic Years
A Parental Programing
B Thinking Martian
Butch
C The Little Lawyer
D The Script Apparatus
Notes & References
CHAPTER SEVEN The Script Apparatus
A The Script Payoff
B The Injunction
C The Come-on
D The Electrode
E Bags and Things
F The Prescription
G Parental Patterns
H The Demon
I Permission
J The Internal Release
Chuck
K The Script Equipment
Clementine
L Aspirations and Conversations
M Winners
N Does Everyone Have a Script?
O The Antiscript
P Summary
Notes & References
CHAPTER EIGHT Later Childhood
A Plots and Heroes
B Rackets
C Trading Stamps
D Illusions
E Games
F The Persona
G The Family Culture
Notes & References
CHAPTER NINE Adolescence
A Pastimes
B New Heroes
C The Totem
D New Feelings
E Physical Reactions
F The Front Room and the Back Room
G Script and Antiscript
H The World Image
I Sweatshirts
You Can’t Trust Anybody
Doesn’t Everybody?
References
CHAPTER TEN Maturity and Death
A Maturity
B The Mortgage
C Addictions
D The Drama Triangle
E Life Expectancy
F Old Age
G The Death Scene
H The Gallows Laugh
I The Posthumous Scene
J The Tombstone
K The Testament
Notes & References
PART III The Script in Action
CHAPTER ELEVEN Types of Scripts
A Winners, Nonwinners, and Losers
B Script Time
C Sex and Scripts
D Clock Time and Goal Time
References
CHAPTER TWELVE Some Typical Scripts
A Little Pink Riding Hood, or The Waif
B Sisyphus, or There I Go Again
C Little Miss Muffet, or You Can’t Scare Me
D Old Soldiers Never Die, or Who Needs Me?
E The Dragon-Slayer, or Daddy Knows Best
F Sigmund, or If You Can’t Do It One Way, Try Another
G Florence, or See It Through
H Tragic Scripts
Notes & References
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Cinderella
A Cinderella’s Background
B The Story of Cinderella
C Interlocking Scripts
D Cinderella in Real Life
E After the Ball Is Over
F Fairy Tales and Real People
Notes & References
CHAPTER FOURTEEN How Is the Script Possible?
A The Plastic Face
B The Moving Self
C Fascination and Imprinting
D The Odorless Smell
E The Reach-back and the After-burn
F The Little Fascist
G The Brave Schizophrenic
H The Ventriloquist’s Dummy
I More About the Demon
J The Real Person
Notes & References
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Transmission of the Script
A The Script Matrix
B The Family Parade
C Cultural Transmission
D The Influence of the Grandparents
E Overscripting
F Blending of the Script Directives
G Summary
H Responsibility of the Parents
Notes & References
PART IV The Script in Clinical Practice
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Preliminary Phases
A Introductory
B The Choice of Therapist
C The Therapist as a Magician
D The Preparation
E The ‘Professional Patient’
F The Patient as a Person
Notes & References
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Script Signs
A The Script Signal
B The Physiological Component
C How to Listen
D Basic Vocal Signals
1 Breathing Sounds
2 Accents
3 Voices
4 Vocabulary
E Choice of Words
1 Parts of Speech
2 OK Words
3 Script Words
4 Metaphors
5 Security Phrases
6 The Subjunctive
7 Sentence Structure
F The Gallows Transaction
G Types of Laughter
1 Scripty Laughs
2 Healthy Laughs
H Grandmother
I Types of Protest
J The Story of Your Life
K The Script Switches
Notes & References
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Script in Treatment
A The Role of the Therapist
B Game Dosage
C Motives for Therapy
D The Therapist’s Script
E Predicting the Outcome
F The Script Antithesis
Amber
G The Cure
References
CHAPTER NINETEEN The Decisive Intervention
A Final Common Pathways
B Voices in the Head
C The Dynamics of Permission
D Curing Patients vs Making Progress
Notes & References
CHAPTER TWENTY Three Case Histories
A Clooney
B Victor
C Jan and Bill
PART V Scientific Approaches to Script Theory
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Objections to the Theory of Script
A Spiritual Objections
B Philosophical Objections
C Rational Objections
D Doctrinal Objections
E Empirical Objections
F Developmental Objections
G Clinical Objections
Notes & References
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Methodological Problems
A Map and Territory
B The Conceptual Grid
C Soft Data and Hard Data
References
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The Script Check List
A Definition of a Script
B How to Verify a Script
C Introduction to the Script Check List
D A Script Check List
E A Condensed Check List
F A Therapy Check List
References
APPENDIX
What Do You Say After You Say Hello?
Glossary
Index
About the Author
Copyright
As in my other books, he may refer to human beings of either sex, while she may be used if I think a statement applies more to women than to men; sometimes he may also be used for grammatical simplicity to distinguish therapist (male) from patient. I hope these convenient syntactic devices will not be taken amiss by emancipated women. Is means that I have a reasonably firm conviction about something, based on the clinical experience of myself and others. Seems to be or appears to be means that I am waiting for further evidence before making a firm commitment. The case histories have been drawn from my own experience and from those presented at seminars and supervisory sessions. Some are composites, and all have been masked from outside recognition, although significant incidents or dialogues are faithfully reported.
—Eric Berne
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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WHAT DO YOU SAY AFTER YOU SAY HELLO?
A CORGI BOOK : 9780552098069
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781407056784
Originally published in Great Britain by André Deutsch Ltd
André Deutsch edition published 1974
Corgi edition published 1975
Copyright © 1972 City National Bank, Beverly Hills, California; Robin Way; Janice Way Farlinger
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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Table of Figures
1A Structural Diagram of a Personality
1B An Informal Structural Diagram
1C Second Order Structural Diagram
1D Descriptive Aspects of the Personality
2A A Complementary Transaction
2B A Relationship Diagram
3A Crossed Transaction Type I
3B Crossed Transaction Type II
4A A Successful Angular Transaction
4B A Duplex Transaction
5 A Scripty Family Tree
6 A Young Alcoholic
7 Origin and Insertion of the Script Injunctions
8 A Beautiful Lady
9 A Hard-Working Winner
10 Illusory Autonomy
11 True Autonomy
12 The Drama Triangle
13 A PAC Trip Through the Psyche
14 A Blank Script Matrix
15 A Family Parade
16 Cultural Transmission
17 Transmission From the Grandparents
18 The Permission Transaction
19 Clooney’s Script Matrix
20A Psychobiological Structure of the Child
20B Descriptive Functions of the Child
This book is in direct succession to my previous ones on the transactional approach, and outlines the new developments in thinking and practice which have taken place during the last five years, chiefly the rapid advance in script analysis. During this period there has been a great increase in the number of trained transactional analysts. They are testing the established theories in many different fields, including industry, corrections, education, and politics, as well as in a variety of clinical situations. Many of them are making original contributions of their own, as mentioned in the text and footnotes.
This is primarily intended as an advanced textbook of psychotherapy, and professionals of different backgrounds should have no difficulty in translating into their own dialects the short and simple annals of transactional analysis. No doubt some nonprofessionals will read it too, and for that reason I have tried to make it accessible to them. It may demand thinking, but I hope it will not require deciphering.
Conventional psychotherapy ordinarily employs three different dialects: therapist-therapist, therapist-patient, and patient-patient, which are as different from each other as mandarin and Cantonese, or ancient Greek and modern Greek. Experience shows that eliminating these as far as possible in favour of a kua-yu or lingua franca of basic English increases the ‘communication’ which many therapists so ardently court (and so diligently leave waiting at the altar, as the saying is). I have tried to avoid the fashion popular in the social, behavioral, and psychiatric sciences of masking uncertainty with redundancy and vagueness with prolixity, a practice which has its origins in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Paris in the fourteenth century.
This has led to charges of ‘popularization’ and ‘oversimplification’ – terms reminiscent of the old Central Committee accusations of ‘bourgeois cosmopolitanism’ and ‘capitalist deviation.’ Given the choice between the arcane and the open, between overcomplication and simplicity, I have thrown in with the ‘people,’ tossing in a big word now and then as a sort of hamburger to distract the watchdogs of the academies, while I slip in through the basement doors and say Hello to my friends.
It is quite impossible to thank everybody who has helped in the development of transactional analysis, since they now number in the thousands. The ones I know best are the Teaching Members of the International Transactional Analysis Association, and the members of the San Francisco Transactional Analysis Seminar, which is the one I attend regularly every week. Those who have been most actively concerned with script analysis include Carl Bonner, Melvin Boyce, Michael Breen, Viola Callaghan, Hedges Capers, Leonard Campos, William Collins, Joseph Concannon, Patricia Crossman, John Dusay, Mary Edwards, Franklin Ernst, Kenneth Everts, Robert Goulding, Martin Groder, Gordon Haiberg, Thomas Harris, James Horewitz, Muriel James, Pat Jarvis, Stephen Karpman, David Kupfer, Pamela Levin, Jack Lindheimer, Paul McCormick, Jay Nichols, Margaret Northcott, Edward Olivier, W. Ray Poindexter, Solon Samuels, Myra Schapps, Jacqui Schiff, Zelig Selinger, Claude M. Steiner, James Yates, and Robert Zechnich.
In addition, I want to thank my secretary in San Francisco, Pamela Blum, for keeping the Seminar running smoothly and contributing her own ideas; and also her successors, Elaine Wark and Arden Rose; and particularly my secretary in Carmel, Mrs Mary N. Williams, without whose conscientiousness, skill, and application the physical manuscript, through all its drafts and changes, could never have come into being. My fifteen-year-old son, Terence, ably assisted me in collating the bibliography and drawings and other details of the manuscript, and my daughter, Ellen Calcaterra, read it and made many valuable suggestions. Finally, I want to thank my patients for being such good sports about revealing themselves, and for letting me go away on vacations so that I could think; and also the millions of readers in fifteen languages who encouraged me by their interest in reading one or another of my books.
This childlike question, so apparently artless and free of the profundity expected of scientific inquiry, really contains within itself all the basic questions of human living and all the fundamental problems of the social sciences. It is the question that babies ‘ask’ themselves, that children learn to accept corrupted answers to, that teen-agers ask each other and their advisors, that grownups evade by accepting the corrupted answers of their betters, and that wise old philosophers write books about without ever finding the answer. It contains both the primal question of social psychology: Why do people talk to each other? and the primal question of social psychiatry: Why do people like to be liked? Its answer is the answer to the questions posed by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: war or peace, famine or plenty, pestilence or health, death or life. It is no wonder that few people find the answer in their lifetimes, since most go through life without ever finding the answer to the question which precedes it: How do you say Hello?
This is the secret of Buddhism, of Christianity, of Judaism, of Platonism, of atheism, and above all, of humanism. The famous ‘sound of one hand clapping’ in Zen is the sound of one person saying Hello to another, and it is also the sound of the Golden Rule in whatever Bible it is stated. To say Hello rightly is to see the other person, to be aware of him as a phenomenon, to happen to him and to be ready for him to happen to you. Perhaps the people who show this ability to the highest degree are the Fiji Islanders, for one of the rare jewels of the world is the genuine Fijian smile. It starts slowly, it illuminates the whole face, it rests there long enough to be clearly recognized and to recognize clearly, and it fades with secret slowness as it passes by. It can be matched elsewhere only by the smiles of an uncorrupted mother and infant greeting each other, and also, in Western countries, by a certain kind of open personality.fn1
This book discusses four questions: How do you say Hello? How do you say Hello back? What do you say after you say Hello? and, principally, the plaintive query, What is everybody doing instead of saying Hello? These questions will be answered briefly here. The explanation of the answers will occupy the rest of this psychiatric textbook, which is addressed first to the therapist, secondly to his patients as they get cured, and thirdly to anyone else who cares to listen.
1. In order to say Hello, you first get rid of all the trash which has accumulated in your head ever since you came home from the maternity ward, and then you recognize that this particular Hello will never happen again. It may take years to learn how to do this.
2. In order to say Hello back, you get rid of all the trash in your head and see that there is somebody standing there or walking by, waiting for you to say Hello back. It may take years to learn how to do that.
3. After you say Hello, you get rid of all the trash that is coming back into your head; all the after-burns of all the grievances you have experienced and all the reach-backs of all the troubles you are planning to get into. Then you will be speechless and will not have anything to say. After more years of practice, you might think of something worth saying.
4. Mostly, this book is about the trash: the things people are doing to each other instead of saying Hello. It is written in the hope that those with training and talent for such things can help themselves and others to recognize what I am calling (in a philosophical sense) ‘trash,’ since the first problem in answering the other three questions is to see what is trash and what isn’t. The way people speak who are learning to say Hello is called ‘Martian,’ to distinguish it from everyday Earth-talk, which, as history shows from the earliest recorded times in Egypt and Babylonia to the present, has led to wars, famines, pestilence, and death; and, in the survivors, to a certain amount of mental confusion. It is hoped that in the long run, Martian, properly learned and properly taught, will help to eliminate these plagues. Martian, for example, is the language of dreams, which show things the way they really are.
To illustrate the possible value of this approach, let us consider a dying patient, that is, a patient with an incurable disease and a limited time to live. Mort, a thirty-year-old man with a slowly developing form of cancer, incurable in the present state of knowledge, was given at worst two years, and at best, five. His psychiatric complaint was tics, consisting of nodding his head or shaking his feet for reasons unknown to him. In his treatment group he soon found the explanation: he was damming his fears behind a continuous wall of music which ran through his mind, and his tics were his way of keeping time with that music. It was established by careful observation that it was this way ’round and not the other, that is, that it was not music keeping time with tics, but body movements keeping time with mental music. At this point everyone, including Mort, saw that if the music were taken away by psychotherapy, a vast reservoir of apprehension would be released. The consequences of this were unforeseeable, unless his fears could be replaced by more agreeable emotions. What to do?
It soon became clear that all the members of the group knew they were going to die sooner or later, and that they all had feelings about it which they were holding back in various ways. Just as with Mort, the time and effort they spent covering up were blackmail payments made to death, which prevented them from fully enjoying life. Such being the case, they might do more living in the twenty or fifty years left to each of them than Mort could do in the two or five years left to him. Thus it was determined that it was not the duration of life, but the quality of living which was important: not a startling or novel discovery, but one arrived at in a more poignant way than usual because of the presence of the dying man, which had a deep effect on everyone.
It was agreed by the other members (who understood Martian talk, which they gladly taught Mort, and which he gladly learned) that living meant such simple things as seeing the trees, hearing the birds sing, and saying Hello to people: experiences of awareness and spontaneity without drama or hypocrisy, and with reticence and decorum. They also agreed that in order to do these things, all of them, including Mort, had to get tough about the trash in their heads. When they saw that his situation was, in a way, not much more tragic than their own, the sadness and timidity caused by his presence lifted. They could now be merry with him and he with them; he and they could talk as equals. They could get tough with him about his trash, because now he knew the value of toughness, and why they were being tough; in return, he had the privilege of getting tough with them about their trash. In effect, Mort turned in his cancer card and resumed his membership in the human race, although everyone, including himself, still fully realized that his predicament was more acute than anyone else’s.1
This situation illustrates more clearly than most others the pathos and depth of the Hello problem, which, in Mort’s case, went through three stages. When he first entered the group, the others did not know that he was a condemned man. They first addressed him in the manner customary in that group. Their approaches were basically set by each member’s upbringing – the way his parents had taught him to greet other people, adjustments learned later in life, and a certain respect and frankness appropriate to psychotherapy. Mort, being a newcomer, responded the way he would anywhere else, pretending to be the ambitious, red-blooded American boy his parents had wanted him to be. But when he stated, during his third session, that he was a doomed man, the other members felt confused and betrayed. They wondered if they had said anything which would make them look bad in their own eyes and his, and especially in the eyes of the therapist. They seemed, in fact, angry at both Mort and the therapist for not telling them sooner, almost as though they had been tricked. In effect, they had said Hello to Mort in a standardized way, without realizing to whom they were speaking. Now that they knew he was a special person, they wished they could go back and start over, in which case they would treat him differently.
So they did start over. Instead of talking forthrightly, as they had before, they addressed him softly and cautiously, as though to say: ‘See how I’m going out of my way to be thoughtful of your tragedy?’ None of them wanted to risk his good name now by speaking out to a dying man. But this was unfair, since it gave Mort the upper hand. In particular, nobody dared to laugh very long or very loud in such a presence. This was corrected when the problem of what Mort could do was solved; then the tension lifted and they could go back and start over for the third time, talking to him as a member of the human race, without restraint. Thus, the three stages were represented by the superficial Hello, the tense, sympathetic Hello, and the relaxed, real Hello.
Zoe cannot say Hello to Mort until she knows who he is and that can change from week to week, or even from hour to hour. Each time she meets him, she knows a little more about him than she did the last time, and she must say Hello to him in a slightly different way if she wants to keep up with their advancing friendship. But since she can never know all about him, nor anticipate all the changes, she can never say a perfect Hello, but only come closer and closer to it.
Many patients who come to a psychiatrist for the first time introduce themselves and shake hands when he invites them into his office. Some psychiatrists, indeed, offer their own hands first. I have a different policy in regard to handshakes. If the patient proffers his hand in a hearty way, I will shake it in order to avoid being rude, but in a noncommittal fashion, because I am wondering why he is being so hearty. If he offers it in a way which merely suggests that he considers it good manners, I will return the compliment in such fashion that we understand each other: this pleasant ritual will not interfere with the job to be done. If he proffers it in a way which indicates that he is desperate, then I will shake it firmly and reassuringly to let him know that I understand his need. But my manner when I enter the waiting room, the expression on my face and the position of my arms, indicates clearly enough to most newcomers that this amenity will be omitted unless they insist upon it. This is intended to establish, and usually does establish, that we are both there for a more serious purpose than to prove that we are good fellows or to exchange courtesies. Mainly, I do not shake hands with them because I do not know them, and I do not expect them to shake hands with me, because they do not know me; also, some people who come to psychiatrists object to being touched, and it is a courtesy to them to refrain from doing so.
The ending of the interview is a different matter. By that time I know a great deal about the patient, and he knows something about me. Thus, when he leaves, I make a point of shaking hands with him, and I know enough about him to know how to do it properly. This handshake means something very important to him: that I am acceptingfn2 him even after he has told me all the ‘bad’ things about himself. If he needs comforting, my handshake is such that it will comfort him; if he needs assertion of his masculinity, my handshake will evoke his masculinity. This is not a carefully thought out device to seduce the patient; it is a spontaneous and freely-given recognition of him as I now know him after talking for an hour with him about his most intimate concerns. On the other side, if he has lied to me out of malice rather than natural embarrassment, or tried to exploit or browbeat me, I will not shake hands with him, so that he knows he will have to behave differently if he wants me on his side.
With women, it is slightly different. If one needs a palpable sign that I accept her, I will shake hands in a way suitable to her needs; if (as I know by this time) another shrinks from contact with men, I will say farewell in a correct way but let her pass without a handshake. This latter case illustrates most clearly the reason for not shaking hands as a greeting: if I shake hands with her at the start, before I know with whom I am shaking hands, I awaken her abhorrence. I have, in effect, intruded upon and insulted her before the interview, by forcing her, out of good manners, and against her inclination, to touch me and let me touch her, however courteously.
In therapy groups, I follow a similar policy. I do not say Hello on entering, because I have not seen the members for a whole week, and I do not know to whom I am saying Hello. A light or cordial Hello might be quite out of place in the light of something that has happened to them in the interval. But I do make a very strong point of saying Good-by to each member at the end of the meeting, because then I know to whom I am saying Good-by, and how to say it in each case. For example, suppose one woman’s mother has died since the last meeting. A genial Hello from me would seem out of place to her. She might forgive me for it, but there is no need to put that strain on her. By the time the meeting is over, I know how to say Good-by to her in her bereavement.
Socially, it is different, since friends are for stroking. With them, Hello and Good-by range from an open handshake to a big hug, depending on what they are ready for or need; or sometimes it is josh and jive to keep from getting too involved, a ‘smile when you say that.’ But one thing in life is more certain than taxes and just as certain as death: the sooner you make new friends, the sooner you’ll have old ones.
So much for Hello and Good-by. What happens in between falls into the framework of a specific theory of personality and group dynamics, which is also a therapeutic method, known as transactional analysis. In order to appreciate what follows, it is first necessary to understand the principles of this approach.
1 The advantages of coming back to life instead of waiting for death are shown in: (1) ‘Terminal Cancer Ward: Patients Build Atmosphere of Dignity.’ Journal of the American Medical Association. 208:1289, May 26, 1969. (2) Klagsbrun, S. C. ‘Cancer Emotions, and Nurses.’ Summary of Scientific Proceedings. 122nd Annual Meeting, American Psychiatric Association, Washington, D.C., 1969.
fn1 Oddly enough, in my experience, such smiles are most frequently seen in girls in their twenties, with long black hair.
fn2 ‘Acceptance’ is not used here in its ill-defined, sentimental sense; it means, specifically, that I am willing to spend more time with him. This involves a serious commitment which may, in some cases, mean one or more years of patience, effort, ups and downs, and getting up in the morning.
The principles of transactional analysis have been described previously on numerous occasions. The most detailed account can be found in the writer’s work on Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy;1 its application to group dynamics is outlined in The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups;2 its use in analyzing games is described in Games People Play;3 its application to clinical practice is found in Principles of Group Treatment;4 and a summary of the theory is given in popular form in A Layman’s Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis.5 Hence, only a brief outline will be given here, for the benefit of those readers who do not have any of these works immediately to hand.
The basic interest of transactional analysis is the study of ego states, which are coherent systems of thought and feeling manifested by corresponding patterns of behavior. Each human being exhibits three types of ego states. (1) Those derived from parental figures, colloquially called the Parent. In this state, he feels, thinks, acts, talks, and responds just as one of his parents did when he was little. This ego state is active, for example, in raising his own children. Even when he is not actually exhibiting this ego state, it influences his behavior as the ‘Parental influence,’ performing the functions of a conscience. (2) The ego state in which he appraises his environment objectively, and calculates its possibilities and probabilities on the basis of past experience, is called the Adult ego state, or the Adult. The Adult functions like a computer. (3) Each person carries within a little boy or little girl, who feels, thinks, acts, talks, and responds just the way he or she did when he or she was a child of a certain age. This ego state is called the Child. The Child is not regarded as ‘childish’ or ‘immature,’ which are Parental words, but as ‘childlike,’ meaning like a child of a certain age, and the important factor here is the age, which may be anywhere between two and five years in ordinary circumstances. It is important for the individual to understand his Child, not only because it is going to be with him all his life, but also because it is the most valuable part of his personality.
FIGURE 1A
FIGURE 1B
FIGURE 1C
Figure 1A, then, purports to be the complete personality diagram of any human being whatsoever, encompassing everything he may feel, think, say, or do. (Its more convenient abbreviated form is shown in Figure 1B.) A more detailed analysis does not yield new ego states, but only subdivisions within the primary ones. Thus, it is evident that careful study will show two Parental components in most cases, one derived from the father, the other from the mother; it will also uncover within the Child ego state the Parent, Adult, and Child components which were already there when the Child was fixated, as can be verified by observing actual children. This second-order analysis is represented in Figure 1C. The separation of one feeling-and-behavior pattern from another in diagnosing ego states is called structural analysis. In the text, ego states will be denoted Parent (P), Adult (A), and Child (C), capitalized, while parent, adult, or child, uncapitalized, will denote actual people.
FIGURE 1D
There we will also encounter descriptive terms which are self-explanatory or which will be explained: the Natural or Nurturing Parent and the Controlling Parent, and the Natural, the Adapted, and the Rebellious Child. Where the ‘structural’ Child is represented by horizontal divisions, the ‘descriptive’ Child is shown with vertical ones, as in Figure 1D.
From the above, it is evident that when two people confront each other, there are six ego states involved, three in each person, as in Figure 2A. Since ego states are as different from each other as actual people are, it is important to know which ego state is active in each person when something takes place between them. What happens can then be represented by arrows drawn between the two ‘people’ in the diagram. In the simplest transactions, the arrows are parallel, and these are called complementary transactions. It is evident that there are nine possible types of complementary transactions (PP, PA, PC, AP, AA, AC, CP, CA, CC) as shown in Figure 2B. Figure 2A represents, as an example, a PC transaction between two spouses, in which the stimulus is from the husband’s Parent ego state to the wife’s Child ego state, and the response is from her Child to his Parent. In the best situation, this may represent a fatherly husband taking care of a grateful wife. As long as the transactions are complementary, with parallel arrows, communication may proceed indefinitely.
FIGURE 2A
FIGURE 2B
In Figures 3A and 3B something has gone wrong. In Figure 3A an Adult-to-Adult stimulus (AA), such as a request for information, receives a Child-to-Parent response (CP), so that the stimulus and response arrows, instead of being parallel, are crossed. A transaction of this type is called a crossed transaction, and in such a situation communication is broken off. If, for example, the husband asks as a matter of information ‘Where are my cuff links?’ and the wife replies ‘Why do you always blame me for everything?’ a crossed transaction has occurred, and they can no longer talk about cuff links. This is crossed transaction Type I, which represents the common form of transference reaction as it occurs in psychotherapy, and is also the type of transaction which causes most of the troubles in the world. Figure 3B represents crossed transaction Type II, in which an Adult-to-Adult stimulus (AA), such as a question, receives a patronizing or pompous Parent-to-Child response (PC). This is the commonest type of counter-transference reaction and the second most common cause of trouble in personal and political relationships.
FIGURE 3A
FIGURE 3B
Careful inspection of the relationship diagram in Figure 2B will show that 72 types of crossed transactions are mathematically possible (9x9=81 combinations, less the 9 complementary ones),fn1 but fortunately only about four of them occur often enough to be of major concern in clinical work or in everyday life. These are the ones described above, Type I (AA–CP), the transference reaction; and Type II (AA–PC), the counter-transference reaction; plus Type III (CP–AA), the ‘exasperating response,’ where someone who wants sympathy gets facts instead, and Type IV (PC–AA), ‘impudence,’ where someone who expects compliance gets what he considers a ‘smart aleck’ response instead, in the form of a factual statement.
Complementary and crossed transactions are simple, one-level transactions. There are two types of ulterior or two-level transactions, angular and duplex. Figure 4A represents an angular transaction in which an ostensibly Adult-to-Adult stimulus, such as a rational-sounding sales appeal, is actually devised to hook some other ego state – either the Parent or the Child – in the respondent. Here the unbroken line, Adult-to-Adult, represents the social or overt level of the transaction, while the dotted line represents the psychological or covert level. If the angular transaction is successful in this case, the response will be Child-to-Adult rather than Adult-to-Adult; if it is unsuccessful, the Adult of the respondent maintains control and the response will be from the Adult instead of the Child. Considering the various ways in which the ego states can be involved, it may be seen from the diagrams (Figures 4A and 2B) that there are 18 types of successful angular transactions in which the dotted line is responded to, and for each of these there is an unsuccessful angular transaction in which the response is thrown back parallel to the unbroken line.
FIGURE 4A
Figure 4B represents a duplex transaction. In this case there are two distinct levels, the underlying psychological or covert level being different from the social or overt level. A study of the diagrams will show that there are 812 or 6561 different types of duplex transactions possible.fn2 If we subtract those in which the social and psychological levels duplicate each other (which are, in effect, the 81 types of simple transactions) there are actually 6480 types of duplex transactions. Fortunately again, only about six of these are of common clinical or everyday significance.fn3
FIGURE 4B
The reader may wonder why there are so many numbers in this section. There are three reasons. (1) The Child reason is that lots of people like to figure out numbers. (2) The Adult reason is to demonstrate that transactional analysis is more precise than most other social and psychological theories. (3) The Parent reason is to show that even though it is so precise, it does not fence people in. For example, if we engage in only three transactions, and each time we have a choice among 6597 varieties, then we can have our three transactions in 65973 ways. This gives us about 300 billion different ways of structuring our three exchanges with each other. That certainly gives us all the room we need to express our individualities. It means that the whole population of the world could pair off, and each couple have three exchanges 200 times in a row, without any pair ever duplicating what any other pair did, or repeating anything they themselves had done before. Since most people engage in hundreds or thousands of transactions every day, each person has trillions and trillions of combinations at his disposal. Even if he has an aversion to 5000 of the 6597 possible types of transactions, and never gets into them, there is still plenty of room to maneuver in, and there is no necessity for his behavior to be stereotyped unless he himself sets it up that way. If he does so, as most people do, that is not the fault of transactional analysis, but of other influences that form the chief subject matter of this book.
Since this system as a whole, in all its branches, is referred to as transactional analysis, what has been described above, the analysis of single transactions, is called transactional analysis proper, which is the second step after structural analysis. Transactional analysis proper gives a rigorous definition of the system as a whole, which will be of interest principally to those trained in scientific methodology. A transaction consisting of a single stimulus and a single response, verbal or nonverbal, is the unit of social action. It is called a transaction because each party gains something from it, and that is why he engages in it.6 Anything that happens between two or more people can be broken down into a series of single transactions, and this gives all the advantages which any science attains when it has a well-defined system of units.
Transactional analysis is a theory of personality and social action, and a clinical method of psychotherapy, based on the analysis of all possible transactions between two or more people, on the basis of specifically defined ego states, into a finite number of established types (nine complementary, 72 crossed, 6480 duplex, and 36 angular). Only about 15 of these commonly occur in ordinary practice; the rest are largely of academic interest. Any system or approach which is not based on the rigorous analysis of single transactions into their component specific ego states is not transactional analysis. This definition, in effect, purports to set up a model for all possible forms of human social behavior. This model is efficient because it follows the principle of scientific economy (sometimes known as ‘Occam’s razor’), making only two assumptions: (1) that human beings can change from one ego state to another, and (2) that if A says something and B says something shortly thereafter, it can be verified whether or not what B said was a response to what A said. It is also very effective because, so far, no examples have been found among thousands or millions of interchanges between human beings which could not be dealt with by the model; and it is rigorous as well, because it is limited by simple arithmetical considerations.
The best way to understand the ‘transactional viewpoint’ is to ask: ‘What would a one- or two- or three-year-old child do that would correspond to this grownup’s behavior?’
It is also possible to classify long series of transactions, extending even to a whole lifetime, so that significant human social behavior, both short term and long term, can be predicted. Such chains of transactions take place, even when they yield little instinctual satisfaction, because most people become very uneasy when they are faced with a period of unstructured time; hence, they find cocktail parties, for example, less boring than being by themselves. The need to structure time is based on three drives or hungers. The first is stimulus or sensation hunger. Far from trying to avoid stimulating situations, as some people have claimed, most organisms, including human beings, seek them out. The need for sensation is the reason why roller coasters make money and why prisoners will do almost anything to avoid solitary confinement. The second drive is recognition hunger, the quest for special kinds of sensations which can only be supplied by another human being, or in some cases, by other animals.7 That is why milk is not enough for baby monkeys and human infants; they also need the sound and smell and warmth and touch of mothering or else they wither away, just as grownups do if there is no one to say Hello to them. The third hunger is structure hunger, which is why groups tend to grow into organizations, and why time-structurers are among the most sought after and the most highly rewarded members of any society.
An interesting example combining both stimulus hunger and structure hunger is found among rats raised in a state of sensory deprivation, that is, in complete darkness, or in a constantly lighted white cage with no variation. Later in the lives of these animals, after they had been put in ordinary cages with ‘normal’ rats, it was found that they would go to food in a maze if it was placed on a checkerboard, but they would not go to food if it was placed on a simple background. Normally raised rats would go to the food regardless of the background. This showed that the hunger of the deprived rats for a structured stimulus was more important than their hunger for food. The experimenters concluded that the need for structured stimuli (or as they put it, for ‘perceptual experience’) may involve biological processes just as basic as food hunger, and that the effects of early sensory deprivation may persist throughout life in the form of a strong attraction to complicated stimuli.8
There are four basic classifications for the short-term structuring of time in human social behavior, with two limiting cases. Thus, if two or more people are in a room together, they have six possible kinds of social behavior to choose from. At one extreme the limiting case is withdrawal, in which the people do not overtly communicate with each other. This may occur in such diverse situations as a subway train or a therapy group of withdrawn schizophrenics. Next to withdrawal, in which each individual remains wrapped in his own thoughts, the safest form of social action is rituals. These are highly stylized interchanges which may be informal or may be formalized into ceremonies which are completely predictable. The transactions which make up rituals convey little information, but are more in the nature of signs of mutual recognition. The units of a ritual are called strokes, by analogy with the way in which infants are recognized by their mothers. Rituals are programed from outside by tradition and social custom.
The next safest forms of social action are called activities, what is commonly called work, in which the transactions are programed by the material that is being worked with, whether it be wood and concrete, or problems in arithmetic. Work transactions are typically Adult-to-Adult, oriented toward the external reality – that is, the subject of the activity. Next in order are pastimes, which are not as stylized and predictable as rituals, but have a certain repetitive quality and are in the nature of multiple-choice, sentence-completion interchanges, such as take place at cocktail parties where people do not know each other very well. Pastimes are largely socially programed by talking about acceptable subjects in acceptable ways, but individual notes may creep in, leading to the next form of social action, which is called games.
Games are sets of ulterior transactions, repetitive in nature, with a well-defined psychological payoff. Since an ulterior transaction means that the agent pretends to be doing one thing while he is really doing something else, all games involve a con. But a con only works if there is a weakness it can hook into, a handle or ‘gimmick’ to get hold of in the respondent, such as fear, greed, sentimentality, or irritability. After the ‘mark’ is hooked, the player pulls some sort of switch in order to get his payoff. The switch is followed by a moment of confusion or crossup while the mark tries to figure out what has happened to him. Then both players collect their payoffs as the game ends. The payoff, which is mutual, consists of feelings (not necessarily similar) which the game arouses in both the agent and the respondent. Unless a set of transactions has these four features, it is not a game – that is, the transactions must be ulterior so that there is a con, and the con must be followed by a switch, a crossup, and a payoff. This can be represented by a formula.
C + G = R → S → X → P (Formula G)
C+G means that the con hooks into a gimmick, so that the respondent responds (R). The player then pulls the switch (S), and that is followed by a moment of confusion or crossup (X), after which both players collect their payoffs (P). Whatever fits this formula is a game, and whatever does not fit it is not a game.
For example, the mere fact of repetition or persistence does not constitute a game. Thus, in a therapy group, if a scared patient repeatedly asks the therapist for reassurance every week (‘Tell me I’ll get better, doctor’) and when he receives it, says ‘Thank you’, that is not necessarily an ulterior transaction. The patient has stated his need frankly and has had it gratified, and does not take advantage of the situation in any way, but gives a courteous response. These transactions, therefore, do not constitute a game but an operation, and operations, no matter how often they are repeated, must be distinguished from games, just as rational procedures must be distinguished from rituals.
If another patient, however, asks the therapist for reassurance, and upon receiving it, uses the response to make the therapist look stupid, that constitutes a game. For example, a patient asked: ‘Do you think I’ll get better, doctor?’ and the sentimental therapist replied ‘Of course you will.’ At that point the patient revealed her ulterior motive in asking the question. Instead of saying ‘Thank you’, as in a straight transaction, she pulled the switch with: ‘What makes you think you know everything?’ This reply crossed the therapist up and threw him off balance for a moment, which is what the patient wanted to do. Then the game ended, the patient feeling elated at having conned the therapist, and he feeling frustrated; and those were the payoffs.
This game followed Formula G precisely. The con was the original question, and the gimmick was the therapist’s sentimentality. When the con hooked into the gimmick, he responded in the way she expected. Then she pulled the switch, causing a crossup, after which each collected a payoff. So
C + H = R → S → X → P
This is a simple example of the game called, from the patient’s side, ‘Slug Him,’ or ‘Whammy,’ and from the therapist’s side, ‘I’m Only Trying To Help You.’ Colloquially, the payoff is called a trading stamp. ‘Good’ feelings are spoken of as ‘gold’ trading stamps and distressing feelings are said to be ‘brown’ or ‘blue’ trading stamps. In this case the patient got a counterfeit-gold trading stamp for a counterfeit triumph or success, and the therapist got a brown one, which is not unusual.
Each game has a slogan or motto by which it can be recognized, such as ‘I’m Only Trying To Help You.’ This slogan is colloquially called a ‘sweatshirt’. Usually the name of the game is taken from its slogan.
Beyond games lies the other limiting case of what can take place between people, which is called intimacy