Using the Theory of Transactional Analysis in Daily Communication

Our ego states are actually the manifestation of our life scripts through our speech and mannerisms. Depending on your life script, you may spend more time in one ego state over another which can in turn dictate your reactions to others. The three general ego states consist of: parent, adult, and child ego states. The parent ego state is subdivided into the critical and nurturing parent. The critical parent tends to be judging, demanding, and rule bound. If one is making a judgmental or demanding statement, it is said to be a critical parent statement. On the other hand, the nurturing parent tends to be loving, caring, comforting, and empathetic. Thus, any statements made that are loving, comforting, or empathetic are said to be nurturing parent statements. The adult state is generally concerned with analytical thought, problem solving, logic, reasoning, and balancing. Most of us experience the adult state while we are at work or school. The child ego state is also subdivided into the free and adaptive child. The free child tends to be fun loving, joyful, and creative whereas the adaptive child tends to be fearful or angry, reactive, scared, or defiant. It is important that we become cognizant of our current ego state when we are discussing a particularly emotionally charged topic so that we can realize what we are communicating.

Understanding your ego states will help you determine your life script. If you tend to speak and interact from the critical parent state then chances are you are operating from the “I’m okay, you’re not okay” script. If you operate equally from all five ego states, then you are probably oriented to the “I’m okay, You’re okay” script. Identifying our ego states and life scripts will help us to understand and modify our “transactions.” A transaction is a stimulus sent by one person and a reaction sent back by the person to whom the stimulus was directed. These transactions can be broken down into covert and overt transactions. In overt transactions the meaning is clear to anybody listening. In covert transactions the meaning can be warped by the receiving party or the sending party which shifts the transaction type. For example, if I were to tell someone “this meal isn’t that bad” overtly I’m saying that they made a good meal, yet covertly I’m saying that all their previous meals were horrible since this one wasn’t “that” bad. It is important to be able to identify the possible covert meanings in statements so that there is no miscommunication.

Being aware of life scripts and ego states can help you interact with others more effectively. If you ask yourself, “what kind of statement am I making?” you may be able to identify certain problematic communication flaws. For example, it is generally a bad idea to operate from the critical parent state when talking to peers. Now that we realize that we can transform our critical statements into nurturing parent or adult statements. Doing this is called egogram balancing. This will also help you by being able to recognize the type of statements others are making and how to respond. For example, if someone says to you, “you did a horrible job on your presentation and I doubt you put that much time into it” you can recognize that it is a critical parent statement and instead of responding from the adaptive child you can tailor your response to be from the adult state “I spent a week preparing the presentation, what didn’t you like about it?” Perhaps we find that we operate from a life script that we don’t want to operate from, if this is the case then all one must do s actively change their ego states and eventually you will experience a state shift. Remember, the real point is to bring cognition back into communication.