A friend recently described Transactional Analysis.
I’m no expert. (I haven’t even read this.)
The General Idea
We act in a variety of ways: as a parent, as an adult, as a child. How we behave depends on how we interpret what’s happening. And we might interpret what’s happening as a parent, as an adult, as a child.
Think back to a time when you were frustrated. Where were you? What was going on? How did you respond. As a parent? As an adult? As a child? Did you start as a unhappy child, move to a scolding parent, end up (thankfully) as an equanimous adult?
Are You A Writer?
If so, perhaps you are like me. I draft as a parent, or child, or both-back-and-forth.
When I’m drafting posts in Net Cotton Content:
- I’ll whine about how I don’t like the world, about how — as my teacher, Srikumar Rao says — “the universe is not playing ball with [me].” That’s the child in me. In my case (children may vary), when I write as a child, my expectations are unreasonable and corrosively selfish.
- I’ll scold you about your many failings. Most of those failings I have to assume, because I’m writing as a parent. In my case (parents may vary), my parental voice is filled with unreasonable fear and suspicious.
In the real world, as a child and parent, I am working to be less unreasonable. Less selfish. Less fearful and suspicious.
Then I edit as an adult. In my case (adults may vary), my adult edits from above the text looking down, with compassion on the writer and reader.
Thankfully.