Life positions in TA
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The document discusses life positions as fundamental beliefs about oneself and others that are established in early childhood and influence one's behavior and decisions throughout life. It outlines four life positions: 'I am ok, you are ok'; 'I am not ok, you are ok'; 'I am ok, you are not ok'; and 'I am not ok, you are not ok', explaining how these perceptions shape life scripts and social interactions. The author further explores the concept of the 'ok corral', analyzing how adults can shift between these positions and emphasizing the potential for personal change towards healthier perspectives.
Life positions in TA
- 2. Prepared By Manu Melwin Joy Research Scholar School of Management Studies CUSAT, Kerala, India. Phone – 9744551114 Mail – [email protected] Kindly restrict the use of slides for personal purpose. Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public forms and presentations.
- 3. Life position • Berne suggested that the young child, early in the process of script formation already has certain convictions about himself and the people around him. • These convictions are likely to stay with him the rest of his life.
- 4. Life position • The convictions can be summarized as follows. –I am OK or –I am not OK. –You are OK or –You are not OK
- 5. Life position • By putting together in all their possible combinations, we get four statements about self and others. – I am OK, you are OK. – I am not OK, you are OK. – I am OK, you are not OK. – I am not OK, you are not OK.
- 6. Life position • These four views are knows as life positions. Some writers call them basic positions, existential positions or just positions. • They represent fundamental stances a person takes up about the essential value he perceives in himself and others. This means more than having an opinion about his own and other people’s behavior.
- 7. Life position • Once the child has adopted one of these positions, she is likely to construct all the rest of her script to fit in with it. • Berne wrote: “ Every game, script and destiny is based on one of these four basic patterns”.
- 8. Life position • The child who chooses “I am OK, you are OK” is likely to build a winning script. • He views himself as lovable and good to have around. • He decides that his parents are lovable and trustworthy, and later extends this view to people in general.
- 9. Life position • If an infant takes up the position of “I am not OK, you are OK”, she is more likely to write a banal or losing life story. • To fit with her basic position, she will construct her script round themes of being victimized and losing out to others.
- 10. Life position • “I am OK, you are not OK” may form the basis for a script that seems on the face it to be winning. • But this child will have the conviction that he needs to be one up and put others down. • He may manage to do this for some of the time, achieving his wants but only with a continual struggle. • At other times, the people around him will get tired of being one down and reject him. • Then he will switch from apparent winner to heavy loser.
- 11. Life position • The position “I am not OK, you are not OK” is the most likely foundation for a losing script. • This child has become convinced that life is futile and full of despair. She views herself as being one down and unlovable. • She believes no one will help her because they are not OK as well. Thus she will write her script around scenes of rejecting and being rejected.
- 12. Origin of Life position • There is some disagreement among TA practitioners on how life positions originate and at what age. • Berne believed that the position is taken in early childhood (3-7 years) in order to justify a decision based on early experience. • For Berne, early decisions come first, and the life position is adopted later in childhood to make the world appear to justify what has been decided.
- 13. Origin of Life position • In the view of Claude Steiner, life position is adopted much earlier. He sees its origin in the early months of nursing. • He suggest that all children begin in the position I+U+. The child shifts to another position only if something interrupts the mutual interdependence between mother and the child.
- 14. Origin of Life position • Steiner agrees with Berne in suggesting that the life position justifies script decision. • But in Steiner’s version, the life position is adopted first in time and the decision come later.
- 15. Life position - Definition “Life position can be defined as one’s basic belief about self and others, which are used to justify decisions and behavior.”
- 16. Life position in adulthood – the OK Corral • Each of us arrives in adulthood having written a script based on one of the four life positions. • But we don’t stay in that position every hour of the day. • Minute by minute, we shift between positions.
- 17. Life position in adulthood – the OK Corral • Franklin Ernst had developed a way of analyzing these shifts. • He calls it the OK Corral. Ernst uses the phrase ‘OK with me’ instead of just ‘OK’. • This helps emphasize that Okness is a matter of my conviction about me and my conviction about you.
- 18. Life position in adulthood – the OK Corral • The vertical axis of the Corral indicates “You are OK” in the upward direction, “You are not OK” going downwards. • On the horizontal axis, we get ‘I am OK” on the right , ‘I am not OK’ on the left. • Each of the four quadrants then corresponds to a life position.
- 19. Life position in adulthood – the OK Corral • Franklin Ernst points out that each of the childhood positions is reflected in grown up life by a particular kind of social interaction. He calls this as operation. • If we get into one of these operations without awareness, from our child ego state, we are likely to create a scripty ‘justification’ for the corresponding life position.
- 20. I am OK, you are OK : Get on with • I have just arrived at my workplace. In comes the boss with a stack of papers. • “Here is the report we have been waiting for” she says “ I have marked points for your action. Will you see to these and report back, please?” • “Right” I say “I will do that”.
- 21. I am OK, you are OK : Get on with • In agreeing to the boss’s request, I have checked with myself that I am competent to do what she asks and feel good about doing it. • I see her being fair and reasonable in asking me to do it.
- 22. I am OK, you are OK : Get on with • Thus I am in the position of “I am OK, you are OK”. In our social interaction, the boss and I are getting one with what we are both there to do. • Each time I have an interaction from this position, I reinforce my belief that I and others in the world are OK.
- 23. I am not OK, you are OK : Get Away From • I just settled down and opened the report at the first page. • From the corner of my eye, I see one of my workmate coming to me. • He wants to spend a lot of time moaning about his work situation, asking my advice and then not taking it. • I have two options : get into script or respond from Adult.
- 24. I am not OK, you are OK : Get Away From Scripty operation : If I get into script and adopt I-U+ position, I say to myself “ I just cant cope with this fellow’s complaints”. I mumble “Sorry Jim. Have to go out to the bathroom a minute” and make the door. I had to get away from Jim in a scripty way and reinforce my child conviction that I am not OK while others are OK.
- 25. I am not OK, you are OK : Get Away From Adult operation : If I choose to stay in my Adult , I say to myself “ Right now, I am not willing to listen to Jim”. You tell him “ Hey, Jim, that sounds bad. Can’t stop now though. I have got to get down to the library and check some source on this report. Hope you manage to solve your problems”. With Adult awareness, I have chose the operation of getting away from.
- 26. I am OK, you are not OK : Get Rid Of Ten minutes later, I am back in my office with a cup of coffee, well into the report. The door opens again. This time it is my assistant. He looks downcast. He says “ You know that printing job you gave me to set up? I was busy and forgot to get it off. We have missed the printer’s deadline. What do I do?
- 27. I am OK, you are not OK : Get Rid Of Scripty Operation : I go red in face and snarl at my assistant: “what do you do? I don’t want to hear a word more from you till you have got the job done, understand?”. My heart rate sour and I feel heat under my collar. I say to myself “ Can’t trust anybody”. I have gotten rid of my assistant while creating a justification for believing that I am OK while others are not.
- 28. I am OK, you are not OK : Get Rid Of Adult Operation : I reply to my assistant: “Well, it is your job to get his sorted out. Right now I am doing something urgent. So go and find some way of getting this job finished as soon as possible. Come back at four o clock and report to me”. I have gotten rid of my assistant in a way that lets me look after myself and leaves us both OK.
- 29. I am not OK, you are not OK : Get Nowhere With The Phone is rings. It is my partner calling from home. “Something awful has happened. A water pipe burst and the whole carpet got soaked before I could turn the water off!”.
- 30. I am not OK, you are not OK : Get Nowhere With Scripty Operation: I may say to myself : “ I have had enough. I cant take this any longer. And my partner is no help here. It’s hopeless.” I sigh into the phone : “Look, I just can’t take this. It is just too much after the day I have had”. Without waiting for the answer, I hang up the phone. Internally, I have reinforced my view that I and others are not OK.
- 31. I am not OK, you are not OK : Get Nowhere With Adult Operation: Deciding to stay in Adult, I reply : “ Look, the harm is done now6. Just go on hold till I get home. Then We will see what w6e can do”. I have chosen the operation of getting nowhere with.
- 32. Personal change and the OK corral Though we switch between the quadrants on the Corral, we each have one favorite quadrant where we spend most of our time while in script. This will be the one we decided on in childhood as our basic position.
- 33. Personal change and the OK corral I am OK, you are OK is the healthy position, Here, I get on with living and problem solving. I act to achieve the winning outcomes I desire. This is the only position based on reality.
- 34. Personal change and the OK corral If my childhood position was I am not OK, you are OK, I am likely to play our my script mainly from the depressive position of feeling one down to others. Unawarely, I will choose my bad feelings and repetitive behavior to confirm that this is my rightful position in the world
- 35. Personal change and the OK corral An early position of I am OK, you are not OK will mean that I live my script mostly from the defensive position of trying to stay one up on others. Those around me are likely to experience me as overbearing, insensitive and aggressive. This is paranoid position and corresponds to the psychiatric diagnosis of character disorder.
- 36. Personal change and the OK corral If I look up basic position of I am not OK, you are not OK as an infant, my script will be played through principally from the futility position. Here I am believing that the world and others are no good, and neither am I . If I wrote a banal script, my pattern will be to get nowhere with most of the things I set out to do in life.
- 37. Personal change and the OK corral The process of change often entails a movement through the Corral in a specific sequence. If the person starts off by spending most of time in I-U-, her next move is likely to be into I+U-. After some time, with that as her most important quadrant, she will shift to I-U+. The final goal is to increase the time spend in I+U+ until it becomes the favorite position.
- 38. Personal change and the OK corral It may seem strange that people often need to shift through I-U+ in order to get from I+U- to I+U+. But the experience of therapy shows that I+U- is often a defense against I-U+. The infant who concluded I am OK and all others are not OK took up that position to defend against the painful realization of being one down and powerless in the face of her parents.
- 39. Activity Draw the axis of OK Corral and label the quadrants. Now draw an enclosure on the axes to show how much time you spend in each quadrant during an average day. Franklin Ernst called this picture Corralogram.
- 40. Activity • What are the circumstances in which you are likely to get into each quadrant? What do you typically do and say, and how do you feel, when you are in each one? • What ego states do you come from in each quadrant? (Use functional model). What ego states are you inviting in others?
- 41. Activity • What kind of strokes do you give and get in each quadrant? • Now that you have drawn the corralogram, is there anything you want to change about it? • If you do want to make changes, think how you could choose any of the four Adult operations to use instead of getting into scripty responses. • Decide on at least one occasion when you will test out an Adult operation in the coming week, and do it.
- 42. Thank You
- 43. Other TA topics available on slideshare 1. Strokes - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/strokes-24081607. 2. Games People Play - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/psychological- games-people-play. 3. Structural Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/the-ego-state-model. 4. What is TA? - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/what-ta-is 5. Cycles of Development - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/cycles-of- developement-pamela-levin-transactional-analysis. 6. Stages of Cure - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stages-of-cure. 7. Transactions - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/transactions-33677298. 8. Time Structuring - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/time-structuring. 9. Life Position - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/life-position. 10. Autonomy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/autonomy-33690557. 11. Structural Pathology - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/structural-pathology. 12. Game Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/game-analysis-33725636. 13. Integrated Adult - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/integrated-adult. 14. Stroke Economy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stroke-economy- 33826702.