Berne's Transactional Analysis Theory

Transactional Analysis was developed by a psychiatrist named Eric Berne. Dr. Berne defined transactional analysis, or known as "TA", as the method for studying individual's relationships and interactions. Psychotherapists were able to read about Berne’s theories and test them out in their own practices.1 Dr. Berne took inspiration from Sigmund Freud's theories of personality, combining them with his own observations of human interaction this led to the development of transactional analysis .

Dr. Berne learned that there exist three distinct ego states in all people - the Parent ego state, Adult ego state, and Child ego state. People change from one state to another and can be easily noticed by the manner of their appearances, words, gestures

Berne. Life positions are basic beliefs about self and others, which we used to justify decisions and behaviour. Life positions works with the assumption that we choose very early on in our life, before age 2, a basic stance towards ourselves and other people. Positive attitudes are described as OK and negative attitudes are described as NOT OK. Franklin Ernst developed the OK Corral diagram of the four (4) basic life positions we assume.6 First is, I am OK, You are OK: wherein individual has a good life position and possess the qualities of having a potentially healthy mental state, can solve problems constructively, expectations are likely to be valid, and accepts the significance of other people. Second is, I am OK, You are not OK: is when an individual seems to be a paranoid person wherein he wants to get rid of others in order to be OK or when he feels victimized and persecuted, he wants others to be victimized and persecuted also, and this individual possess the rebellion child ego and put the blame on others for anything that goes wrong with them. Third is, I am not OK, You are OK: it is a common position of persons who feel that they are powerless or inferior when compare to others and always complain about one thing or the other and remain highly dissatisfied with their lives, and tends to withdraw, become depressive, and sometimes leads to suicidal. Fourth is, I am not OK, you are not OK: is a futile position or where life position is created by those who lacks interest in living, wherein individual feels that there is no hope and I could never be OK nor could you give me what I need, ones who have been neglected by their parents in their childhood and were brought up by the servants, and tends to commit suicide or homicide to end their