The Importance Of Transactional Analysis

Transactional Analysis is a theory in psychology developed by Dr. Eric Berne. It is a method for studying relationships and interactions between individuals, considering that people have multi-faceted personalities. It also examines how a person interacts towards other people based on the notion that an individual’s personality can change over time.
Transaction is the fundamental unit of social intercourse, which is the basic element of this study. According to Berne, if two or more people come across each other, one of them will speak or acknowledge the presence of the others. Another person will then respond in a way related to what the other has said. (Eric Berne, 2015) The transactions between people can be affected by ego states. An

It represents the collection of ideas, beliefs, behaviours and feelings people obtain externally from their parents as they grow up (Mountain & Davidson, 2015). Eventually, people adapt these thoughts and actions. People often do just like what their parents do. This ego state can be regarded as rooted from our past experiences.
Another kind of ego state is the Adult ego state which is oftentimes called the ideal state. In this ego state, people are able to think reasonably. They have proper control over their thoughts and actions. Individuals think and act as grown-ups, fully responsible of his/her actions. Their actions towards things are not unhealthily affected by past events (Mountain & Davidson, 2015).
The last kind of ego state is the Child ego state. It embodies the set of thoughts and behaviours people experience as a child (Mountain & Davidson, 2015). It represents internal events such as emotions and feelings associated with the external events a person perceive when he/she was still a

This type of transaction arises when the response given is from an ego state different from the one that has been invited (Newton, Transactional Analysis - Part I (The Masks We Wear), 2015). This takes place when the receiver does not give the suitable and expected response to the message given to him by the sender.
The third type of transaction is called the Ulterior transaction. This type of transaction happens when the explicit social conversation occurs in parallel with an implicit psychological message (Newton, Transactional Analysis - Part I (The Masks We Wear), 2015). This transpires when the message seems to come from a particular ego state but actually, the message comes from another ego state. The sequence of these types of transactions is called a game. Dr. Eric Berne defined games as the repetitive series of complementary and ulterior transactions developing to a well-defined, predictable result (Eric Berne, 2015). A game is a chain of interactions between two or more individuals in which an individual later obtains a payoff in the form of earning compassion, satisfaction, justification, or some other