As I explained in Blog 70, when I reached 2011 I realised that most of my material after that was being published in open access publications, such as the IDTA Newsletter. I am therefore concluding this series of blogs by making it easy for you to click on links and read about any of the topics that interest you. It seems appropriate to me to end this series number 77, as a double lucky number in some cultures, and as a coincidence with my age this year. Here are the links to what I have written so far in 2019. Informal Structures in Organisations- IDTA Newsletter 14:1 6-11 The Autonomy Matrix - Birmingham: UKATA Conference Delegate Pack (now included as a download at juliehay.org) TA Contributions from India - This will be appearing in the next issue of the International Journal of Transactional Analysis Research & Practice - watch out for it at www.ijtarp.org - free access for everyone © 2018 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her.
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As I explained in Blog 70, when I reached 2011 I realised that most of my material after that was being published in open access publications, such as the IDTA Newsletter. I am therefore concluding this series of blogs by making it easy for you to click on links and read about any of the topics that interest you. 2018 Designing a CTA Programme - IDTA Newsletter 13:1 8-19 What is TA Counselling – or is it Coaching? - IDTA Newsletter 13:2 7-25 The Icebergian Unconscious – IDTA Newsletter 13:3 11-17 Group Dynamics: C7P7A7 - IDTA Newsletter 13:4 7-8 Power Potentials – IDTA Newsletter 13:4 17-21 Psychological Boundaries and Psychological Bridges: A Categorisation and the Application of Transactional Analysis Concepts – IJTARP 9:1 52-81
© 2018 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. As I explained in Blog 70, when I reached 2011 I realised that most of my material after that was being published in open access publications, such as the IDTA Newsletter. I am therefore concluding this series of blogs by making it easy for you to click on links and read about any of the topics that interest you. 2017 Exam Techniques for TA Exams - IDTA Newsletter 12:2 15-30 TA Referencing – Back to the original Sources - IDTA Newsletter 12:2 30-31 Autonomy – some of the Early Material - IDTA Newsletter 12:3 16-21 Sailship Success – an update - IDTA Newsletter 12:4 6-10 © 2018 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. As I explained in Blog 70, when I reached 2011 I realised that most of my material after that was being published in open access publications, such as the IDTA Newsletter. I am therefore concluding this series of blogs by making it easy for you to click on links and read about any of the topics that interest you. I am now beginning to think about what will I follow this series with – let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to be reading about. 2016 Why do we need to know about Research? IDTA Newsletter 11:1 3-11 Hay’s Organisational Cone IDTA Newsletter 11:4 19-20 © 2018 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. As I explained in Blog 70, when I reached 2011 I realised that most of my material after that was being published in open access publications, such as the IDTA Newsletter. I am therefore concluding this series of blogs by making it easy for you to click on links and read about any of the topics that interest you. 2015 Avoiding Conflict - IDTA Newsletter 10:1 4-8 Hay's Intervention Wheel - IDTA Newsletter 10:1 6-8 Using a time line for decision making - IDTA Newsletter 10:1 5-6 Transgenerational Script - IDTA Newsletter 10:2 7-11 Four Conceptualisations of the Concept of Script - IDTA Newsletter 10:4 3-6 © 2018 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. As I explained in Blog 70, when I reached 2011 I realised that most of my material after that was being published in open access publications, such as the IDTA Newsletter. I am therefore concluding this series of blogs by making it easy for you to click on links and read about any of the topics that interest you. Here are the relevant links for 2014. Extending the donkey bridge for autonomy IDTA Newsletter 9:1 8 Windows on the World – some additions from China IDTA Newsletter 9:1 13 Time structuring, group imagoes – some ideas on application IDTA Newsletter 9:1 10-13 Permissions – An Essay – download Back to the Future using Cocreative Spirals IDTA Newsletter 9:4 6-10 © 2018 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. As I explained in Blog 70, when I reached 2011 I realised that most of my material after that was being published in open access publications, such as the IDTA Newsletter. I am therefore concluding this series of blogs by making it easy for you to click on links and read about any of the topics that interest you. Here are the relevant links for 2013: Drivers – and Working Styles – an Essay – download Personality Adaptations and AP3 – an Essay – download Injunctions – an Essay – download Analysing ‘people’ within organisations – IDTA Newsletter 8:1 3-5 Systemic Constructivist TA applied to Organisational Consulting – IDTA Newsletter 8:1 5-6 © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. Blog 69 brought me to 2011. As I looked to see what came next, I realised that since then I have mostly published my ideas in ways that make them easily accessible online. Many of them are available on my website as free downloads, and many have been published within the IDTA Newsletter, which is also freely available to download, here. One exception being that I co-wrote an article about the TA Proficiency Awards which I project manage. This appeared in the Transactional Analysis Journal, which is of course only available if you, or your institution, pays for access. Although I can use the material in my own work, I am not allowed to post the article on a website – in fact, the publishers wanted $1500 a year just to let me show a link to it - and that was the reduced fee after I pointed out that it was a volunteer-run social action initiative. Fortunately, if you want to know about the TA Proficiency Awards, you can find plenty of information, here. I am therefore coming to the conclusion of this series of blogs. There seems no point in reproducing something that you may well have read already, and that you can have easy access to in any case. So in this blog I am now giving you a list of topics that I published material about during 2011 and 2012. Each topic is a link that will take you straight to the article – just click on the ones that interest you and happy reading! My next blog will do the same for 2013 – and so on until we reach the present day. Affect Script Psychology IDTA Newsletter 6:1 6-7 Positive Psychology IDTA Newsletter 6:4 5 & 7 Schema Therapy IDTA Newsletter 6:4 6-7 Transactional Analysis and Social Roles IDTA Newsletter 6:4 8 Multi-Party Contracting: A Prison Environment Example IDTA Newsletter 7:4 10-14 Deconfusion – Download of item posted on LinkedIn Transactional Analysis Group © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. In the earlier parts of this series of blogs about supervision, I have been updating material that was included in articles and books that were published in 2004 and 2007 (Hay, 2004a, 2004b, 2007). Back then I was writing about supervision for coaches and for trainers within organisations; in Blogs 64-66 I adjusted the material so that it would apply to any helping practitioner. Now I am moving on to later material that I produced that was specifically about how we can conduct supervision online (Hay, 2010, 2011). E-Supervision Back in 2010, I was writing about e-supervision using Skype – I still use Skype but I also now use Zoom as often there is a better connection in some areas of the world. I am sure there are other similar ways to connect. Whichever is used, using the Internet in this way gives us several advantages:
Because the online services offer conferencing options, it also means that:
In terms of theory related to supervision, in Hay (2010) I referred to the 3Ps – although I incorrectly referencing all of them to Crossman rather than Crossman (1966) for permission and protection and Steiner (1968) for adding potency. I wrote then that:
In Hay (2011) I referred to Goffman’s (1974) material on how frames and the concept of presence can aid an understanding of processes. I wrote that Goffman proposed that “we employ frames or schemata of interpretation that are socially shared and culture specific. Even coaches and supervisors who are unfamiliar with Internet communications will already have frames about telephone interaction and these will include the ‘real’ presence of the parties involved even though they are in different locations. The key is to add frames of reference about supervision to the mix so that we become engrossed in the supervisory process and take for granted the technology and software that allowing [sic] us to connect. When technical problems interrupt connection, we will be forced to shift to frames about the connection process and may need time to get our focus back onto supervision once we are re-connected. Effective use of e-supervision may, therefore, depend on the flexibility of our frame-making.” (p.246). I also summarised some of the benefits and challenges. Although the lack of face-to-face contact is often stated as the principal challenge to e-supervision, paradoxically is also a significant benefit. “The lack of face-to face contact encourages both supervisee and supervisor to stay in the present rather than experiencing the full impact of transference and/or counter-transference… reinforced because the kinaesthetic connection is being modified or filtered by the technology. The supervisee is less likely to engage in strong emotional reactions or expect the supervisor to take over the problem.….The supervisor is less likely to feel drawn into rescuing (or persecuting or being victimised… less of a pull into a parent-child or co-dependency mode.” (p.242). The context is also one in which mindfulness can occur more readily. “This ‘practice of being present with the immediate experience of our lives’ (Aggs and Bambling 2010) can be facilitated …..“ (p.242). This means that the supervisee, and the supervisor, are more likely to stay in the here-and-now with each other. Finally, I pointed out that we may need to change our “channel of communication or lead representational system (Bandler and Grinder 1979). Many of us are accustomed to taking in information predominantly through sight; with fewer people using auditory as their main channel. However, unless we have a physical impairment, we will process both visual and auditory stimuli – plus of course kinaesthetic …… Working electronically means that we will focus much more on what we are hearing, including the words and what they might represent, tone of voice, any hesitations, sighs, laughter, the ‘music behind the words’, and what is not being said .…. if our own representational system is auditory we may function within each supervision session just as we do face-to-face. If our lead system is visual, we may need time and practice to pay more attention to our auditory channel; fortunately our neurology is such that we have the spare brain capacity to set up the necessary new neural pathways. In either case, we can still take in information through our kinaesthetic channel, although some of us will find that this is usually stimulated via our visual or auditory channel and may not serve us as well until we get used to the shift required.” (p.242-243). References Aggs, Cameron & Bambling, (2010) Teaching mindfulness to psychotherapist in clinical practice: the Mindful Therapy Programme Counselling and Psychotherapy Research 10:4 278-286 Bandler, Richard & Grinder John (1979) Frogs into Princes, Moab UT: Real People Press 1979 Crossman, Pat (1966) Permission and Protection Transactional Analysis Bulletin 5:19 152-154 Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience New York: Harper Row Steiner, Claude (1968) Transactional Analysis as a Treatment Philosophy Transactional Analysis Bulletin 7:27 61-64 Hay, Julie (2004a) Supervision for Coaches Self & Society 32:3 Aug/Sept 34-40 Hay, Julie (2004b) Supervision Train the Trainer, 11 Hay, Julie (2007) Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches Maidenhead: Open University Press Hay, Julie (2010) Skype Supervision Chap 14 in Virtual Coach, Virtual Mentor David Clutterbuck (ed) USA: Information Age Publishing, 233-236 Hay, Julie (2011) E-supervision: application, benefits and considerations Chap 19 in Coaching and Mentoring Supervision Theory and Practice Bachkirova, Tatiana, Jackson P & Clutterbuck, David (eds) Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press 239-248 © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. Supervision is a shared process so, whether you are reading this as a practitioner or as an existing or potential supervisor, it is helpful to have a model for analysing the supervision process itself. This allows both parties to engage in ongoing professional development – of their skills of supervision or of being supervised. Analysing the Supervision Process The following is a simplified version of C7P7A7, which I have developed for use when analysing group dynamics (see Blog 55). For supervision, it began in 2004 as C4P4A4 and by 2007 it had become C5P5A5. For supervision, there is a limit to what we can keep in mind, but the following can be considered roughly chronologically, in three categories:
Context What is the context for the supervision? What is the context for the work being supervised? Are there any links? Are the boundaries clear? Does the supervisee have adequate access to good structure, strokes and stimulation outside the supervision? Contact How well are we making contact with each other? At an overt level, are there signs of rapport being established? Do we feel that we are truly connecting? What is the supervisor’s role here in providing the supervisee with structure, strokes and stimulation? Contract How clear is the contracting? Does the contract cover the procedural, professional and psychological levels? Does it address the results intended, the allocation of responsibilities, and the relationships that will apply? What contracts exist/should exist with other parties/stakeholders? Content What is the supervision about? Is this an appropriate topic? Did the supervisee determine the content? Should the supervisor direct the supervisee to specific content? As the supervision progresses, are we staying with the content and not going off on tangents? Contrasts How are we different? How are we similar? How might our differences help or hinder the process? How might our similarities help or hinder the process? What cultural differences might there be between our maps of the world? Paradigms Are there significant differences in the paradigms, or models of the world, of supervisor and supervisee? What is being done to understand and respect the supervisee’s paradigms, especially when they have a different cultural background to the supervisor? Personal In what ways do our styles differ and what impact might this be having? In what ways are our styles similar on what impact might this be having? How aware are we of our personal reactions? How are we sharing these appropriately with each other? Professional Is there an appropriate level of professional expertise, knowledge, experience? Is the supervisor respecting the professional competence of the supervisee (and vice versa)? What professional ethics and practices apply? Psychological How 'straight' are the interactions? Are there ulterior transactions, discounting, psychological game playing? How are we handling the stages of dependence, counter-dependence, independence and interdependence? What about transference and counter-transference? How might we appropriately bring to the surface anything occurring at the psychological level? Parallels Are there 'parallel processes' in effect, where difficulties between practitioner/supervisee and client are replayed between supervisor and supervisee? Are processes within the supervision a mirror of relationships the practitioner, or the supervisor, has in their personal or professional life? Autonomy Are we behaving in autonomous, script-free ways? Are we aware and in the here-and-now? What life positions, or windows on the world, are in evidence? Is the supervision leading to increased autonomy for the supervisee (and supervisor)? Authenticity Are we using our ‘real selves’ in the supervision? Are we accessing our emotions and reactions as sources of information within the supervisory process? Are we owning our vulnerability and willing to share openly so that we can check what belongs to the supervision process and what does not? Alternatives Is a range of options considered before decisions are made? Is there discounting occurring - are we ‘overlooking’ some aspects of the situation, its significance, the possible solutions, the skills available, the strategies for implementation, or the ultimate success factors? Aims Whose aims are we working towards – those of the supervisor or of the supervisee? How well are we working within the aims of the original contract for this supervision session? How well are we working within the long-term aims regarding the professional development of the supervisee? Action Is the supervisee being enabled to identify potential actions that will increase their competence with the client? And with clients in general? Are clear action plans being developed where appropriate, with measurable, manageable and motivational objectives? Is the sequence one of decision, direction, destination? References Hay, Julie (2004a) Supervision for Coaches Self & Society 32:3 Aug/Sept 34-40 Hay, Julie (2004b) Supervision Train the Trainer, 11 Hay, Julie (2007) Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches Maidenhead: Open University Press © 2019 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. Yet more on the theme of what I wrote about supervision in 2004 (Hay, 2004a, 2004b, 2007), in this blog I describe how I have experienced supervision formats over the years, followed by some ideas about how a supervisee can prepare for supervision so as to get the most out of it. Supervision in Practice Within the transactional analysis training community, supervision is typically provided by:
Supervision is probably best conducted in time limited slots of about 20 minutes or so. This ensures the supervision is focused and that the supervisee does not become overloaded with feedback. If more time is needed, it can be negotiated although often a better option will be to raise any additional issues that arise as separate pieces of supervision. The basic supervision slot may well be followed by a process review, during which the process between supervisor and supervisee is analysed (without going back into the content). This will often increase the levels of awareness of both parties, and any observers, considerably. In addition to one-to-one working between a supervisor and supervisee, supervision can also be conducted:
Preparing for Supervision The preparation process is as follows:
You might also find it useful to work with a checklist or summary of information about the client/participant(s) and what you are working on with them – there is a TA-based Supervision Preparation Form at https://www.juliehay.org/article-downloads.html#forms which you are welcome to download and use. References Hay, Julie (2004a) Supervision for Coaches Self & Society 32:3 Aug/Sept 34-40 Hay, Julie (2004b) Supervision Train the Trainer, 11 Hay, Julie (2007) Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches Maidenhead: Open University Press © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. Multi-Party Contracts and Supervision Continuing my theme of what I wrote about supervision in 2004 and 2007 (Hay, 2004a, 2004b, 2007), I looked at what I saw as one of the key differences between psychotherapy and other forms of practice that are about helping people develop - the number of parties involved in the process. I often joked with my colleagues that developmental applications of transactional analysis needed more skill than TA psychotherapy: for the psychotherapist there was often only them and their client, whereas those working developmentally as trainers, educators, coaches consultants, facilitators, and so on, often had to deal with the client, an organisation, an HR director, a line manager and maybe even more senior managers – or perhaps they had a classroom of children and also had to deal with the parents, the head teacher of the school, the education authority, etc, etc. I did recognise that psychotherapists also sometimes work with families, need to keep in mind that their clients often work within organisations, and they too sometimes work within organisations such as therapy centres, in-house services, hospitals, charities, etc. Like other practitioners, psychotherapist may also be paid for by an organisation. This adds to the complexity of the contract, both for the professional work and for the supervision. In addition to supervisor and supervisee, therefore, it may be important to take into account:
In addition to considering who else, apart from the supervisor and the supervisee, are ‘stakeholders’, the supervisor and supervisee need to consider:
Examples of complex multi-party contracts were shown in Blogs 21 and 22 and are reproduced below– and for each of these we need to imagine that there is an additional stakeholder – the supervisor – who has a connection with the practitioner and an implicit connection with all of the other stakeholders. References Hay, Julie (2004a) Supervision for Coaches Self & Society 32:3 Aug/Sept 34-40 Hay, Julie (2004b) Supervision Train the Trainer, 11 Hay, Julie (2007) Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches Maidenhead: Open University Press © 2019 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. This blog is a continuation of my presentation of material that I had published (Hay, 2004a, 2004b, 2007) that related to coaches and trainers which I have updated to be relevant for a wide range of helping professionals. The topic for this time is contracting. I am a transactional analyst and contracting is a key principle of TA – if there is no contract then TA is not being practised (even though TA concepts may be being applied). Over the years, much of what has been written elsewhere about contracting has come from practices within the TA community that have existed for many years. A contract may or may not be written but in many respects it resembles a formal legal contract – the parties must have entered into it of their own free will, it must be for a lawful outcome, it should specify clearly the rights and responsibilities of the parties and when these will cease to apply, and ideally there should be a clause about how the contract itself can be changed. The 3R’s of Contracting Over the years, I have developed a framework that helps supervisor and supervisee to set up a psychologically healthy contract, both for their overall relationship and for each supervisory session. Being a fan of donkey bridges (those gimmicky ways we help people remember things by using alliteration or similar techniques), I call it the 3 R’s of supervision:
Levels of Contracting We can further clarify the contracting between supervisor and supervisee by considering the levels at which the contract operates, this time using the donkey bridge of PPP:
In my next blog, I will be looking at what happens when there are multi-party contracts – when there are more stakeholders than just the supervisor, supervisee/practitioner and the client. References Hay, Julie (2004a) Supervision for Coaches Self & Society 32:3 Aug/Sept 34-40 Hay, Julie (2004b) Supervision Train the Trainer, 11 Hay, Julie (2007) Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches Maidenhead: Open University Press © 2019 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. In 2004 I had articles published that presented ideas about supervision for coaches (Hay, 2004a) and for trainers (Hay, 2004b); a few years later Open University Press published my book entitled Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches (Hay, 2007). This blog and those following it are based on those articles and that book, with further updates now so that the material will be useful for any ‘helping practitioner’, whether coach, trainer, educator, consultant, psychotherapist, counsellor. . . I know my thoughts When I began my professional training in transactional analysis (TA), I had already been an organisational trainer for some years. I had been trained in various approaches to people skills, leadership, teambuilding and so on, but had never experienced the type of supervision that was, and still is, routinely practised within the TA community. In my two articles during 2004 I explained that, for me, the word ‘supervision’ is really super-vision, as in someone who can see more than or at a different level to that at which others see. Because TA began life as a psychotherapy approach, supervision was engaged in as a matter of course. As TA extended into other fields of application, the potency of supervision readily became apparent to those of us in the developmental fields. The requirement, and hence opportunity, to review our professional work through a process of self, peer and supervisor analysis leads to significant increases in self-awareness, ability to analyse ‘in the moment’, understanding of the process with clients, skills at identifying more options, and all of the extra competence this leads to. Supervision is an extremely effective form of continuous professional development! Defining Supervision We can define the nature of supervision based on an idea by Brigid Proctor (1986):
Choosing a Supervisor As a founding director of the European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC), I was aware at that time that coach/mentoring (so called by EMCC because so often the terms are used interchangeably) had become somewhat of a growth industry, with coaches being drawn not only from organisational trainers but also from a range of other occupations, including: retired managers and business people, occupational psychologists, and therapists and counsellors. The latter were likely to have had experience of supervision only with a therapeutic bias, and the former often believed that supervision was something junior managers did when they oversaw the work of their subordinates. In response to requests from members for advice on how to meet the EMCC Code of Ethics requirement to engage in regular supervision, I drafted an interim guidance statement (Hay, 2004a) that contained some criteria to help members evaluate potential supervisors. I recognised at that time that qualified supervisors were available in various fields (such as TA, where there is an international qualification) but there was a lack of supervisors who had been trained and accredited within specific professional frameworks such as coaching. The guidelines reflected the fact that many qualified supervisors would have little experience of coaching, albeit they were experienced therapists. Supervisees needed to consider how much they needed their supervisor to understand the nature of coaching, and how competent the supervisee would be at ‘converting’ the supervisor’s contribution across to a different setting. Since then I have updated the suggested criteria to apply to a range of helping practitioners – trainers, educators, coaches, psychotherapists, counsellors, consultants . . . anyone whose professional practice will benefit from super-vision. Keeping in mind that the ‘perfect’ supervisor does not exist for anyone, the ‘good enough’ supervisor will meet as many of the following as possible but not necessarily all of them:
References Hay, Julie (2004a) Supervision for Coaches Self & Society 32:3 Aug/Sept 34-40 Hay, Julie (2004b) Supervision Train the Trainer, 11 Hay, Julie (2007) Reflective Practice and Supervision for Coaches Maidenhead: Open University Press Proctor, Brigid (1986) ‘Supervision: A co-operative exercise in accountability’ in A. Marken & M Payne (eds) Enabling and Ensuring: Supervision in Practice Leicester National Youth Bureau/Council for Education and Training in Youth and Community Work. 21-23 © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. In my last blog I summarised some of the content from an article I wrote about making meaning (Hay, 2010). This blog is based on the last part of that article, where I wrote about how we need to pay attention to how we make meaning ourselves, if we are not inadvertently to cocreate in a negative way by having our own meaning-making ‘leak’ into our clients’ minds. To become aware requires 2nd order cybernetics (von Foerster 1995), so we can step outside our frame of reference to review that same frame of reference. This is not easy – it is like asking a fish to understand water. Hence, we need to develop our skill at reflection and we need prompting by others who are outside our frame of reference (i.e. in their own frame that differs from ours – so not our best friend who is likely to share a similar outlook to ours). We can achieve this by reflecting at three levels:
To finish, an example to illustrate how a DTA practitioner used the 3 levels to check the impact within their work of their meaning making processes. In teaching a class (of managers or schoolchildren!) Pat (the unisex teacher), noticed (reflection-in-action) that Chris (the unisex student) was nodding and smiling a lot. Pat recognised feeling encouraged by this, of wishing that more students behaved like Chris, and of stroking Chris for being so engaged in class discussions. Afterwards, Pat thought about the lesson (reflection-in-action) and realised that two other students had not contributed at all to the class discussions, that some of Chris’s comments had contained questionable elements (e.g. incorrect explanations), and that Pat had an unpleasantly familiar feeling of ‘here I go again’. In reflection-in-supervision, Lee (the unisex supervisor) helped Pat to recognise the discounting involved, because of Pat’s need for strokes, how a different stroking pattern was needed outside the classroom to eliminate ‘stoke-dependency on students’, and how the ‘here I go again’ feeling might well be a premonition of a game switch to come (such as Chris or another student becoming Persecutor and Pat ending up as Victim). References Hay, Julie (2010) Making Meaning. IDTA Newsletter 5:2 7-9 Schon, D (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books von Foerster, H. (1995). The Cybernetics of Cybernetics (2nd edition). Minneapolis: FutureSystems Inc. © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. From 2010 onwards I began to write articles for the Institute of Developmental Transactional Analysis (IDTA) Newsletter. Those newsletters are readily available for anyone to see on the IDTA website – www.instdta.org or if you want to go straight to the newsletters click on http://bit.ly/2rYizZS. The following is therefore an updated summary of what I wrote in an article about Making Meaning (Hay, 2010). At the time, I had recently compiled a reflective enquiry project as part of my studies for an MSc in TA Psychotherapy. This got me thinking about how we do make meaning, and how our own versions of meaning-making may impact on our clients, whether these be in therapy, organisational or educational settings. I was prompted to the choice of topic because I was moving from many years steeped in classical TA, where Berne told us to share the theory with the client, into relational TA, where the focus is on how we can work with the process that occurs when clients unknowingly seek to recreate their early scenes so they can reach a different conclusion. Although this sounds like it would only apply to psychotherapy, my organisational background meant that I could easily see how really listening to someone in an organisation could often make a huge difference to their perspective – hence the increasing demand for coaching – and how in an educational setting a teacher might easily have a therapeutic impact on a pupil just by listening to them. When I had been told years ago that I was a post-modernist, I had to ask what that word meant! I came to understand that it means that I am someone who believes that there are many ways to understand our world – as opposed to modernism where the belief is that there is only one truth. I realised that this explained my reluctance to apply diagnostic labels – not just because Berne cautioned against it but because it imposes on an individual the way in which the world is constructed by others. I knew, for example that there were many culturally based problems with the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder) and that diagnoses changed when the DSM was reissued, rather like the ways in which fashions change over time and between cultures. In a special issue of the Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ), Allen & Allen (1997) suggested that the constructionist therapist (constructivism being similar to post-modernism) would aim to help clients conceptualise themselves differently. They wrote of the 'last permission' which they described as being allowed to make meaning for ourselves rather than in the way that we were taught to do so as we were growing up. I add to this that it is also about enabling individuals to make meaning in their own way – it is not just that they make a different meaning but that they are able to change the way they approach the task of meaning-making. It was many years later that Summers & Tudor (2000) extended Allen & Allen’s ideas into cocreativity – we help clients re-conceptualise through the creation of something new that comes into existence as we interact. This means, of course, that something new comes into existence in the practitioner’s head as well as in the client’s head. In the original article, I went on to comment about the impact of culture and how our culture as practitioners might match or differ from the client’s culture, pointing out that we need to bring such differences into conscious awareness lest we over-identify with some clients or misinterpret the meaning-making processes of others. I suggested that we asked ourselves the following questions:
We need to pay attention to our own meaning-making lest it ‘leak’ into our clients minds as we cocreate. In my next blog I will present the rest of the article, with my suggestions for how we need to develop our skills of reflection and how some of this needs to be done in supervision. Reference Allen J & Allen B (1997) A new Type of Transactional Analysis and One Version of Script work with a Constructionist Sensibility Transactional Analysis Journal 27 (2) 89-98 Hay, Julie (2010) Making Meaning. IDTA Newsletter 5:2 7-9 Summers, G &Tudor, K (2000) Cocreative Transactional Analysis Transactional Analysis Journal 30 (1) 23-40 © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. The final part of my blog about what I wrote in INTAND newsletter (Hay, 2003). Organisations spend a lot of time and money on training and development activities that are designed to encourage employees to show initiative, or to prompt managers to empower their staff. Transference and counter transference processes undermine these activities, yet they are rarely mentioned as part of the training.
There are several ways in which we can help people (including ourselves) to become aware of these processes so they can be eliminated:
Using Transference It may seem strange to suggest we could use transference but therapists do this routinely to enhance their work with clients. For example, a client who thinks the therapist is a good parent will be more likely to act on the therapist’s advice; a client who thinks the therapist is ‘bad’ can be allowed to work through their issues without being punished by the therapist. Other helping professionals, and managers, can also use the transference process in a positive way, provided they are aware of it. This awareness is the key – once transference and/or countertransference are recognised, the professional uses this knowledge to plan more effective ways of interacting, as outlined in Table 3. Examples might be:
Reference Hay, Julie (2003) Transference INTAND Newsletter 11:1 1-8 © 2019 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. Refracted Transactions In my very first blog in this Ideas series (Blog 1, October 2017), I reproduced the short item that appeared back in 1986 about refracted transactions. I wrote more about this in 2003, as you can read below. This concept was developed by Julie Hay and Robert Orr during a TA in Education Workshop run on 16 November 1985 and described within a review of the day, written by the late Vivienne Gill, that appeared in ITA News No. 13, Spring 1986. It is another way of understanding the process of transference.
In a refracted transaction, the frame of reference ‘distorts’ the perceived transaction, in much the same way that water refracts light, so that the transaction appears to emanate from a different ego state than that actually activated. Figure 1 shows a typical example. The new employee has just joined the organisation and has been given an instruction (1) by the supervisor – who, being a typical supervisor, is interacting from (Controlling) Parent to (Adapted) Child. The new employee is keen to learn and wants to understand what is required – so asks a question about it (2 – shown as half dotted and half solid line), intending to interact from (Functional) Adult to (Functional) Adult. The supervisor has transferred a child identity onto the new employee, so refracts the transaction as if it is coming from Child (3 – also shown as half-dotted and half-solid line). Asking “why” is picked up as an inappropriate challenge from a child, so the supervisor thinks the new employee is misbehaving and responds even more firmly from Parent (4 - which would be a repeat of 1)). Most new employees will, at this point, intuitively recognise that logical thought on their part is discouraged. They will, therefore, desist from thinking in future – at least whilst they are at work! The dotted sections of the transaction lines represent parts of interactions that are ‘ulterior’ or unknown to the individual on that side of the frame of reference; the solid lines are the transactions that are consciously known to the respective individuals. The new employee ‘knows’ they interacted from Adult and has no idea the supervisor is perceiving it as from Child instead. Likewise, the supervisor ‘knows’ that the employee transacted from Child and has no idea of the intended transaction to the Supervisor’s Adult. References Gill, Vivienne (1986) TA in Education ITA News, No. 13 p.1 Hay, Julie (2003) Transference INTAND Newsletter 11:1 1-8 © 2018 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. Following on from Blog 58, here are some examples of how the various transference formats may show up within organisational settings. Competitive transference In the following examples, Chris would set up a Parent-Parent competitive symbiosis, while Vijay would set up a Child-Child competitive symbiosis. Both create scenarios where there is an apparent rivalry over who gets to exhibit one particular ego state. Chris had a tendency to take charge of project meetings, even when not in the chair. Chris would display Controlling Parent behaviour, whilst at the same time believing that the chairperson was being overly controlling. Chris would challenge decisions made by the chairperson, try to run the agenda and determine the time allocations for topics, push forward decisions without giving others chance to comment, whilst at the same time accusing the chairperson of being an incompetent control freak. Vijay, on the other hand, would get into a competitive symbiosis with a co-trainer, Andy, about who was the most needy. Whenever Andy talked about needing a break or asked Vijay to take the lead in a training session, Vijay would feel a similar need for a break and would want Andy to take the lead in the next session. In this way, Vijay and Andy would end up competing over who was going to get taken care while the other one did the work. Concordant transference In the following examples, Lauren creates a false Parent-Parent empathy while Prakash opts for Child-Child empathy – in both cases the assumptions of being the same mean that the parties avoid certain topics, either because they think their opinions are the same or because they think they know how the other person feels. Lauren worked as an external change management consultant. When meeting new clients, Lauren had a tendency to assume that the client had the same values about how a healthy organisation should operate. This would mean that Lauren made assumptions instead of checking thoroughly to establish client opinions and requirements. With some clients, the assumptions Lauren made were close enough to reality for it to be virtually unnoticeable. However, every so often Lauren would have major problems when it transpired later that the client had very different views. Interventions designed by Lauren would then have to be cancelled or significantly amended in order to meet the true requirements of the client and their organisation. And, of course, there are clients who assume the consultant shares their opinions, so they commission the work and then rely on trust rather than any accurate monitoring of how the interventions are conducted. Such clients may also conclude that any shortcomings are caused by participants rather than the consultant being at fault. Prakash was a mentor who would imagine that the mentee felt the same way, had the same emotional responses, wanted the same things in life, as Prakash did. Prakash would therefore feel that a very high level of empathy had been established. This would mean that Prakash avoided raising the sort of topics or feedback that Prakash would have found personally upsetting. Because of this, the mentee was denied opportunities for increased self-awareness and development. Mentees may operate the same kind of transference – they then avoid telling the mentor about anything that the mentor might find upsetting or embarrassing. Instead, the mentee censors their own comments – and might, for instance, be afraid to use the mentor to help them review the pros and cons of leaving the organisation because they believe the mentor will be upset to lose their mentee. Conflictual transference Lim-lim has grown up with an overly-controlling caregiver, with whom Lim-lim had consistently behaved rebelliously (and been punished). Lim-lim had also spent many years transferring these controlling characteristics onto teachers, so that Lim-lim was rebellious towards even the most easy-going teachers. Lim-lim now did the same to managers, relating to them just as if they were the original caregiver. This resulted in many Parent-Child interactions in which managers tried unsuccessfully to tell Lim-lim what to do and Lim-lim agreed and refused to comply. Lim-lim works in a large organisation and has been transferred several times – Lim-lim’s current manager also grew up with a very controlling caregiver but has opted to copy that person so is unwittingly filling the parent role that Lim-lim seems to need to rebel against. Pat had children and had adopted a very Controlling Parent way of behaving towards them. When at work, Pat behaved as if other staff, especially Pat’s subordinates, were really rebellious children and needed to be treated as such. This led to much conflict – even the fairly easy-going members of staff found themselves feeling resentful and rebellious over the way Pat interacted with them. Pat, of course, saw these reactions as proof of the need to treat people as children. When someone like Lim-lim ends up working for someone like Pat, they both feel that their views of how to treat people are validated. Co-dependent transference Due to circumstances, Alia has grown up without nurturing caregivers but had been aware that other children, especially those in films and TV programmes, seemed to have caring parents. Alia was therefore yearning, out of awareness, for such a parent figure. This led Alia to behave in a ‘helpless’ way, whilst transferring nurturing tendencies onto almost everyone who was older and/or more senior then Alia. At the same time, Kim had grown up in an overly-nurturing environment and had somehow opted to adopt very nurturing characteristics. Having practised with siblings and dolls, Kim was ‘programmed’ to take care of anyone younger or more junior – so would expect to adopt a Nurturing Parent role to their ‘needy’ child. Once Kim and Alia started working together, they seemed to be locked into a Parent-Child relationship. The symbiosis led each to believe they couldn’t function on their own – it needed both of them to create one full set of ego states between them. Note that it is possible to have a healthy symbiosis for a real child with a real parent. This is because such a relationship rejects reality and does not involve transference – the child really does need parenting until they reach a certain age. Couples may also set up functional symbiosis. For example, one does the gardening and the other cares for the house. No transference is involved as long as both recognise these as choices – and know that they are capable of swapping tasks if necessary. Reference Hay, Julie (2003) Transference INTAND Newsletter 11:1 1-8 © 2018 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. Earlier this year (Hay, 2018) I included some fairly brief information about transference and countertransference in an article about boundaries that included a section on professional boundaries. In the second edition of my Transactional Analysis for Trainers book (Hay, 2009) included more information in the chapter about professional super-vision. Several years before that (Hay, 2003) I have related the same idea to trainers and facilitators working with groups of managers within organisations – this version is extracted from below. Trainers sometimes find that groups of grown-up participants will behave as if they are children at school – not asking questions, whispering to each other, even treating the trainer as someone who may ridicule them if they give a wrong answer.
Facilitators sometimes find that group members will behave as if they are with their own family – acting as if the facilitator or group leader is a parent or grandparent, behaving like the children they once were, even engaging in displays of ‘sibling rivalry’ as they try to impress the leader. We can understand these and similar situations by using the concept of transference. Transference Everyday use of English tells us that ‘transfer’ means something gets shifted across – as in footballers joining new teams. From a TA perspective, transference is the term for what is happening when we shift across the characteristics of one person (ourself or someone else) onto another. So we may project our own good or bad points onto somebody else, which will mean that we like them a lot because they seem to be just like us, or we dislike them a lot because we have invested them with our own failings – in this case we probably also manage to repress our own awareness of having the faults ourself. This is why it is easier to get on with people once we accept that we are not perfect ourselves; once we recognise that we are still OK even with faults, we no longer have to project those faults onto others and can relate to people as who they really are. Or it may be the characteristics of someone else that we transfer, as when we relate to authority figures as if they are one of our parents or caregivers, or to junior employees as if they are our children (or nieces or nephews or children of friends). This accounts for the common pattern in organisations where each successive level of management relates to the level above as if they are the parent and to the level below as if they are the child. An interesting reversal of this pattern is when a male manager relates to a female secretary as if she is his mother – often reinforced by her responding to him as if he really is a small boy who needs to be scolded into getting to meetings on time and so on. Countertransference Countertransference is the term used for the ways in which a therapist responds to the transference of their client. However, what is thought of as countertransference will sometimes be simply the person’s own transference. For example, managers will often claim on training programmes that they are forced to behave as parents because their subordinates behave so much like children – when their subordinates are on the training courses, they of course claim that they act like children only because their managers are incapable of behaving in any way other than as parents! Professional helpers monitor their reactions for countertransference because this gives then valuable information about how to help their clients. If a consultant recognises feelings of wanting to take care of the client, they can check whether this is a realistic, here-and-now reaction that is also an appropriate thing to do – or whether it is a reaction to helplessness being exhibited by the client. For instance, if a course participant is clearly unable to deal with being bullied by their local manager, it may be appropriate (and an organisational requirement) for the trainer to report this to senior management. However, a strong urge by a coach to intervene with the client’s manager over something like management interference in a project may be outside the contract, part of a game of ‘Let’s you and them fight’; and triggered by a combination of the client’s avoidance tactics and the coach’s Rescuer tendencies. Categories of Transference When we look more closely at transference, we can identify several formats. Novellino & Moiso (1990) relate transferential relationships to three levels of impasse: monadic, where the client merges themself with the therapist; diadic, where the client projects all of the ‘good’ or all of the ‘bad’ that they believe exists within themself onto the therapist; and triadic, where the client projects their own Parent ego state (P2), the content of which has been copied from others, onto the therapist. Clarkson (1992) writes of: complementary, where the client seeks a symbiotic relationship with their therapist; concordant, where the client projects aspects of themself onto the therapist so they seem to be alike; destructive, which is acting out or similar that means therapy cannot proceed; and facilitative transference, where the client chooses a therapist so the client can still use effective behaviour patterns from the past. For developmental TA purposes, we can categorise on two dimensions:
In later parts of this blog I will provide some examples, show how a refracted transaction (Gill, 1986) is a form of transference, give some ideas for avoiding transference, and conclude with ideas for using transference. References Clarkson, Petrūska (1991) Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy London: Routledge Gill, Vivienne (1986) TA in Education ITA News, No. 13 p.1 Hay, Julie (2003) Transference INTAND Newsletter 11:1 1-8 Hay, Julie (2009) Transactional Analysis for Trainers 2nd edition Hertford: Sherwood Publishing Hay, Julie (2018) Psychological Boundaries and Psychological Bridges: A Categorisation and the Application of Transactional Analysis Concepts International Journal of Transactional Analysis Research & Practice 9:1 52-81 Novellino, Michele & Moiso, Carlo, (1990) The Psychodynamic Approach to Transactional Analysis Transactional Analysis Journal 20:3 187-192 © 2018 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. The ideas in the diagram below evolved during a workshop on developmental coaching and mentoring being run by Julie Hay (2002) and attended by Pauline Sagoe, Vivianne Naslund and Diane Richardson. Between the four of us, we enjoyed producing a new donkey bridge for the ways that ego states interact. For each transaction, we show the positive and potential negative result, plus the overall impact when Parent, Adult and Child are operating in an integrated way. Reference Hay, Julie (2002) Coaching Transactions INTAND Newsletter 10:3 9 © 2018 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. The following is an activity that was designed during a TA training weekend (Hay, 1999). It is an activity that will energise the group whilst at the same time increasing familiarity with the various forms of time structuring. Note that we do not include psychological games – we chose only to demonstrate positive forms of time structuring. Instead of games, we have added a time structure called ‘supporting’, where the stroking is partway between the level of intensity for activities and intimacy. The activity is best performed to Cajun music – hence the name! Country and Western music would also work. Have the group stand in a circle. The following are the movements used to represent each time structure: Withdrawal: stand with backs to each other, with arms folded – to represent no contact, no stroking occurring. Ritual: turn to face each, make Namasté (for those not familiar with this form of greeting, you press your palms together as you raise your hands in front of your face, whilst looking towards the person(s) you are greeting). Pastiming: hold up your palms, facing towards the others, and rotate your hands (an optional extra here is to split your fingers as in the Vulcan greeting in Star Trek!). Working or Playing (Activity): join by putting right hands into the centre to form a star, then move 8 paces to the right followed by 8 paces to the left (as in country dancing). Supporting: cross arms and hold hands with those on either side of you, then all lean outwards to show you trust each other, and in this position repeat the movements of 8 steps to the right and 8 steps to the left. Closeness (intimacy): all lean in a lot, and drop your hands so that you can hold hands with your neighbours. Withdrawal: to complete the sequence of interaction, return to the position for being alone by stepping back, turning around, hold hands briefly then let go, step out one pace and fold your arms. We had a lot of fun designing this activity. We hope you too will enjoy it as a demonstration of the different time structures. Reference Hay, Julie (1999) Cajun Team Meld INTAND Newsletter 7:4 14-15 © 2018 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. In Blog 26 I presented C5P5A5 as a handy donkey bridge (Townsend, 1994) for remembering a list of factors to think about when we are analysing group processes. I traced my development of this from 1993 through to 2012 (Gobes, 1993; Hay, 1993, 2009, 2012). However, I overlooked an alternative I had described in a publication I wrote for Fenman (Hay, 2004). Below, therefore, is a new version based on a combination of the two different versions of C5P5A5. This now has 7 factors for each, and has therefore become C7P7A7. As before, we cannot keep all of these in mind at once so they can be considered roughly chronologically. C7 relates to what is happening as the group starts up. P7 applies once the group has moved into doing its work. A7 is relevant as the group is reaching the end of a task or a meeting. Context – what is the context within which the group is functioning and how might this be influencing the group dynamics? Contact – how well is initial contact being made between the group members; are they taking time to create relationships? Contract – what is the contract, or agreed remit, of the group; are group members clear about this? Content – is the content of the discussion related to the contract; are group members focusing on appropriate content? Creativity – is there evidence of creativity; are new ideas welcomed? Commitment – do all group members seem equally committed to the work of the group; are they all contributing? Contrasts – how are group members using any differences between them (e.g. cultures, styles, etc) rather than these leading to unhelpful conflict? Personal – is the group process respectful; are they listening to each other and communicating effectively? Professional – are the group at the performing stage (Tuckman, 1965); are they working on the issues in line with their professional roles? Psychological – is the process clean, with a lack of hidden messages; are the group avoiding game playing? Power – is there an absence of power plays; are more senior group members encouraging others to play a full part? Paradigms – whose maps of the world are being operated within; are group members being open-minded enough about the perspectives of others? Parallel – is the group functioning in the here-and-now and avoiding any sense of parallel process (Searles, 1955) dynamics outside the group (such as replaying conflicts between their managers)? Performing – has the group reached the performing stage? Attachment – have the group reached the stage where they are close and open with each other? Autonomy – are group members managing to be autonomous and offer their own views rather engaging in groupthink? Authenticity – are group members being genuine about their feelings and opinions rather than holding back? Alternatives – is the group generating alternatives and choosing from a range of options rather than closing down too quickly? Actions – are practical actions being generated or identified, accompanied by enough details about plans for implementation? Accountability – are the group members allocating/accepting responsibilities to specific group members for ensuring actions are implemented? Aims – do the outcomes relate back to the original aims of the group? References Gobes, Landy (1993) C4P4: A Consultation Checklist Transactional Analysis Journal 23:1 42-44 Hay, Julie (1993) C4P5A3: A Donkey Bridge for Group Processes Groupvine Winter 11-12 Hay, Julie (2004) Analyzing Group Behaviour Train the Trainer, Fenman 13 Hay, Julie (2009) Transactional Analysis for Trainers 2nd edition Hertford: Sherwood Publishing Hay, Julie (2012) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA 2nd edit Hertford: Sherwood Publishing Searles, Harold F. (1955) The Informational Value of the Supervisor’s Emotional Experiences Psychiatry Vol 18 pp. 135-146 (later reproduced in Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects, H. F. Searles, Karnac Books 1965) Townsend, John (1994) Making Messages Memorable Training and Development January Tuckman, Bruce (1965) Developmental sequence in small groups Psychological Bulletin 63 384-399 © 2018 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. In Hay (2004) I produced an issue in Fenman’s Train the Trainer series that was about groups. In that, among other things, I wrote about interaction charts and group imagoes. I also included a warning. A word of warning
Analysing and feeding back group behaviour can leave some people feeling threatened, especially if they are not used to thinking about how they behave and the impact they have on others. Make sure you set up adequate groundrules for the process – think about some of the frameworks in this issue and apply them to the group in terms of its task being to review its own process. Facilitate in a way that provides appropriate stages of group development for the review. Don’t assume that, because the group were effective at their work task, there is enough trust and openness for doing something quite different. Analysing individuals in groups As well as looking at group dynamics, we can usefully analyse individual behaviour within groups. For instance, we could simply note the number of times each participant interacts with each other participant and use this interaction chart to review what is happening – there will almost certainly be patterns emerge that demonstrate clearly when alliances form or arguments develop, who is treated as the group leader and who is not really involved. Or we can add to this by analysing styles of behaviour (e.g. assertive, aggressive, acquiescent), types of interactions (e.g. questions, opinions, ideas), personality indicators (e.g. introvert or extravert, thinking or feeling). Group imagoes
An alternative to Tuckman is the notion of group imagoes proposed by Berne. He suggested that we all have some form of image, or imago, of a group, usually out of our awareness, that this imago goes through recognisable stages, and that this heavily influences our behaviour in groups. If we were to capture our imagoes on paper, they might look like those in Figure 1 (although they might look quite different – this is a very personal thing!) Changing the names of the stages to make them more memorable, we have:
We can analyse group behaviour by inviting group members to sketch out their imagoes at the various stages and then to review these with each other. This can be a powerful way of bringing into consciousness some of the assumptions and prejudices we all carry. Seeing people for who they are rather than what we unwittingly imagine them to be can significantly improve our relationships. And don’t forget that you too, as trainer/facilitator, are running your own imagoes – which may contain slots for that participant who always causes trouble, or asks too many questions, or sulks, or whatever else you regularly find hard to deal with. References Hay, Julie (2004) Analyzing Group Behaviour Train the Trainer, Fenman 13 © 2018 Julie Hay Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. In 1997 I provided an article about TA in organisations, in which I explained why it is like a pickaxe. The publishers did not use my title but they did keep the mention of the pickaxe within the article (Hay, 1997), as I show below. They also deleted my sub-headings, which I have put back for this version as it makes it easier to read. And they edited some of my wording and I have chosen here to retain the original words. Transactional analysis was originally developed by Eric Berne as a therapy model - which has been its strength and yet also the source of its problems when too many people saw it as a quick fix and tried to transfer it, unchanged, into organisational settings. Fortunately, there have been many developments over the years, so that we now have variations that have been specifically tailored to the needs of individuals within organisations - and to the organisations too. Why the pickaxe? The robustness is, of course, still there and indeed one way you can see TA is like using a pickaxe to release physis. This refers to an underlying principle of TA: that all human beings have within them physis, which is the basic urge to grow and develop. Regrettably, many of us have our physis buried under a metaphorical layer of concrete, put there by well-meaning grown-ups who pointed out our limitations when we were young. The trainer who comes equipped with a pickaxe can create enough cracks in the concrete for us to behave like plants and grow up through the gaps towards the light! This basic premise is highly relevant to current organisations, where it is essential to capitalise on the innate potential of all employees. It is equally relevant to the employees, who need to grow into new roles and responsibilities. They also need to respond positively to change - and if they are sensible they want continued professional development in order to maintain their ‘market value’. The psychological contract Much has been written recently about the changing nature of the psychological contract between organisations and employees. TA offers an extended model of contracting that helps make this clearer and that also has considerable relevance for trainers. The basic model is of a three-cornered contract, between organisation, trainer and participants. The key is ensuring that all parties have shared expectations. Imagine a triangle with eyes in each corner - each party should have a clear perspective of the contract between the other parties. Often this is not the case. The organisation may have unrealistic expectations of what the trainer can achieve (especially when they only allow half a day!). The participants may be there unwillingly and believe that the trainer will be trying to force them to change. And the trainer may think so too - or may see their role as saviour to the downtrodden participants and agree with them about the shortcomings of management. Awareness of the three-cornered contract allows a trainer to check that the organisation is expecting something feasible; that the participants recognise their own responsibilities for their learning; and that they as trainer are competent to do the training. This will mean that the psychological distances between the parties are balanced - so that the roles of Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim are avoided. TA Principles
TA frameworks There are far too many TA frameworks to give more than an overview in this short article. Some are well known, such as: Ego states and transactional analysis proper - analysing of transactions between people using ego states. Note that various misunderstandings have crept in here because Eric Berne’s original models were misinterpreted by early organisational trainers. When Berne emphasised the use of Adult ego state, he meant any behaviour that was grounded in the here and now. He did not restrict this to logical behaviour but included appropriate nurturing, emotional reactions, and having fun. Trainers may unwittingly adopt a Parent ego state; participants often slide promptly into Child ego state as soon as they enter a classroom because they ‘regress’ to their childhood. Those who were naughty at school may then repeat the pattern; trainers who have shifted to Parent are likely to find themselves wishing they could give detentions! Strokes and life positions - strokes are the ways we let others know that we recognise that they exist; life positions are our existential attitudes. Strokes are a biological necessity - and the ways in which we are motivated (or not) at work. We vary in our stroke preferences; some of us like work-based strokes while others prefer personal strokes. Our life positions determine how we react to strokes: in I’m OK, You’re OK we accept them positively but in not OK positions we distort the strokes so that even positive ones may be perceived as negative. What you stroke is what you get! Trainers who persist in giving negative strokes will often find that the behaviour commented on gets repeated rather than extinguished. Learning and behaviour change are increased when people are given positive strokes that reinforce what is wanted. Psychological games - games people play is probably the best-known TA phrase ever (and was also the title of one of Berne’s bestselling books). Games are those predictable, repetitive interactions that seem to progress inexorably to a negative outcome that comes as no real surprise. Rather like a stage drama, the game players take on roles as Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim - and then switch places for maximum impact. Trainers may start out as if they expect to Rescue participants and finish up feeling like Victims when their efforts are rebuffed. Participants may act like Victims who don’t want to be on the course, and then switch to Persecutor and blame the trainer. Working styles and drivers - these are five identifiable styles that are our strengths, or characteristic working styles, and become our weaknesses, or drivers, when we are under stress. Stress causes us to do more of whatever we were doing already, as when we shout at foreigners as if that will make them understand our language. When this fails, we may become compulsive, or driven, to do even more of the same. Trainers with Hurry Up style get more and more impatient; Be Perfects become increasingly pedantic; Please People become paranoid about displeasing anyone; Try Hards try harder and harder whilst getting nowhere; and Be Strong types become increasingly stoical and monotonous. Competence curve and cycles of development - the curve shows how competence levels go up and down when change occurs. Based on a child development model, it helps people understand why change is often stressful and yet could be a more positive experience. Trainers can use this model to plan training formats that make it easier for people to settle in and gain maximum benefit. The individual and the organisation The concepts above were described from an individual perspective. They can equally be applied to an organisation to identify limitations. Ego states - managers, like trainers, may adopt permanent Parent whilst employees feel obliged to stay in Child. Departments may take on a persona: Accounts may be the organisation’s Parent, making sure no-one spends money; Sales may be the Child, having an exciting time; Engineering may regard themselves as Adult, engaged in logical problem solving. Strokes - you can analyse the organisational stroking pattern by considering questions such as: how are success and failure identified and stroked; do average performers get any strokes (usually not, because they are taken for granted - poor performers get much more management attention); what strokes are there when people join, transfer, leave? Games - the amount of game playing within an organisation is a reflection of the stress levels! Working styles - organisations often have their own styles, which may owe a lot to the style at the top! Examples are newspapers as Hurry Up, creative agencies as Try Hard, accountancy firms as Be Perfect, emergency services as Be Strong, and social services as Please People. Note that in unsuccessful organisations these become drivers, so that the style itself becomes part of the problem. Competence curve - this can be used to analyse and improve the ways in which organisations implement change. It can also be used by managers to check their own contributions to (or shortcomings in) helping employees adjust to new circumstances. Applying TA competently TA is deceptively simple. It is also extremely potent when used effectively. The key is to apply it to yourself before you attempt to apply it to others. TA uses a system of training and supervision which focuses on self-awareness and skill development. Accredited transactional analysts have typically spent at least four years developing their awareness and skills before taking an international exam that involves both a dissertation and a panel that reviews their work. It is said that the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. TA trainees are encouraged to do just that and to bring the results (on audio or video tapes) to a TA supervisor for review. The trainees themselves will analyse the interactions on the tapes with help from the supervisor. Of course not everyone will want to obtain the full qualification. Many trainers use relatively small amounts of TA alongside their other skills. It is still well worth getting some professional coaching. There are now modular TA programmes available that are specifically geared to organisational applications and that allow individuals to opt in for specific sessions. Most are at weekends to suit trainers’ busy diaries. And those who have attended them confirm that the increase in their competence generally is well worth the investment of time and energy. References Hay, Julie (1997) Talking TA Management Skills & Development April 66-67 © 2018 Julie Hay
Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her. |
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