Julie’s Ideas Blog 39: Levels of Contracting

In Blogs 21 and 22 I wrote about multi-party contracting.  In this blog I am writing about the different levels at which we might think about contracting (Hay, 1995, 2012), and how we might link these in to the well-known 3Ps (Crossman, 1966: Steiner, 1968).
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Contracting is a basic principle in TA - if no contract has been established we are not truly applying TA.  Contracts may or may not be written down.  A verbal contract is still a contract.  The main point is that we discuss and agree why we are interacting when we plan to use TA to help someone grow.
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I first introduced the following ideas in the first edition of my book entitled Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA; below is how I have developed the ideas a bit further for the second edition of that book which came out in 2012.

​P6 Levels

Contracts operate at different levels - all levels need to be clear to avoid unwitting sabotage.

• Procedural - administrative details, such as when shall we meet, where, how often, who keeps notes, what are the payment routines, cancellation procedures?
• Professional - what am I offering as professional analyst, trainer, consultant, mentor, coach etc., what does the client need, how competent am I to meet those needs, how much will they be paying for my services, what is the client prepared to do to contribute to their own development?
• Purpose - why are we coming together, what do you and what does the client want to achieve, how will we know when it has been attained?
• Personal - how will we relate to each other, how friendly or remote will we be, what is an appropriate interaction style e.g. nurturing, challenging, problem-solving?
• Psychological - what might occur outside our awareness, how might either of us sabotage the process?
• Physis - how does the purpose fit with the client’s overall growth and development, is it ecologically sound for them, how does the work fit with my own urge to develop my potential as helping professional?

The Eyes in the Corners
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The Eyes In The Corner

​A key point of Fanita English’s (1975) article on the three cornered contract was that people fantasise about what the other parties have agreed between them. To demonstrate this, I draw eyeballs in each corner to emphasise that each stakeholder should have knowledge of the contracts between others (this may not include the content of what then gets done).

Protection, Permission and Potency
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We can link the contract levels to:

Protection

Permission

Potency

-  procedural - clarity rather than misunderstandings
-  professional - only what I am competent to offer
-  purpose - you can achieve it
-  personal - we can interact like this
-  psychological - is brought to the surface and kept clean
-  physis - will provide the impetus for growth

Potency, Permission & Protection

References

Crossman, Pat (1966) Permission and Protection Transactional Analysis Bulletin 5:19 152-154

English, Fanita (1975) The Three Cornered Contract Transactional Analysis Journal 5:4 383-384

Hay, Julie (1995) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA Watford: Sherwood Publishing

Hay, Julie (2012) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA 2nd edit Hertford: Sherwood Publishing

Steiner, Claude (1968) Transactional Analysis as a Treatment Philosophy Transactional Analysis Bulletin 7:27 61-64
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​© 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