Julie Hay’s ideas – Blog 1: Refracted Transaction

Over the years, many people have asked me where they can read about specific ideas of mine, and my regular students have nagged me for references.  Hence, here at last is the first of a series of blogs that will highlight one of my original TA ideas or contributions, show where it first appeared in print, and sometimes also show where it has been updated or developed further. 

Refracted transaction, to be added to Berne’s complementary, crossed and ulterior, was first mentioned in print in 1986, in the ITA News, within a report written by Vivienne Gill about various presentations within a TA in Education conference run on 16 November 1985, which included the paragraph and diagram below:

​More recently, it has featured with more explanation and a more detailed diagram in Hay (2009) as follows:

“Refracted transactions, as shown in Figure 4.11, are often seen in organisations, especially when a new employee arrives:
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1. The manager tells the employee what to do – Controlling Parent to Adapted Child.
2. The employee is new and keen to learn so asks the manager why it is done that way – Functional Adult to Functional Adult.
3. The manager ‘refracts’ the transaction and imagines it is coming from the employee’s Adapted Child – and hence it sounds rebellious, as if a child is challenging a parent figure.
4. The manager therefore emphasises the use of Controlling Parent and simply insists that this is the way things are done – no explanation is forthcoming.
5. The employee concludes that asking questions is a waste of time and thereafter simply follows orders.
6. The ‘refraction’ is like the way that water affects the direction of light, so that we see an object underwater and think it is in a different position to where it actually is.  In our interactions, our frame of reference (or our distorting beliefs) may act like the surface of the water. Refracted transactions are powerful contributors to the problem of hierarchal symbiosis … “  (Hay, 2009, p. 79-80)

Figure 4.11 A Refracted Transaction

References

Gill, V (1986) TA in Education ITA News, No. 13 p.1
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Hay. J (2009) Transactional Analysis for Trainers Hertford: Sherwood Publishing

​© 2017 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.

If you’re interested in learning more TA, Julie runs regular workshops and webinars –  we currently have an offer of a free place on one of our webinars. You can use these toward your CPD and as credit hours in pursuing professional TA qualification