Julie’s Blog 31: TA, Prejudice and Anti-Discriminatory Practice: Part 3

In Part 1 of this blog I set the scene in my article (Hay, 1993) and in Part 2 reproduced for you what I wrote about prejudice and internal ego states. Now I reproduce the part of the article that was about behavioural ego states and channels of communication.

I begin with an updated version of the diagram I presented in 1993 – the only change is that nowadays I refer to Functional Adult to bypass the confusion in terms of behaving like a computer versus being in the here and now.
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Behavioural ego states (Hay, 1992, p.62)

ADP as Prejudice

To deal with such prejudice, we need to take into account:

• the absence of Internal Adult reality-testing: people need information, but they also need to be helped to think for themselves.  It is not easy to do this if you have been punished for it when you were young.  It is also difficult to recognise cultural differences if you lack knowledge – a case of not knowing what you don’t know!
• the strong feelings of pain and scare in Internal Child: we need reassurance and support.  Assertive confrontation is not always the most effective approach because it frightens people even more, causing them to rubberband more deeply.
• the powerful messages that replay in Internal Parent: for this, confrontation may be appropriate provided it is done in a way that reassures us that there is a more potent ‘parent’ around who can be used to replace our existing recordings.

An alternative version of the ego state model is used to analyse behaviour, as shown above.  Each of us has 5 options:
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• a Controlling Parent, which is firm but may also be autocratic and bossy
• a Nurturing Parent, which is caring but when overdone becomes smothering
• an Adult, which shows as rational, problem solving behaviour but appears cold and inhuman if used too much
• an Adapted Child, which is polite and fits in but may be too submissive or overcompensate with rebellion
• a Natural Child, which displays genuine emotions but may seem to be immature if overdone

This framework allows us to consider what happens when people interact.   The channels of communication that have the best chance of success are: matching Parent states, matching Child states, Adult to Adult, or Parent to Child.  Adult and Child do not connect; neither do Parent and Adult.  The Parent-Child interaction is also limited: Controlling Parent complements Adapted Child while Nurturing Parent connects with Natural Child (assuming in all cases that the positive aspects of the ego states are being exhibited).

Taking the earlier example of who speaks first, we can see that a problem arose because the Adapted child behaviour patterns were out of line.  Normally Adapted child ego states connect because they exhibit identical, culturally acceptable ways of behaving.  A useful alternative in this case would have been Natural Child as this would have conveyed genuine friendliness.  However, many cultures incorporate taboos on grown-ups being that open until they have satisfied the expectations of society by conducting specific greeting rituals.

This mismatch of cultural expectations is repeated many times a day whenever people from different backgrounds meet.  There are minor differences even between families of the same racial background, and major ones if we have grown up in a different environment.

We also vary in what we regard as acceptable degrees of behaviour.  A common stereotype is for men using Controlling Parent to be seen as firm whilst women doing the same are accused of being aggressive.  In the UK we have only to think of the jokes about female traffic wardens to illustrate this.  Similarly, men using Nurturing Parent may be labelled as weak and women using Adult behaviour as unfeeling.

The interactions between people also reflect this stereotyping.  Men may be expected to take charge in Controlling Parent while women obey in Adapted Child.  Women may be expected to look after people in Nurturing Parent while men respond as small boys in Natural Child.  Caucasian people may assume they will be the Controlling Parent ego state when dealing with non-caucasian people, who they believe to be less developed.  This opinion may be the result of childhood events, may be due to ignorance, or may be generated as a response to an accent or a mode of dress.

These dynamics have existed for many years as part of the British class system.  Hearing English spoken in a different way to our own may lead us to mistakenly assume lack of intelligence.  If someone is less fluent than us we may unconsciously think of them as a child still learning to talk.  Clothing from another culture may similarly be misinterpreted as a sign that the person is not grown-up enough to dress like we do.

Non-caucasian people may become so frustrated at being talked down to that they over-compensate and use far too much Controlling Parent.  Alternatively, they may opt for the rebellious version of Adapted Child and feel compelled to be disobedient.  (Note: this is not the same as making a rational decision, using Internal Adult, to engage in civil disobedience as a way of bringing about change – Rebellious Child has a compulsive quality.)

Awareness of the five ego states available to us can be used to extend our options.  In each interaction we have a positive alternative from each of the five channels.  Practice will enable us to extend our range, so we can readily select the most appropriate behaviour pattern on each occasion.  In this way, we can actively dismantle our automatic and discriminatory responses.

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Extract from: Hay, Julie (1993) TA and ADP – What can Transactional Analysis contribute to Anti-Discriminatory Practice?  INTAD Newsletter 2:1 4-8

Up to now in this series of blogs, I have a reproduced what I wrote in 1993 about how TA was often perceived as irrelevant for people who were not Caucasian Westerners; how we could use the internal ego states model to understand how prejudice occurs, and how we can use the behavioural ego states model to understand even more about what happens. In the 4th and final blog on this topic, I will finish the series by describing how anti-discriminatory practice can seem to be a psychological game.

​References

Hay, Julie (1993) TA and ADP – What can Transactional Analysis contribute to Anti-Discriminatory Practice?  INTAD Newsletter 2:1 4-8

In 1993 there was not so much attention being paid to referencing. An additional reference that applies for this blog is:

Behavioural ego states – Hay, Julie (1992) Transactional Analysis for Trainers Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill (currently published as 2nd edition, 2009, Hertford: Sherwood Publishing

© 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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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