then Transactional Analysis (TA) would sit on a branch of Psychotherapy within the broader field of Clinical and Counseling Psychology. Within that branch, it would be alongside other psychotherapeutic approaches, like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Psychoanalysis, and Humanistic Therapy, as TA is a structured approach to understanding and improving interpersonal communication and individual behavior.
The tree structure is a useful analogy here because it visually suggests the layered nature of psychology, from roots to branches, tracing from foundational theories to specific therapeutic methods. Here’s one possible way to see this structure:
Roots – Fundamental Theories of Human Psychology (e.g., Behavioral, Humanistic, Psychodynamic).
Trunk – Major Fields of Psychology (e.g., Clinical, Developmental, Social, Cognitive).
Branch of Clinical and Counseling Psychology – Includes various therapeutic frameworks.
Sub-branches of Psychotherapy:
Transactional Analysis – Focused on analyzing and restructuring communication patterns, self-concept, and behavior.
Other Therapeutic Approaches – CBT, psychoanalysis, and family therapy, each with unique tools and philosophies.
If psychology were a net, TA would be connected to Psychotherapy, intersecting with concepts from Social Psychology (since TA examines social interaction) and Developmental Psychology (given its focus on ego states, which relate to learned patterns from childhood).
You know how you love people? It's not transactional, is it? So allow them the grace of loving you in return, not for what you can do for them, but for yourself.
(Those people who taught you that pattern were wrong, and there's a reason they plough through New Best Friends like that…)
Shiva and Tiger Skin: Decoding the Physiological Impact of Animal Symbolism
Introduction:
Shiva is one of the most revered and mysterious deities in Hinduism. He is the supreme god of destruction, transformation, and regeneration. He is also known for his association with animals, especially tigers. Shiva is often depicted as wearing a tiger skin, or sitting on a tiger skin, or walking with a tiger skin wrapped around him. What does this iconic imagery signify? How does…
Repression of traumatic memories or conflicts is possible in many cases, according to Federn, only through repression of the whole pertinent ego state. Early ego states remain preserved in a latent state, waiting to be recathected. Furthermore, in speaking of cathexis of ego states, Federn says that it is the cathexis itself which is experienced as ego feeling. This is related to the problem of what constitutes “the self”.
– Eric Berne, M.D., Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy, Ballantine Books, 1975, Mass Market Paperback (Edition), pp. xix-xx
I understand the science / magic / chicken soup motto refers to different types of therapy. Would is be possible to explain a little more about that?
The psychiatrist Eric Berne (who wrote Games People Play and a number of other soft-psych and hard-psych books defining the Transactional Analysis school of psychotherapy) first laid out this distinction in the TA textbook (for so it was) What Do You Say After You Say Hello?. Berne's discussion on this topic has to do with his experience that if you offered a client a kind of psychotherapy that didn't work for them, it very likely wouldn't take.
Now, this may seem like the baldest kind of common sense, these days. But in the mid-'60s, when Berne first propounded the concept, he caught a lot of flak for it from other psych people who were trained in the far more authoritarian schools of psych (Freudian and the like).
Let me drop a cut in here, because this is going to go on a bit and there’s no point in cluttering up people’s dashes. Under the cut: ego states, life scripts, ancient Greek prophets, and Asklepios himself knows what else.
Shortly I'll quote Berne at some length, for clarity's sake. But to start with I'll wildly oversimplify an entire therapeutic genre by saying that transactional analysis broadly rests on two concepts.
The first is that most human minds include or contain, in their daily process, three sets of roles or paradigms, or as TA people call them, "ego states": Parent, Child and Adult. (The personal sense of "I" slides among these states as events require. This usually-transparent-or-invisible movement between states is what psych people refer to as "cathexis", and is the reason why some people’s behavior can change so profoundly from day to day or even minute to minute... as one’s ego states are not always on the same page, to put it mildly.)
The second concept is that most human beings have incorporated experiences from their early childhood into what transactional analysts refer to as "life scripts", and they spend much of their lives living these scripts or attempting to escape from them...with wildly varying amounts of success. (They do always have spell-breakers built in... but you have to find them, and then, as in all those damn jokes, be willing to change.) These life scripts often contain significant numbers of tropes from fairy tales—so a working knowledge of such semi-archetypal material is really useful for the therapist.
...So. Let's move to what Berne has to say about the three-kinds-of-therapy situation. He’s talking here about what makes a client choose a specific kind of therapist/therapy.
To the patient’s Child [Berne here means their Child ego state] the therapist is a magician of sorts. He is likely to choose the same kind of magical figure he knew in childhood. In some families the revered figure is a medical man; in others, a clergyman. Some doctors and clergymen are serious figures out of tragedy, like [the ancient Greek prophet] Teiresias, who will tell them the bad news and perhaps give them a cantrap, amulet, or draught for salvation. Others are jolly green giants who protect children from harm by comforting them and reassuring them, and flexing their giant muscles. When Jeder [Berne’s typical term for “Everyman”, i.e. the patient] grows up, he will usually look for help from a similar person. If his experience was unhappy, however, he may rebel and find some other kind of magic.
...Roughly speaking, the patient can choose between three kinds of magic in selecting a therapist, and he can choose each one for success or for failure. He can also play one against the other if his script requires that. These types are known as “science”, “chicken soup”, and “religion.” [In later writings Berne tends to swap the broader term “magic” into position three, and that’s how I use it.] Any professional can offer all three, but typically a certain type of psychologist offers “modern science”, a certain type of psychiatric social worker offers “chicken soup”, and a certain type of pastoral counselor offers “religion”. A well-trained therapist in each of these professions is prepared to offer any of them if occasion demands, and some offer two in combination.
...The practical difference between “science”, “magic” and “chicken soup” on one hand, and a scientific, a religious/mystical, and a supportive approach to therapy is in knowing when to stop. The therapists who use [only] the first three do not know when to stop, because each one’s brand of magic is part of his own script; while those using the second three do know when to stop, because they [have enough separation between their own scripting and their work in therapeutic intervention to] know what they’re doing.”
...Deep breath here, as Berne takes some getting used to if his style is new to you.
Now, psychological/psychiatric practice has during this century moved into spaces that Berne couldn’t have predicted. But I think it’d be safe to say that the “[modern] science” approach to therapy now includes all the hottest new drugs, and a certain routine dissing of what are in some areas these days scornfully referred to as “the talking therapies”: or else quite hard-edged stuff (neo- or not-very-neo-Freudian, and again fairly rule-driven, authoritarian and paternalistic). The “chicken soup” approach (besides including whole lines of books with those very words in their titles...) tends to involve broadly supportive and generally non-threatening interventional strategies that may be of great use or none, depending on what the client needs. The “Magic” tent tends to contain overtly magical-looking/seeming and/or emotion-discharging strategies like rebirthing, hypnotic (and/or past-life) “regression”, mindfulness, some kinds of Gestalt, communal crying, directed ASMR, etc etc.
Probably we could do a sort of parlor game where we sit around naming therapeutic styles or strategies and sorting them into one (or sometimes more than one) of the three categories. ...I mean, we could if we didn’t have, you know, lives. :) But if you assume the Science schools of therapy are hard-edged, rules-bound, and relatively rigid: the Magic ones are voyage-through-shadow-into-light-adjacent, often with a Hero’s Journey feel to them, and rather countercultural: and the Chicken Soup ones are huggy, cuddly, and generally non-scary: then you can’t go far wrong in the classification game.
The point here is to determine which of these approaches works best, resonates best -- for you or for someone else -- and go on from there. (My preferred blend, as if anyone couldn’t guess, is Magic with a double shot of Science, as it mentions over here. But I veer into Chicken Soup as required.)
HTH! And may your quest (for whatever) be successful.
The PAC Model: The Parent, Adult, and Child That Exists in All of Us
We all have an inner “Parent,” “Adult,” and “Child.” By identifying which one is manifesting itself in any given moment, we can take more control over our thoughts and behaviors.
TW: Thoughts of and about self harm. Please do not read if you have this as a trigger.
Being reprimanded really brings out the Child in me, puts it in the Parent’s adult spotlight, and cue all the embarrassment and self-loathing. Cue the ridiculous desire to visibly squirm. I hate it.
Had to struggle to hold it together, and let the Adult take reins on the discussion. But the desire to react to it as a Child is strong, and the dissonance has been wreaking havoc, making me think constantly about flesh destroying injuries and whatnot.
I mean, on the one hand the Child is yearning to go explain itself, yearning to go cry and make a scene, just like, anything and everything. On the other hand, the adult is looking at the whole thing and being like but this is such a bad situation, I/ we feel so bad about it, so is it really surprising that I/ we’re so unable to function?
Thankfully, the weeks of the therapist telling me to be kinder to myself have helped in this regard. Where the Parent usually takes control in these difficult situations, and showers me in self-loathing, the Adult can now get a foothold. And remind me, as above, that this is a bad situation and it’s okay. It’s normal.
i remain skeptical of any self-help regimen or model of psychology which has been readily adopted by business management types in the quest for productivity
obviously once all the pseudoscience has been discarded, if there’s anything left by then
