Your Potential
for Winning
Based on the work of Eric Berne, who wrote the book, Games People
Play, here is the Transactional Analysis model of personality of Parent, Adult, and
Child described in greater depth and detail.
The Parent has two components: the Nurturing Parent loves and supports,
and the Critical Parent judges and punishes. The Child aspect also has two components:
our Adaptive Child, who is that good little boy or girl we strive so hard to be,
and our Wild (or Natural) Child, who is that hurt and angry and "bad" child
inside we try so hard to hide.
This book provides a forgiving and useful approach for understanding
behavior and feelings. It includes the ideas of the games we play (have you ever
been a victim of "Gotcha!"?) and the familiar scripts we follow, often
at an unconscious level. Understanding these ideas and applying them can yield helpful
insights into the corners we put ourselves into and those familiar but unproductive
patterns we follow all too often.
Above all, this approach allows us to take a good, clear look at ourselves
if we wish to.
Each chapter contains a section on Experiments and Exercises.
CONTENTS
1. Winners and Losers
2. An Overview of Transactional Analysis
3. The Human Hunger for Strokes and Time Structuring
4. The Drama of Life Script
5. Parenting and the Parent Ego State
6. Childhood and the Child Ego State
7. Personal and Sexual Identity
8. Stamp Collecting and Game Playing
9. The Adult Ego State
10. Autonomy and Adult Ethics
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Muriel James & Dorothy Jongeward
Born
to Win
Signet, 1991
11/97: $6.39.
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from Chapter Two:
An Overview of
Transactional Analysis
Days of Decision
Before children are eight years old they develop a concept about their
own worth. They also formulate ideas about the worth of others. They crystallize
their experience and decide what it all means to them, what parts they are going
to play, and how they are going to play them. These are the children's days of decision.
When decisions about self and others are made very early in life, they
may be quite unrealistic. They are very likely to be somewhat distorted and irrational,
because children perceive ; life through the small peekhole of their existence. These
distortions can create some degree of pathology ranging from inconsequential to serious.
However, they seem logical and made sense at the time the child makes them. (p.36)
from Chapter Four:
The Drama of Life Scripts
Cultural Scripts
Cultural scripts are the accepted and expected dramatic patterns that
occur within a society. They are determined by the spoken and unspoken assumptions
believed by the majority of the people within that group. Like theatrical scripts,
cultural scripts have themes, characters, expected roles, stage directions, costumes,
settings, scenes, and final curtains. Cultural scripts reflect what is thought of
as the "national character." The same drama may be repeated generation
after generation. (p. 77)
Currently a large segment of American society -- certainly not all
of it -- is no longer preoccupied with the struggle for individual survival. (p.
78)
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