Tansactional Analysis (TA) can be helpful in understanding issues that bother us – both in our inner and outer worlds. Eric Berne developed the simplified language of TA from psychoanalytic understandings of how people tick. He observed that everyone (regardless of our age) has three basic ego states:

•    An inner Parent that tells us what we should and shouldn’t do. This is the part that was programmed by our own parents, school teachers, religious teachers and authorities our broader society. This Parent can speak with a supportive voice or a critical tone.

•    An inner Adult that computes the logical likelihood of our succeeding in getting what we want in life (like Mr. Spock in Star Treck) , taking into account our inner and outer awarenesses

•    An inner Child that wants to be able to express its feelings and have what it wants when it wants it. Our inner child may express itself in a simple, natural, unfettered way; it may adapt its expressions of feelings in order to be accepted/ not be rejected; or it may rebel in order to get its own way in the face of opposition or criticism.

This is an extremely helpful map for self-healing. If you find yourself in conflict with other people, and you listen to how they are speaking and to how you are speaking, you may very quickly identify why there is friction between you.

In one of my WHEE-kly articles I discuss how TA can be helpful in guiding our uses of WHEE for self-healing for the issues we identify. http://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/TA_WHEE.html

TA can be a very cerebral approach. An adaptation that helps to connect more deeply with issues is to address the Adult awarenesses through heart as well as through head.

In knowing from our head, we know from factual memories of our experiences; what we were taught about situations and the issues surrounding them; and all our learned rules for how we are to behave. We apply this information to the outer situation and inner issues and reason our way through to a decision on the most appropriate actions. These are left-brain processes, discussed in my recent blog entry.

In knowing from our heart, we rely on feelings and intuitions in order to come to our decisions. Our heart perceives situations as patterns of relationships, and advises us through our feelings. This is the place from which we get 'hunches' or 'hits' that it would be good to develop a relationship with a particular person, or that there is something 'off' about the person or the chemistry of our interacting with them. This is a right-brain way of approaching decisions.

A more complete diagram of the ego states is the representation in Figure 2.

Figure 2.
 

In conventional psychotherapy, traditionally there has been little focus on the intuitive, heart-centered approaches to life. WHEE deliberately invites development and strengthening of intuitive awarenesses. This is an important contribution to making WHEE the potent and successful method it is.

Blessings,

Dan Benor, WHEE-MD