Self Help Transactional Analysis - Introduction

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Self Help Transactional Analysis (SHTA)

By Ajit Karve

Abstract

Ajit Karve is a BSc, BTA. He is a Psychotherapist and a TA Researchist. He has developed the Self Help Transactional Analysis Model to help TA trainees benefit from TA learning on the go. This fills a gap. It is this: Transactional Analysis Training does not have Self Therapy or Self Help TA as a specialisation. One therefore necessarily has to depend on a therapist or a counsellor to implement this process for them. SHTA offers easy to use methods to achieve the goals of TA. Two of the methods are: incorporating positive aspects of personality and curing the early child. They were  proposed by Fr. George Kandathil, the founder President of ICTA way back in 2005.

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Reshma’s 10 year old son hasn’t returned home after play in the evening. She calls for him. Her calls are not answered. Fear wells up, followed by anxiety, and distress.

I have some work in hand. My wife wants me to go out with her. I find it difficult to decline her request. I face confusion. Confusion is accompanied by indecision. Sometimes I also face struggle resulting from dilemmas.

A news item in the newspaper attracts my attention. It is about a rail accident in a northern state. Some sixty people are seriously injured. My mind goes out in considering the resulting material and human loss.

I had a tiff with my brother the other day. I felt hurt by a remark he made about me. I remained in a lock-up with the hurt.

Similar incidents of sorts affect us all. Anything that affects us is a reality. We in turn influence events and affect people in our environment. Mutual affect results. This is called a reality situation. Reality situations are full of pulls and pushes of mutual manipulation. Some of us have the capacity to resist manipulation imposed on us and also resist the urge to manipulate others. This capacity is called Social Control. The capacity for social control is sometimes capped because of Psychopathology. Capacity for social control is exercised by using the Reality Principle. A person who exercises reality principle is able to control three forces of nature. They are: himself, others and nature. The person has capacity for awareness and is able to predict before hand the outcomes from different courses of action. Reality Principle is opposed to Pleasure Principle. The Pleasure Principle forces a person to act on urges, drives and impulses without regard for consequences. An independent capacity is afforded by Reality Testing. We have two types of views - subjective views and objective views. Testing subjective views on the touchstone of objective reality is reality testing.

We can generate healthy responses by having awareness for reality, and by having capacity to use reality principle and reality testing.

Other areas where these capacities come handy are dealing with people; discarding unpleasant outcomes; dealing with situations, problems, difficulties, challenges and conflicts; freedom from mind talk; freedom from emotional lock-jams; and, for making decisions, finding solutions and solving problems;

We ourselves generate reality situations unilaterally. We do this by assigning meaning, personalisation, attribution and resulting bias. The word meaning has seven meanings. (Seven meanings of the word Meaning) The non-linguistic usage of words and phrases, and psychological meaning are two important meanings that are relevant in TA. Berne says that Noise improves the quality of communication. He goes on to say that a precise message is psychologically inconceivable. Personalisation means making a part, the whole. We use Procrustes and Unicorn to do this. Procrustes is used to stretch or cut down data to fit a proposition. Unicorn is used to stretch the proposition to justify an observation. We use these two to justify, protect and profess our perception, evaluation and assessment of realities. Justifying, protecting and professing signal script-ridden-ness. Attribution is naming a person for a quality, instead of describing the quality without naming the person. "You are careless"; instead of "You make mistakes" as an example. Berne says that stress is not a thing but an experience of a thing. Saying I am stressed is a self attribution. Bias is having a prejudiced view. Bias too signals script-ridden-ness.

Berne lists ‘a suitable personality development’ as one of five requirements for script to proceed to its pay-off. Therefore, script can be made ineffective by installing a healthy personality structure.

The stopper (injunction), come-on (provocation) and demon (scripty impulse) engineer script to its payoff. They can be overcome by disregarding their command. Scripty impulse and provocation can also be overcome by patiently waiting, postponing and delaying their gratification. Similarly, permissions are anti-dote to injunctions. It is proposed that our mind is the stage on which all events take place. It is our mind that is affected. It is regardless of what happens, where it happens, when it happens, and who or what is the cause. We are held back from doing something in many matters. We are in a way granting permission to the prevailing mind state or condition to prevail and retain hold. As an example my mind is disliking or hating someone or something. I cannot get out of this emotional lock-jam. It is because I have granted permission (in a way) for the lock-jam to prevail. I can get relief by granting permission to my mind by saying this: I am granting permission to my mind to be free of the lock-jam. I am also granting permission to my mind to generate comfortable views of the person or thing as applicable.  I immediately get empowerment to deal with the thought, feeling or emotion prevailing and obtain release from the lock-jam.

Berne describes cure as: Converting Frog into a Prince and Putting up a New Show on the Road. Eight methods help to achieve this. By: 

1. Having capacity to separate person from behaviour. Getting to accept and love the person and ignoring behaviour. 
2. Ending game engagements or being adept in discarding their outcomes; 
3. Getting rid of Rackets; 
4. Becoming Stroke Accounting; 
5. Building an empowered Adult supported by a Permissive Parent and an Acquiescent Free Child; 
6. Healing the Script; 
7. Becoming free of mind-talk; 
8. Becoming free of the tendencies in being engaged in trash;

Self-Help Transactional Analysis Practices help to achieve the many objectives by implementing some practices. They are:

1. Installing a Permissive Parent. Permissive Parent is endocrinologically programmed. An endocrinologically programmed Parent as a Controlling Parent is caring, being supporting and providing security; the Parent as a Nurturing Parent is kind, comforting, caring, helping, assisting and teaching. The process is facilitated by learning to be accepting, loving and friendly, forgiving and forgetting. 

- Being accepting is connecting without bias, attribution or labelling.

- Being loving is generated by noticing, connecting, recognising, saying a word, praising and offering help and assistance. Charity begins at home. The practice of being loving best starts with one's spouse.

- Being friendly is being kind, caring, accepting, loving, forgiving and forgetting.  

- Being forgiving is having the capacity to run an adverse thought again and again through one's mind space till it runs in peace.

- Being forgetting is not holding on to a thought, feeling, emotion, event or happening. Giving permission for it to go away helps.
   
2. Installing an Acquiescent Free Child. Fr. George prescribed two methods to achieve this. One: by eating a biscuit a day over 30-40 minutes; and two: by eating a meal a day over 40 minutes slowly, mindfully, deliberately without engaging in any other activity.

3. By self-contracting for closing escape hatches. It is implemented by saying this: No matter what happens, I will never say, do, act or express in a way that is likely to cause harm to myself, or another, or cause material damage, or go crazy.

4. By self-contracting to be happy and joyful in a childlike way by being forgiving and forgetting.

5. Berne says that rackets are best discarded by allowing them to age in dust on shelves of closed shops. Berne describes rackets as feeling angry, hurt, guilty, righteous or triumphant. They are justified and get escalated when questioned. Rackets are got rid of by replacing them with healthy feelings. Difficulty in doing this is overcome by offering permission to the mind as proposed earlier on. 

6. Games are marked by a switch. Switch is a crossed transaction. It is marked by a shift in the subject or topic being discussed. Usually it takes place because of an attribution. Calling another by a name, by blaming,  or by expressing futility generates a switch. Game helps to reinforce views of one another. Games can be ended by rolling back to the main subject at switch and moving forward to its logical end. Expressing cordiality and having capacity for intimacy also help.  Games occur in informal relationships and in informal settings. Leg pulling and confronting are common in such environments. Games are not possible when people observe discipline, cordiality, mutual love, forgiving and forgetting. 

7. Becoming stroke accounting is easy when one has an Endocrinologically Programmed Parent and an Acquiescent Free Child in place. Accepting, loving, liking, having praise for a quality of another and freedom from bias help in stroke accounting.

8. An Empowered Adult is built by:

a. Pushing impulses from lower brain through the mid-brain to the fore-brain by deliberate activity promoting this process.

b. Patiently waiting, delaying and postponing in responding;

c. Asking how else may I?

d. Committing to ending interactions, and dealing with situations, problems, difficulties, challenges sanely, safely, effectively and conclusively.

9. Healing the Script: Rackety displays, fantasies, autistic thinking, escalated somatic ailments, racketing actions are manifestations of script activation. Driver behaviours and passive behaviours also signal onset of script-ridden-ness. Being script ridden is also manifest when we justify, protect and profess. All these are signs of script take-over. We take any of the manifesting signs and reach the deep seated script beliefs and script feelings by asking these questions:

a. What thought is occupying my mind now? Note the thought.

b. What is the feeling associated with this thought? Note the feeling.

c. What is the emotion associated with this feeling? Note the emotion.

d. What is the body sensation associated with this emotion? Note the body sensation.

e. What is the thinking about me, my capacity, capability, life situation that is running in my mind? Note the thinking?

f. What is the feeling associated with this thinking / thought? Note the feeling.

Having done this the script cure process can be conducted. Go stage by stage backward from f. to a. By following these instructions slowly:

i. Notice the script feeling. Connect to it. Recognise the feeling by naming it. Feel comfortable with it. Accept it. Say it is OK to have it.

ii. Notice the script thought. Connect to it. Recognise the thought by naming it. Feel comfortable with it. Accept it. Say it is OK to have it.

iii. Notice the body sensation. Connect to it. Recognise it by naming it. Feel comfortable with it. Accept it. Say it is OK to have it.

iv. Notice the emotion. Connect to it. Recognise it by naming it. Feel comfortable with it. Accept it. Say it is OK to have it.

v. Notice the feeling. Connect to it. Recognise the feeling by naming it. Feel comfortable with it. Accept it. Say it is OK to have it.

vi. Notice the thought. Connect to it. Recognise the thought by naming it. Feel comfortable with it. Accept it. Say it is OK to have it.

Repeat the process three times. It heals one set of script belief and feeling combine. It is done repeatedly for manifesting script signs for a period of a month. The script gets healed without any intervention or analysis.

10. Ending mind-talk: Mind talk ends when we ask these questions:

a. What is this mind thinking.  Keep wondering for a few seconds, typically 10 seconds.

b. Do I need to think. Keep wondering for a few seconds, typically 10 seconds.

c. Give the answer ‘No’. Wait in suspended abeyance for ten seconds.

Mind talk will cease. Keep using it again and again. The mind will become accustomed to no thinking.

11. Getting rid of trash: The many forms of scripty thinking, feeling, expressing emotions, actions, engagements and displays is trash. They are characterised by being justified, protected and professed. Drivers, passive behaviours, redefining transactions, roles on drama triangle, expressing racket feelings, engaging in racket activities and behaviours, games, stroke economy are their many manifestations. They  are got rid off comfortably once we run the script healing process.

 We create room for self improvement by admitting mistakes, unhealthy behaviours, rackets, and personality defects and flaws. Self responsibility is an important quality that helps in self improvement. Stopping to blame one's upbringing, family or life condition helps. There are five moments in every second. Every moment provides occasion to take action for self improvement. Commitment, determination, sense of purpose and being dedicated to a cause promote neuro-genesis and neuro-plasticity. Cure is guaranteed to one who is patient, determined and goal-oriented.

Click here 01.02 SHTA Philosophical Assumptions, Purpose and Goals to go to the next blog.

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