TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Transactional analysis is a psychological tool that describes how people interact. It is based on three ego states: parent, child, and adult.

The parent ego state reflects authoritarian, or directive, feelings and actions. The child ego state reflects childlike feelings and actions, like crying and pouting. The adult ego state reflects mature feelings and actions like being cool-headed and realistic. All three ego states interact to form transactions.

Transactional analysis offers two benefits. Once it is learned, it is a relatively simple approach for detecting and diagnosing interactions. There is also a large body of knowledge behind it. The challenge of transactional analysis is that it is one of many tools for analyzing interactions. Whatever tool is used depends on the person’s knowledge and mastery of the tool.

for Using Transactional Analysis

• Identify the players.
• Define the issue or problem.
• Recognize the ego state for each player (child, parent, adult) by observing feelings and interaction.
• Develop a win-win solution for all players.