Yugen # 41 Time Structure in Transactional Analysis

If everything around you seems dark, Look again,

You may be the Light —- Rumi

How can we structure our time to meet our needs for strokes ?

Structure hunger :We all have an inherent need of structure in our life. What we are going to do in the available time is a matter of our choice. Imagine you wake up in the morning and look forward to the day ahead. If you do not have a plan ,you will have an inner urge to reflect and make a schedule for yourself. This is called structure hunger. Structure hunger is a way to satisfy one need to structure time when no time structure is placed on a person. Time is structured to remove the pain of boredom.

Modes of structuring time : There are six modes of structuring time, each mode has a different relation to strokes. The six modes are

Withdrawal  2.Rituals  3.Pastimes  4.Activities  5.Games    6.Intimacy.

The intensity of stroking increases as we move down the list. The degree of psychological risk also         increases as we go down the list. The unpredictability of stroking tends to increase. It becomes less predictable whether we will be accepted or rejected by the other person.

1. Withdrawal :In withdrawal a person may be attentive inward and carry on a monologue in the head. This can happen in any ego state as it is difficult to predict due to lack of any external clues. It may be  ±CP, ±NP ,  ±AC  , ±NC & A.The person indulges in self strokes in both getting and giving. Withdrawal is usually safe, requires little emotional investment and does not provide stroking from others. In withdrawal  the only strokes we get are self strokes. A person who spends too much time withdrawing may become stroke deprived, lonely and depressed and in severe cases withdrawal may lead to autistic thinking.

E.g., Suparna spending some quiet time in a deep reflective mode and asking herself “what is the purpose of my life ?”.This is an example of positive self stroke.

E.g., Suparna doing her SWOT analysis sitting alone in a room,reflecting on her weaknesses and threats and she says ,” Come on ,pull up your socks ,this is not good”. This is example of negative self stroke.

• Rituals : This is a familiar social interaction that proceeds as if it were pre-programmed. As we grow up, we all learn rituals appropriate in our family culture. The art of greeting, hosting, acknowledging gratitude, making conversation with different age groups. Structurally rituals belong to Parent ego state and are performed from the Adapted child. Since this brings about a comfortable result in terms of adapting to expected norms, it is a positive AC behaviour  which may be difficult to assess due to stereotyped words, tones and gestures used in rituals. The intensity of the strokes may be low but are important as they get counted and stored in the stroke bank. There is safe ,predictable exchange of strokes which provide important maintenance strokes.

E.g.  Suparna saying :”Namaste words, tones, are you ?”. Nirmala aunty smiles at suparna and says “namaste beta, I am fine ,how about you ?”.This is example of positive stroke in ritual.

E.g., Suparna enters the lift of her office building. Liftman Raju wishes her “Good morning”. Suparna ignores Raju. This is example of negative stroke in ritual.

• Pastimes : As the name suggest, when people indulge in discussing about past time or experiences of what happened some time back, the content is not pre-programmed and is lighter more like a cocktail conversation . This light superficial conversation  is usually conducted from a Parent or Child ego state where pre judged opinions about the world are expressed. This can yield mostly positive and some negative strokes where people “sound each other out “ and can lay the foundation for games and intimacy. Pastime strokes are more intense and less predictable.

E.g.  Suparna has invited 12 women for kitty party in her house over lunch. All the women are talking about where they travelled in the past 2-3 months and laugh. This is positive stroke in pastime.

E.g., Anupama invited the women from the building for lunch to give a surprise birthday party to her mother-in-law. Some  of them talked about the covid scare and said that this lunch was not necessary. This is an example of negative stroke in pastime.

• Activities: When conversation between people are directed at achieving a specific goal instead of merely talking about it, it called an activity as the participants direct their energies towards some material outcome. The Adult  ego state is very predominant as people are focussed on here and now goals. It can also be from AC or P egostates especially  when participant follow some rules  or feedback is provided post the completion of an activity. The perception of the psychological risk can be greater depending on the activity. Strokes from activity can be both conditional positive and conditional negative. They are usually delayed strokes, given at the end of the activity for a job well or poorly done.

E.g. :  Suparna has decided to learn how to do decopage using wine bottles. She has decided to finish the decoration in three hours along with her friend Jaya.This is example of positive conditional stroke.

E.g., The team members from office sit around a round table in the meeting room, with the purpose of brainstorming. One of them claimed,”This is a stupid idea, it will not work .”.This is an example of conditional negative stroke.

•  Games : When people exchange a series of transactions and at the end of that they both feel bad, it is called a game. Their social level message sounds like an exchange of information but at a psychological level there is an ulterior transaction happening. Following  the initial invitation and a  switch  later on, it signals a game leaving with a payoff ,both people feeling offended. Games are usually played from negative AC, negative CP or negative NP but never an adult. There are intense strokes at the beginning but end with intense negative strokes for all the players. The psychological risk perceived is very great. In a game each participant shifts the responsibility for the outcome to another.

E.g. : In the kitty party Suparna proposed a short trip to Lonavala for all members. All agree and indulge in making plans. Suddenly Vimal says ,” I don’t think it’s a great idea, let’s go to Shirdi “.  Suparna feels bad that her idea is suddenly opposed and discounted. Some others join in and say that perhaps they should drop the idea totally due to covid restrictions.  Both Suparna and Vimal feel bad at the ways things have turned out.This is negative stroke as payoff.

E.g., Sush calls her boyfriend and tells him that she will slash her wrist if he decides to break up with her. Aarav feels sorry and unwillingly continues with their relationship because he is scared that sush will harm herself. Here Sush(need for love, recognition and attention) has hooked on with Aarav(need for company, friendship). She cons him into a relationship . Later she dumps him when she meets a rich guy , Anil ,who can shower her with lavish gifts. Here Aarav is left feeling miserable, Sush feels bad moving over to Anil.This is negative stroke as payoff.

• Intimacy: When people express their authentic feelings and wants to each other without censoring and secret messages, it is called intimacy. Here the social and psychological level messages are congruent and feelings expressed are  appropriate to finish the situation. The participants make it very clear to each other, as far as possible what they expect at a feeling and thinking level from each other. Intimacy is a candid child to child relationship with no games and mutual exploitation. It is set up by the adult ego states of the parties concerned, so that they understand very well their contracts and commitments with each other. Because intimacy is not pre- programmed, it is the most unpredictable of all the ways of time structuring. The outcome of intimacy must always be constructive for people concerned .The comfort and nature of strokes experienced depends on the transaction and situation. There is complete clarity made as far as possible about what we want on a feeling level and thinking level.

E.g. Shoms screamed at his mother. Suparna spoke to shom after two hours and had a very candid and frank conversation about how she felt and stated her expectations from him . In return Shoms also disclosed the reason of his displeasure. Both had a frank discussion and decided on way forward ,in an adult manner talking the situation in the here and now. At the end both Shom and his mother felt good with the outcome of the discussion. It further strengthened their bond as both has set their expectations very clearly. This is example of positive strokes .

When the source of strokes is external and not modified by stroke filter, person may engage in ritual, pastime, activity or intimacy. When the stroke filter is being used to modify the stroke, then intimacy is not present, an activity will not progress for long and a racket or game is probably occurring.When a person is in a racket or a game, the stroke filter not only alters something about the present situation,but also recycles old Parent and Child tapes involving discounted strokes from the past.