Lessons learnt from TA Practice

Lessons Learnt from TA Practice

I present here some 25 lessons learnt during the course of my TA Practice

1. Perception is always a distroted view of reality.
2. Meaning alters if not distorts the content of communication. Checking out helps.
3. Noise also does the same.
4. We hold what we believe to be true and nothing but the only truth.
5. Human beings are fallible (prone to commit mistakes). No one is perfect.
6. It is important to learn from our mistakes and those that others commit. 
7. Blaming self or another for a mistake or error in no way helps in remedying its occurrence.
8. No two people view reality the same way. Therefore we are prone to differ in our views of others.
9. Our life position defines our orientation toward our self and to others.
10. Acceptance is a key to effect change.
11. Freedom from expectation and anticipation reduces the compulsion to be angry, dis-satisfied and being engaged in feeling sad and wronged.
12. A precise message is psychologically inconceivable. Noise increases, not reduces the quality of communication. This is cybernetics in Berne's view.
13. Justifying and protecting one's view, opinion or understanding is a sure shot sign of script ridden-ness.
14. Tarrying / lingering / brooding / being occupied in thinking, feeling, emotions, deprives us of our capacity to be mentally at peace.
15. The prevailing moment is all we have in hand to change our view of ourselves, others and reality situations. 
16. Procrustes and Unicorn are methods people use to fit square realities in round holes.
17. Person is always blameless. What one says or expresses is a product of personality formulation. It is largely beyond human awareness.
18. Happiness is the sate of a healthy mind. It is not a feeling.
19. A healthy mind is free of engagements with events, people and our expectations belied. It is good to drop the beautiful girl we picked up on our way and move on.
20. When we are unable to do what is good or beneficial for our mental well being be sure to tell yourself that I am not choosing to be free.
21. Making new choices for good helps us in living a better life.
22. We can always relieve our mind of its obsession to be girppied by thinking, feeling, emotional lock-jams by giving it permission to be free and to let go.
23. The state of a person gripped by an engaged mind is the same as that of an animal struggling to be free of a trap that does not exit in reality.
24. Experimenting with being forgetting and happy like a four to seven year old child is extremely rewarding. 
25. Egotism, grandiosity and self pride is a disease. Humility promotes growth.

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Personality Activation and Script - Two Manifestations of the same reality

Personality Activation and Script

Two Manifestations of the Same Reality

When any one of us is faced with reality (any person, situation, problem, difficulty, condition, challenge or conflict) that affects us, it confronts us with a 'do or die situation'. No matter what choice we make, it is a choice between deep sea and fire. The ruling factor is that it has to be sane (well thought out as to consequences to a course of action), safe (neither causing feeling or emotional harm to self or the other), effective (educated and well informed),  appropriate (the best of multiple approaches) and least harmful (rewarding to bolster self esteem of the person  - be it self or the other). 

We need to build a system that affords the best choice to serve five objectives of sane, safe, effective, appropriate and rewarding. 

When we do so appropriately we are winners. Every course of action builds a empowering system**. If it is an Adult system supported by a permissive Parent and an Acquiescent Child it is good. If it is a Child system, or a Parent system it is likely to be ineffective.

Script is supported by *five active contributors*. (1) Parental Directives - the six Script Matrix messages, (2) a suitable personality - archaic or updated, (3) a childhood decision (unless updated), (4) a real turn-on (that results in) a particualar method of success or failure and (5) a convincing attitude (an attitudinal orientation). Script can be defused (like leaking the air out of a car tyre) - by disregarding directives, by repairing personality triggering mechanisms, by redefining childhood decisions, by changing the turn-on on the go, or by revising the attitude toward self, toward others who pose a challenging proposition and toward situations, problems, difficulties, situations, conditions and challenges by accepting the obverse to be true.

Personality Structure and Script can be viewed as two faces of the same coin. The coin is the activated intra-psychic mechanism that affords the process to proceed down hill or to deal with it sanely, safely, effectively, appropirately and in a manner that gives each party a sense of gain or win. The means that service are the personality structures. The directing mechanism is the script.

for *five active contributors* see Hello Book (A Corgi Book 9780552098069) Page 55.

** Every course of action builds an empowering system. It may act to the benefit of the person (by building healthy self concept) or against the benefit of the person (by building an unhealthy self concept).

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The blogger, Ajit Karve can be reached at:

+91 9822024037 on WhatsApp - Please identify yourself. or by email at taforyouandme@gmail.com

Ajit Karve works out of Pune

He is a Psychotherapy Practitioner

a BTA in TA from ICTA Kochi

  

Map and Reality - Deeper Understanding of Ego States

Ego State - Reality and Map of Reality

Experience and Feeling ( Reality) - Ego State (Map)

(Take time out to read and understand this)

Fact is that there is nothing like ego state in reality.

We are all affected by challenging situations. We find it difficult to make peace with them. They result in experiences and accompanying emotional overcharge.

It takes time for them to die off.

They affect our state of mind for the time prevailing.

They then taper off because we tire spending time in the futility of dealing with them.

They get recorded in memory and generate our beliefs, opinion, orientations and attitudes. These are about ourselves (I<>I), others (I<>Others) and (I<>Situations, Problems, Life, and capacity) to enjoy our capacities, capabilities, and strengths,  in short our resident self concept.

These are about persons, people, communities, situations, events, occurrences etc

Little do we realise that the same person generates a different challenge with change in place, time, role, situation, challenge faced etc. So also in matters of events, situations and happenings.

Little do we realise that the same situation evokes a new response. This is different from one we would or could predict.

We perceive differently, think differently, reason differently, assess differently, evaluate differently most of the times. Our perception, evaluation and assessment is largely structured by our attitudinal orientation. It includes our capacity to effect our self worth, self value, self dignity, self respect, and self esteem regard to the situation or problem prevailing.

These structure our thinking and feeling to the person, situation, problem, difficulty, condition, challenge, conflict faced. This constitutes an ego state. An Ego State is an activated memory of an experience that evokes a set of assessment constituents and a response to deal with it. It could be other person sourced or self sourced. If self-sourced it is historical or contemporary. If Historical it is Child. If Contemporary it is Adult. If other-person-sourced it is called Parent. The Adult is a memory of later life. The Child is a memory of early life. Both view reality to the best of their ability. One (the Child) uses outdated archaic frames, capacities, capabilities and manipulational means while the other (the Adult) uses age appropriate updated realistic responses - sanely, safely, effectively and appropriately bolstering self capacity.

So with this we can say that ego states are activated sets of response systems to persons, people, situations, problems, difficulties, conditions prevailing, challenges and conflicts which make effort to find the best solution. If the system is other-person-based  it is Parent. If self based it is Child or Adult. If of early period it is Child. If of later period it is Adult. 

Projections are methods to represent curved surface of the earth on plane paper in the form of a map. There are many types of projections. Almost 20-25 types. They serve different purposes: Equal area, Equal shape, Equal distances, Latitude specific, Longitude specific. So also with models of ego states. They serve different purposes and in order to serve those purposes we use Structural Models and Functional Model of Personality, Structural Pathology, Functional Pathology, Symbiosis, Transactional Models to represent what happens at un-seen levels.

The blogger, Ajit Karve can be reached at:

+91 9822024037 on WhatsApp - Please identify yourself. or by email at taforyouandme@gmail.com

Ajit Karve works out of Pune

He is a Psychotherapy Practitioner

a BTA in TA from ICTA Kochi

Visiting the concept of Ego as Eric Berne saw it

Visiting the concept of Ego as Eric Berne saw it

These are links of copyrighted material on a 1961 essay by Eric Berne titled “Ego”. The material is available on Berne Archives which can be reached by clicking http://www.ericberne.com/eric-berne-archives/ I invite every TA Student to read the contents of the links below. The summary information is provided at the end of these links.

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=1

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=2

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=3

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=4

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=5

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=6

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=7

https://calisphere.org/item/b4b30659-6ee7-4e04-89ce-69b698e32d93/?order=8

The blogger, Ajit Karve can be reached at:

+91 9822024037 on WhatsApp - Please identify yourself. or by email at taforyouandme@gmail.com

Ajit Karve works out of Pune

He is a Psychotherapy Practitioner

a BTA in TA from ICTA Kochi

Understanding Ego States

Understanding Ego States

The contents of this post are based on excerpts from *Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (TAP) (ISBN 0 285 64776 8).

Ego States and Script constitute the two most important concepts of Transactional Analysis theory. An attempt is made to put forth what ego states are as the author understands them to be.

1. Ego States are the states of the 'Ego' of Freud's Super-ego, Ego, Id Model:

Berne writes in the preface to the TAP (pg.13) and I quote "the writer's concept of ego function is different from that of the majority of orthodox psychoanalysts, approaching more closely the viewpoints of Federn (1952) and his pupil Edoardo Weiss (1950)".  [Note: Speaking about orthodox psychoanalysis Berne writes (pg.12) this and I quote "Psychoanalysis and its cognates as used in this book are meant to refer to what is known as "orthodox" psychoanalysis, that is the resolution of infantile conflicts through the systematic use of free association, dealing with the phenomena of transference and resistance according to the principles of Freud.] 

2. Psychological reality is based on complete and discrete ego states: Berne writes in TAP (pg. 18) and I quote: "It is well-known to psychologists, ...... that complete ego states may be permanently retained. Federn is the one who first stressed on psychiatric grounds what Penfield later demonstrated in his remarkable neurosurgical experiments, that psychological reality is based on complete and discrete ego states".

3. Ego states are memories of one's mental and bodily ego: Berne writes in TAP (pg. 19) and I quote: "Weiss, Federn's chief exponent, has clarified and systematized Federn's ego psychology. Weiss describes an ego state as "the actually experienced reality of one's mental and bodily ego with the contents of the lived through period." In this connections Federn speaks of 'day-by-day ego states' ".

4. Ego states therefore are memories of impacting, lingering, difficult to forget experiences. Ego states have a bodily component. This is elaborated in the next item.

5. Wilder Penfield has these five things to say: 

1. The human brains retain memory of experiences. While we may 'forget' experiences the brain still has them recorded.
2. The brain records associated 'feelings' along with events. Both feelings and events stay locked together.
3. It is possible for a person to exist in two states simultaneously (one the present state of the experiencer and another the re-experienced state).
4. Hidden experiences when they are replayed are vivid and affect how we feel at the time of replaying.
5. There is a certain connection between mind and body i.e. the link is biological and psychological. As an example a psychological fear of spiders is associated with a biological feeling of nausea.

6. Psycholgical memories are constitutents of psychic entities. Berne writes this in an unpublished essay titled 'the ego' .......when the psyche is affected the mind is affected, when the brain is affected the body is affected.  This establishes a connection between ego state and mind. To say that ego states are states of the mind in as much as they are states of 'Freud's Bodily Ego', the 'Federn's Ego State'.

There is a bodily constitutent of an ego states. This is based on what is contained in item 3 above. 

7. Early Ego States are based on bodily experiences. Infants and very young children do not have capacity to think like adults. Their self concept is not thought out. It is bodily. This somatic component of early memories links activation of script with escalation of somatic ailments.

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The blogger, Ajit Karve can be reached at:

+91 9822024037 on WhatsApp - Please identify yourself. or by email at taforyouandme@gmail.com

Ajit Karve works out of Pune

He is a Psychotherapy Practitioner

a BTA in TA from ICTA Kochi

Ego State Explained

What is an Ego State

(I do not claim that the contents are consistent with popular TA Literature)

Eric Berne writes in an unpublished article titled 'the Ego' that when the (freudian) ego is affected the mind is affected. When the brain is affected the body is affected. Freud writes in an essay titled the 'the ego and the id' that the ego is a bodily ego. Berne writes to say that the earliest experience of a person is in infancy. The infant takes one of two positions. They are that of an 'anvil' or a 'hammer'. The experiential position taken by the infant decides the existential life position.  

What then is an ego state? Ego state is the memory of an impacting, lingering (over a few days), difficult to forget experience. These memories can be experienced by a person with meaning, understanding and experience as establised in the research of Wilder Penfield > Findings of Wilder Penfield. They structure one's view of self, other / s and of the quality of life and endowments one is entitled to enjoy. They are not accessible by revisiting. Why? Because they are stored in the deep unconscious. As yet they structure our perception, evaluation and assessment of reality in a way unique to us when we get taken over by script. They structure the attitude (pravrutti) toward ourselves - toward significant others* - toward our quality of life entitlements (core concept) and as a consequence our stubbornly protected view of ourselves, of others and about reality generally. They manifest as patterns of thinking and feeling relevant to a presenting reality situation and the role actors who are involved in the situation.

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This is for those interested in reading Freud's article Ego and the Id (courtesy Wikipedia) 

Mapping the new framework: "The Ego and the Id"[edit]

Before defining the ego explicitly, Freud argues for a manner in which unconscious thoughts can be made conscious. He believes the answer lies in the difference between unconscious thoughts and preconscious thoughts: The unconscious are "worked out upon some sort of material that remains unrecognized" (21), while the preconscious are connected to perceptions, especially "verbal images". The difference, then, is a connection to words (more specifically, to the "memory residue" of words.) The goal of psychoanalysis, then, is to connect the freely floating unconscious material to words via psychoanalytic dialogue.

He goes on to note that the ego is essentially a system of perception, so it must be closely related to the preconscious (27). Thus, two primary components of ego are a system of perception and a set of unconscious (specifically, preconscious) ideas. Its relationship to the unconscious id (German: Es),^[1] therefore, is a close one. The ego merges into the id (28). He compares the dynamic to that of a rider and a horse. The ego must control the id, like the rider, but at times, the rider is obliged to guide the horse where it wants to go. Likewise, the ego must, at times, conform to the desires of the id. Finally, the ego is a "modified portion" of the id that can perceive the empirical world (29). It is this idea of perception that leads Freud to call the ego a "body-ego" (31)—a mental projection of the surface of one's physical body.

The blogger, Ajit Karve can be reached at:

+91 9822024037 on WhatsApp - Please identify yourself. or by email at taforyouandme@gmail.com

Ajit Karve works out of Pune

He is a Psychotherapy Practitioner

a BTA in TA from ICTA Kochi

Daily Assertions

Daily Assertions

1. No matter what, I will never ever harm or hurt myself, or harm or hurt another, or cause material damage, or cause financial loss.

2. I am committed to deal with people, situations, problems, difficulties and challenges sanely, safely, effectively, appropriately and to the advantage of all.

3. I am committed to strive to recover childlike joy and happiness.

4. I am committed to rid my mind of thinking lock-jams, feeling lock-jams and emotional lock-jams sooner they occur.

5. I am committed to establish loving, affectionate and rewarding relationships.

6. I am committed to this dictum: better to be safe than be sorry. Better to speak up / inform than to be locked in a mind state of 'what if' or 'what will he / she think'.

7. I am committed to this saying: A stitch in time saves nine.

माझी ठाम प्रतिज्ञा:
मी कधीही, कोणतीही परिस्थिती असो, कधीच स्वतःला, किंवा अन्य कोणालाही विचारांद्वारे, किंवा भावना व्यक्त करून, किंवा शारीरिक इजा पोहोचवून, हानी करणार नाही. तसेच मी कधीही भौतिक अथवा मालमत्तेला नुकसान करणार नाही किंवा नुकसान पोहोचवणार नाही. तसेच मी माझे मानसिक संतुलन हिरवले जाऊन देणार नाही. मी माझे मन सदैव समतूलित ठेवीन व ते तसे राखीन. तसेच मी असे काहीही करणार नाही किंवा होऊन देणार नाही ज्या मुळे माझे स्वतःचे किंवा ईतर कोणालाही आर्थिक नुकसान पहोचेल.

These are the things I do:
1. Think, Feel, Emote
2. Act, Do, Perform
3. Hear, Listen, Speak, Express
4. Talk, Tell, Advise, Guide
5. Perceive, Evaluate, Assess
6. Respond, Counter, Protest, Disagree, React
7. Say to self, decide

I am determined to gain awareness about them.

I am determined to deal with them sanely, safely, appropriately, effectively and to the advantage of all.

The blogger, Ajit Karve can be reached at:

+91 9822024037 on WhatsApp - Please identify yourself. or by email at taforyouandme@gmail.com

Ajit Karve works out of Pune

He is a Psychotherapy Practitioner

a BTA in TA from ICTA Kochi

Meaning of Definition of Transactional Analysis

Meaning of Definition of Transactional Analysis

Link to List of Contents List of Contents

I am explaining the most popular definition: TA is a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change.

• The goal of TA practice is personal growth and personal change. 

Personal Growth means allowing hidden potentialities to sprout. This is much like pulses which sprout when we soak them in water and leave them overnight wrapped in a damp cloth. It means that the seeds for growth are available in our system and all they need is a suitable environment.

Personal Change means being born a new person. One way to achieve this is by redecision. Another way is by reciting assertive statements every day in the morning. See the assertive statements here> Daily Assertions

• The method to use is psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy in TA context is to visit the past to remedy the present. It yields results when we make new decisions and make new choices. It helps us to recover our capacities for OKness, thinking and redeciding.

• The material to work on is Personality. The thing to do is to resolve its anomalies.

This is achieved by freeing the Free Child, installing a Permissive Parent and Empowering the Adult by process of clarification and strengthening its ego state boundaries.

The blogger, Ajit Karve can be reached at:

+91 9822024037 on WhatsApp - Please identify yourself. or by email at taforyouandme@gmail.com

Ajit Karve works out of Pune

He is a Psychotherapy Practitioner

a BTA in TA from ICTA Kochi