After concluding classes during this internship I have learned many different philosophies, one which has particularly caught my attention has been Transactional Analysis. I learned this concept during my leadership class, this concept is part of our everyday life since it reflects on our behavior. Dr. Eric Berne developed the theory of Transactional Analysis and defined it as : “A consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behavior”.
Transactional Analysis is broken down into three ego states which include Parent, Adult and Child. The parent state is thoughts, feelings or behavior we have learned from parents or parental figures. Adult is the ideal state which is thoughts and feelings in the here and now. The Child state is thoughts, feelings and behaviors portrayed from childhood.
In order to better understand the ego states I will break them down properly as follows:
Parent personalities can be characterized in two different ways, nurturing or controlling. The nurturing parent has a very caring and controlled personality. This means that they, the nurturing parent, are the mother figure of the group or business. Being a nurturer is not necessarily a bad personality to have. Having a caring sense of respect for one’s employees can be a valuable leadership characteristic. However, this can sometimes be a weakness in a leader because a nurturing management style could permit employees to take advantage of their caring approach. The next parenting style would be the controlling parent. Controlling parent personalities are very different from nurturing parents. For example, controlling parents do not embrace change. The controlling parent also likes to be in control of everything that is going on in the work environment. For example, an employee is cleaning the counter in a clockwise motion, the manager requests the employees to clean the counter in a counter clockwise manner. They want everyone to perform tasks in their own meticulous manner. The controlling parents can sometimes be unsympathetic and make people think that their viewpoint is wrong.
A child’s persona is about contemplation and sentiment. This could indicate that an adult and child personalities go together in diverse ways. In reflection the child personalities are all about what the boss or employer can do to make them more comfortable. Take for example, two employees who are having a dispute with one another. Instead of talking to one another and solving the problem right when the problem begins, the employees wait and let the problem escalate. This creates a problem with other employees. After a while, the child employee cannot stand his fellow coworker and they proceed to take matters to higher management and complain about one another.
Adult styles are basically the best personality style a person can have. Having an adult personality a person has to be able to accept other ideas while giving constructive criticism, communicate well with others, and help others along the way. First the adult personality accepts the ideas of their coworkers while getting constructive criticism. When a coworker presents an idea or just simply a suggestion to another employee it is the adult who tells that was a great suggestion, but here is a way to improve on that idea. Having an adult personality means that you communicate well with others.
The complexity of the human brain has intrigued scientist for many generations. From the development of each unique personality to the behavioral interactions in which we portray these individual personality traits, have always been a beautiful unsolved mystery. This incomplete mystery of the human brain was the spark that motivated Dr. Eric Berne to work and study in the field of psychoanalysis and construct a theory entitled “Transactional Analysis”.
Eric Leonard Bernstein was born on May 10, 1910 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He came to the United States in 1953 to begin his internship at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey. He practiced his studies with a residency in psychiatry at the Psychiatric Clinic of Yale University and served as a psychiatrist in the Army Medical Corps. Berne worked in various clinics and psychological institutes through the years. After years of research, investigation, and studies Berne created one of the most noteworthy theories of modern psychology.
Before Dr. Eric Berne’s research, previous theories tried to explain human behaviors. The most frequently cited theory is the work of Sigmund Freud. In his theory Freud identified 3 components within our human behavior, “ID, Ego and the Superego”. Freud came to the conclusion that a person needs these three components in order to balance, create, or produce reasonable mental health. For Eric Berne the most important fact on Freud´s theory was the recognition that the human personality is multi-faceted.
Before publishing his work around 1970, Dr. Eric Berne, spent years formulating the basic unit of his analysis, summarizing his research in one simple word, “Transactional”. Berne defined it as the fundamental unit of social intercourse. With this definition Berne conceived a new language in the field of psychology, and founded Transactional Analysis.
When formulating his theory of the Three Ego States, Berne’s approach was far from any other psychotherapist. Berne did not simply ask his individual patients simple interview questions for his research, instead he observed his patients in a group setting, paying close attention to each and every interactions made between them and other personnel. Those three ego states are as follows: Parent, Adult, and Child.
