Theories of Personality

Theories of Personality BS Psychology 2 | 1st Semester PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES 1.3 Structures of Personality Id PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES A.​ HENRY MURRAY’S PERSONOLOGY B.​ OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY 1.0 HENRY MURRAY’S PERSONOLOGY ●​ “For me, personality is a judge without boundaries.” 1.1 Biography Henry Murray ●​ Born in May 13, 1893, in New York ●​ Good relationship with father, poor with mother ●​ Undergraduate in History from Harvard University; MD in Biology from Columbia University ●​ Friends with Jung ●​ Became an Instructor at the Harvard Psychological Clinic ●​ Created the Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT) ●​ Asked to create psychological profile of Adolf Hitler ●​ Helped create the Psychological Clinic Annex in Harvard University, & became an emeritus professor in 1963 ●​ Died on June 23, 1988 from pneumonia 1.2 Introduction Five Principles: 1.​ Personality is rooted in the brain. Cerebral physiology guide & govern personality. 2.​ Ideal state of human nature is constant tension to reduce. Process of acting to reduce the tension is satisfying. 3.​ Personality continues to develop over time. Constructed of all the events that occur in a person’s life. 4.​ Personality changes & progress; dynamic. 5.​ Uniqueness of each one while recognizing similarities. Page 1 October 2025 ●​ Contains socially acceptable impulses (like empathy & love). ●​ Influenced by Jung’s shadow archetype; good and bad impulses. ●​ Strength of impulse varies per person. Superego ●​ Internalization of the culture’s values and norms. ●​ Continuously develops through a lifetime. ●​ Ego-ideal - moral/ideal behaviors for which a person should strive; what we could become, and every ambition & aspiration. Ego ●​ Central organizer of behavior. ●​ Mediate between the id and the superego (strong ego). ●​ Leaves personality a battleground (weak ego). 1.4 Dynamics of Personality Needs ●​ Explains motivation and direction of behavior. ●​ “Potentially or readiness to respond in certain given circumstances” ●​ Involves physiochemical forces in the brain that organize, and direct intellectual & perceptual abilities. ●​ May be ignited by internal processes and environmental factor. ●​ Accompanied by a particular feeling or emotion (weak, intense, momentary, or enduring) Table 1.1 List of Needs Abasement To accept punishment & surrender Achievement To succeed & be able to overcome obstacles Affiliation To make friendships & relations Aggression To fight, attack, or take revenge Autonomy To be independent, get free Counteraction To master or make up for failure by re-striving Defendance To defend self against assault Deference To conform to custom Dominance To influence or direct the behavior of others Exhibition To make an impression Harmavoidance To avoid pain Infavoidance To avoid humiliation Nurturance To give sympathy to and gratify the needs of a helpless other Order To put things in order Play To act for fun Rejection To exclude, abandon, or expel Sentience To seek & enjoy sensuous impressions Sex To form & further an erotic relationship Succorance To be nursed, supported, sustained Understanding To ask questions, seek knowledge Types of Needs 1.​ Primary Needs ●​ “Viscerogenc needs” ●​ Arise from bodily states and include those needs required for survival ●​ Needs for sex & sentience 2.​ Secondary Needs ●​ Psychogenic needs ●​ Arise indirectly from primary needs ●​ Concerned with emotional satisfaction ●​ Psychological needs such as the need to achieve, be nurtured, or be independent 3.​ Reactive Needs ●​ Response to something specific in the environment ●​ Aroused only when that object appears 4.​ Proactive Needs Page 2 October 2025 ●​ Spontaneous needs that do not depend on the presence of a particular object ●​ Arise spontaneously Characteristics of Needs 1.​ Prepotency ●​ The urgency with which needs impel behavior ●​ More important needs need to be satisfied first before other needs can cooperate ●​ Physiological needs need to be satisfied first 2.​ Fusion ●​ When some needs are complementary ●​ Can be satisfied by one behavior or a set of behaviors 3.​ Subdidiation ●​ To a situation in which one need is activated to aid in the satisfaction of another need 4.​ Press ●​ The pressure caused by environmental objects/persons, or past events, to behave in a certain way ●​ Two kinds of press: ○​ Alpha press - attributes of the environment/external reality ○​ Beta press - the individual’s subjective perception of the environment 5.​ Thema ●​ The combination of the need & the press or the total picture of the person’s functioning ●​ Related to the needs & presses in a pattern that gives coherence, unity, and uniqueness of our behavior 1.5 Development of Personality Table 1.2 Development of Personality Features Complex The secure Claustral complexes existence within - tend to be the womb dependent on others Oral The sensuous Oral complexes enjoyment of sucking, kissing, sucking eating, & drinking nourishment while being held Anal The pleasure Anal complexes resulting from dirty & disorganized defecation Urethral The pleasure Urethral complexes accompanying aim too high & are urination shattered by failure Geniital Genital castration complex pleasures boy’s fantasy that his penis might be cut off. Stage Claustral Thematic Appreciation Test ●​ Consists of a set of ambiguous pictures depicting simple scenes ●​ One is asked to compose a story that describes the people and objects in the picture (well-developed story) ●​ Concepts of needs, press, and thema are used in the interpretation 2.0 OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY ●​ An offshoot of psychoanalytic theory that emphasizes interpersonal relations (family, esp between mother and child ●​ Inner images of the self and other ●​ How they manifest themselves in interpersonal situations ●​ Emphasized the nurturing & loving relationship between parent & child (4-6 mos. after birth) ●​ Less emphasis on biologically-based drives & more importance on consistent patterns of interpersonal relationships ●​ Intimacy & nurturing of the mother ●​ Human contact & relatedness as the prime motive of human behavior ●​ Object ○​ Means person ○​ Significant person that is the object or target of another’s feelings or intentions Page 3 October 2025 ●​ Relations ○​ Interpersonal relations ○​ Suggests the residues of past relationships that affect a person in the present ●​ A way of conceptualizing interpersonal relations and extending psychoanalytic thinking into the interpersonal realm ●​ Looks for the basis of our ways of relating to others at an earlier stage of development than did Freud, who emphasized the “genital stage.” 2.1 Central Concepts Object ●​ To which a subject relates ●​ Objects are usually persons, parts of persons, or symbols of one of these ●​ Can be represented as “good” (satisfying one’s needs & desires), or “bad” (not satisfying the needs & desires) Representation ●​ The way the person has or possesses an object ●​ Object Representation - the mental representation of an object External Object ●​ Actual person, place, or thing that a person has invested with emotional energy Internal Object ●​ One’s representation of another (ex. child’s way of relating to the mother) ●​ A memory, idea, or fantasy about a person, place, or thing Self ●​ Internal image ●​ Conscious & unconscious mental representations of the self Self-representation ●​ Inner representation of themself as experienced in relation to significant others Self-object ●​ Loss of boundaries ●​ Self & object are blurred ●​ Distinction between self & external object is not clear Part Object ●​ An object that is part of a person Whole Object ●​ Another person who is recognized as having rights, feelings, needs, hopes, strengths, weaknesses, and insecurities just like one’s own Object constancy ●​ Maintaining a lasting relationship with a specific object ●​ Rejecting any substitute for such an object ●​ The capacity to recognize and tolerate loving and hostile feelings toward the same object ●​ The capacity to keep feelings centered on a specific object ●​ The capacity to value an object for attributes other than its function of satisfying needs Splitting ●​ One cannot keep two contradictory thoughts or feelings in mind at the same time ●​ Keeps the conflicting feelings apart and focuses on just one of them Self-psychology ●​ Issue: nature and kind of emotional investment in the self ●​ Narcissism - central role in the thinking of self-psychology. One deals with objects as if they were part of the self/ in terms of the object performing an essential function for the self ●​ Requires different form of treatment from that of neurotics 2.2 ●​ ●​ Melanie Klein Biography ●​ Specialized in psychoanalysis of children ●​ Followed Anna Freud in working directly with children ●​ Initially, she was a traditional psychoanalyst. Moved away from Freud, saw the psychic world of infant and child as filled with primitive & savage conflict, murderous & cannibalistic tendencies ●​ Stood between classical psychoanalysis and object relations theory proper Key Ideas ●​ Emphasized biological drives and instincts ●​ “Death instinct”, fear of death or annihilation ●​ Fear is transferred to an object that seems overpowering &uncontrollable in the helpless infant’s fantasies. ●​ Fantasies ○​ Imagined representations of bodily instincts & urges ○​ Feels this in the body and mentally Page 4 October 2025 ●​ ●​ ●​ ○​ Very vivid, infant cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality ○​ Discomfort are felt as if they were an attack by a hostile force ○​ Resembles the crazy world of adult psychosis (but normal for infants) Objects ○​ Drives are inherently aimed toward objects ○​ Seeks milf rom the breast ○​ “Good breast” - gives milk, “bad breast” - denies ○​ Gratifying and hostile parts of the infant’s real world (object world at first few months) Psychic Mechanisms ○​ Used by infant including splitting, introjection, projection & projective identification ○​ Projection - infant believes an object has qualities that are actually the infant’s own feelings ○​ Introjection - mental fantasy through which the infant takes in something perceived in the world ○​ Projective Identification imaginatively splitting off part of oneself & attributing it to another in order to control the other. Often includes splitting, in the form of externalization of inner anxiety and anger Ego and Superego ○​ Carry on functions previously performed by parents or others ○​ Good breast - focal point around which ego develops ○​ Infant deflects life instinct and death instinct on the external object ○​ Fluctuation of introjection and projection creates the amalgam of ego and object that is the core of the developing ego ○​ Superego does not accurately represent the parents as they are formed out of the infant’s fantasy images of the parents, modified by their feelings and fantasies With increasing maturity, infant overcomes illusions of omnipotent control over objects. Decrease in projection and introjection, and a rise in more accurate projection 2.3 Margaret Mahler ●​ Place great emphasis on the importance of holding a child ●​ Physical holding and psychological holding ●​ Holding keeps tension and frustration from becoming too great ●​ Wrong holding - not holding a child physically or psychologically, or holding it too tightly in a way that is felt as smothering ●​ “Psychological birth” - begins to sense itself/to remember The Separation-Individuation State 1.​ Differentiation and Body Image ●​ Infant starts to pull away from the mother a bit ●​ 7-8 months ●​ Eyes begin to move away from mother, always check back ●​ “Hatching” phase 2.​ Practicing Method ●​ Crawling, standing up ●​ Holding on, then crawling and standing to actually walking ●​ Not going too far, looking back ●​ Don’t push the child, don’t hold it back 3.​ Rapprochement ●​ 2 ½ years ●​ Child shares every new skill and experience to mother ●​ Development of greater autonomy ●​ “Terrible twos” - power struggles with the child 4.​ Object constancy ●​ 3+ years ●​ Internalization of the image of the mother ●​ Child no longer really needs moter’s presence ●​ Hold the image of mother inside the mind ●​ Use object (e.g., toy) to supply comfort ●​ Cause and effect ●​ Beginnings of conscience ●​ Development of pathological shame and guilt ●​ Beginnings of ego development (Freudian) 2.4 Otto Kernberg ●​ Affectively charged relational experiences as the basic blocks of psychic structures ●​ Mixed drive model and object relations model by having self and object Page 5 October 2025 representation under the influence of libidinal and aggressive drives ●​ More attention to later childhood ●​ Ego identity continues to evolve by reshaping experiences with external objects Object ●​ Mental image of a person, colored with feelings Borderline Disorders ●​ History of extreme frustration that provokes intense anger and aggression (first few years) ●​ Child protects self by projecting aggression back onto the parents ●​ Mother - potentially dangerous and threatening ●​ One/both parents may be hated/feared ●​ Sexual relationships viewed as dangerous ●​ Attempts at solution may include homosexuality ot promiscuity 2.5 Heinz Kohut Self Psychology ●​ Own version of object relations ●​ Emphasis on narcissism ●​ Both healthy and unhealthy forms of narcissism Narcissist Pathology ●​ Absence of the parent’s empathic response to the child’s needs to be mirrored and to find a target for idealization ●​ Parent unable to listen to child with pride ●​ Not fulfilling the child’s needs for appropriate admiration ●​ Chronic non-responsiveness keeps the child from building up the psychic structures capable of dealing with anxiety and that regulate tension and tame effects ●​ Over prone to inappropriate panic ●​ Sexual and aggressive drives intensified Vertical Split ●​ Side-by-side conscious existence in the psyche of incompatible;r psychic attitudes ●​ Reality ego walled off from the unrealistic narcissistic aspects (disavowal or isolation) ●​ Unmodified grandiose self intrudes into many activities (e.g., vain, boastful behavior) PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORIES PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORIES A.​ KAREN HORNEY (FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY) B.​ ERIC BERNE (TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS) KAREN HORNEY’S FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY 1.0 ●​ Horney believed that each individual has the potential for self-realization & that the goal of psychoanalysis should be moving toward a healthy self rather than exploring early childhood patterns of dysfunction 1.1 Biography Karen Horney ●​ One of the first women trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst ●​ Moved from Germany to the United States and away from Freud’s teaching during the Great Depression ●​ Disagreed with the Freudian idea that girls have penis envy & are jealous of male biological features ●​ More attached to her spirited mother ●​ Was attracted to her brother ●​ Believed that neurosis is not a medical condition; but a continuous process experienced throughout life & greatly dependent on childhood ●​ Laid the foundation of Neo-Freudian discipline ●​ Founded American Institute for Psychoanalysis 1.2 Feminine Psychology ●​ Jealousy is culturally based; males often have greater privileges ●​ Men have womb envy ●​ Unconscious anxiety ●​ Normal growth can be blocked by basic anxiety stemming from needs not being met ●​ Personality is influenced by gender, personal experiences, social and cultural forces and not merely biological ●​ Personality is not governed by sexual urges but our needs for security and love Page 6 October 2025 1.3 Parental Behavior ●​ Social forces during childhood shape personality ●​ Relationship between child and parents ●​ Major need is safety (including security & freedom of fears) ●​ Security ○​ Based on how parents treat the child ○​ Prevented when parents display basic evil or parental indifference (according to the child, not parent), lack of warmth & affection for the child ●​ Even the best parents commit mistakes, due to societal pressure of neurosis ●​ Child react to hostility by being angry and hostile (basic hostility) ○​ Starts with frustration followed by protests ○​ Becoming a habitual response; habitual hostile lead to aggressive coping strategies ○​ Compliance - child suppress basic hostility to restore good ties ●​ If neither aggression nor compliance eliminates parental indifference, child may withdraw 1.4 Basic Anxiety ●​ Foundation of all neuroses and tied to hostility ●​ Expressed differently but is felt similarly ●​ Protect self through: ○​ Securing affection ○​ Submissive and compliant ○​ Attaining power over others ○​ Psychological withdrawal Anxiety ●​ Insidiously increasing, all pervading feeling of being lonely and hopeless in a hostile world ●​ Feeling of being small, insignificant, helpless, deserted, endangered in a world that is out to abuse, cheat, attack, humiliate, and betray them 1.5 ●​ ●​ ●​ ●​ Neurotic Needs Irrational solutions to one’s problems Intensive & compulsive The “only” way to resolve anxiety Do not help us feel safe and secure but will only allow us to escape the discomfort caused by our anxiety; ●​ Satisfy only one need which we then try to satisfy across all situations; ●​ Encompass the protective functions. Compliance ●​ One seeks the affection and approval ●​ Seek a partner the could share their feelings with Aggression ●​ One may display anger or hostility to those around them ●​ Seeks power and control Detachment ●​ One may strive to become self-dependent, considering isolation and independence; as the only way forward Table 1.3 Self Protective Mechanisms Mechanism Neurotic Trends Needs Gaining Affection & Movement toward affection Approval people; self-effacing solution (the Being A Dominant compliant submissive Partner personality) Attaining Power Movement against power Exploitation people; expansive solution (the Prestige aggressive Admiration personality) Achievement Withdrawing Self-Sufficienc Movement away y from people; Perfectiom resignation solution (the detached Narrow Limits personality) to Life 1.6 Neurotic Trends & Solutions/Interpersonal Orientations ●​ Neurotic trends evolve from self-protective mechanisms ●​ Compulsive attitudes & behaviors ●​ Compelled to behave in accordance with at least one of the neurotic trends ●​ Displayed indiscriminately across all situations 1.7 Personality Types ●​ All are present in a neurotic person; one is dominant, other two are actively repressed ●​ Dominant trend determines how a person acts toward others Page 7 October 2025 ●​ Can be expressed appropriately by anxiety-free individuals who have learned how to harmoniously integrate all three within the personality ●​ Conflict ○​ If two other less dominant traits are pushing for expression ○​ Understood as the basic incompatibility of the three trends and becomes the core of neurosis Compliant Personality ●​ Displays attitudes and behaviors that reflect and intense and continuous need for affection and approval ●​ An urged to be loved, wanted, and protected Aggressive Personality ●​ Mastery of tasks and power over others even if close relationships are impeded Detached Personality ●​ Personal freedom is sought even at the expense of relationships and achievement and emotional distance is sought 1.8 Coping Styles ●​ How people cope with day-to-day problems ●​ Can become neurotic strategies if used rigidly & compulsively Moving toward people ●​ Affiliation and dependence ●​ Child become dependent on their parents and caregivers to receive attention & affection ●​ Tend to use it to deal with adult relationships (intense need for love & acceptance) Moving against people ●​ Aggression and assertiveness ●​ Child find fighting the best way to deal with an unhappy situation at home ●​ Deal with feelings of insecurity by bullying ●​ Tend to lash out with hurtful comments and exploit others Moving away from people ●​ Detachment and isolation ●​ Child handle anxiety by withdrawing from the world ●​ Need privacy and tend to be self-sufficient ●​ Avoid love and friendship ●​ Tend to gravitate towards careers that require little interaction with others 1.9 Self Theory ●​ “The self is the core of one’s being, one’s potential” Normal People Self Image ●​ Built on a realistic evaluation of their abilities, weaknesses, & relations ●​ Sense of unity and integration to the personality ●​ A framework that allows them to approach others and themself ●​ Self-realization, reflects the true self, is attained Neurotic People Self Image ●​ Not based on a realistic evaluation of personal strengths and weaknesses ●​ Split into despised self and ideal self ●​ Negative, unrealistic, and impossible ●​ Based on illusion ●​ Unsatisfactory substitute for self-worth ●​ Fixed idea which demands rigid adherence ●​ Static, inflexible, unyielding ●​ Not permissive to corrections of deficiencies ●​ Hating self and pretending to be perfect in a process called vacillation ○​ Real self is denied & prevented from actualizing their true potentials Externalization ●​ Process by which neurotics defend themselves against inner conflicts by projecting conflicts onto the outside world ●​ Temporarily alleviates anxiety but will not reduce the gap between the idealized self and the reality 1.10 Techniques/Auxiliary Approaches to Artificial Harmony ●​ Integrate opposing forces we might feel when dealing with others ●​ Lower than neurotic need & trends ●​ Commonly used ●​ Aka protective structures which the personality creates to ease basic conflicts Blind Spots ●​ Unawareness of aspects of behavior blatantly incompatible with the idealized self-image Compartmentalization ●​ Incompatible behaviors are consciously recognized but not at the same time ●​ Each is experienced in a separate “compartment” Page 8 October 2025 Rationalization ●​ Giving good reasons to excuse rather than explain conduct ●​ Explains behavior consistent with socially acceptable norms Excessive Self Control ●​ Avoiding emotions entirely ●​ Preventing the self from being overwhelmed by a variety of emotions Arbitrary Rightness ●​ Settling conflicts by declaring arbitrarily and dogmatically that they are right Elusiveness ●​ Avoiding commitment to any opinion or action because of the lack of definite self image Cyniscism ●​ Denying and mocking moral values by pretending to accept societal values but not living by them 1.11 Horney’s Six Principles Optimism-Positivism Principle ●​ The capacity to grow & change for the better ●​ Not rigidly formed during childhood ●​ Capacity to consciously change personality and resolve neurotic conflict ●​ Can achieve self-realization Society-Culture Principle ●​ Personality as a product of our interactions with other people Character-Structure Principle ●​ One create a structural character that remains constant through life ●​ Sets our limits within which we have a free choice on how to behave Self Concept Principle ●​ Awareness of oneself ●​ Actual or real self is all that people have to operate with throughout life Complementation-Conflict Principle ●​ One have their own ways of adjusting to conflicts Self-Analysis Principle ●​ Capacity to analyze own defects ●​ Own ways of solving problems ●​ Allows one to develop their abilities to restore balance in our lives 2.0 ERIC BERNE’S TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS ●​ Powerful systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and change ●​ Wide application in organizations and education 2.1 Biography Eric Berne ●​ Born on May 10, 1910, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada ●​ Eric Lennard Bernstein ●​ Son of David Hillel Bernstein (general practitioner) and Sarah Gordon Bernstein (writer & editor) ●​ Immigrated to Canada from Poland and Russia ●​ Close with his father ●​ Baccalaureate degree in 1931; M.D and C.M. (Master of Surgery) in 1935 ●​ Internship at Englewood Hospital ●​ Began psychiatric residency in 1936 at the Psychiatric Clinic of Yale University School of Medicine 2.2 ○​ Specific way of thinking, feeling, & behaving by which we interact with each other ○​ Psychological realities and exists in everyone ○​ All three ego states are legitimate and important; problems arise when one state persistently dominates inappropriately ○​ Parent, child, adult Figure 1.1 Types of Analysis 1.​ Transactional Analysis ●​ Method of examining one transaction ●​ Method of systematizing information derived from analyzing these transactions in words that have the same meaning, by definition ●​ Transaction - basic scientific unit of social intercourse/ people’s interactions ●​ Transactional stimulus - form of acknowledging the presence of others ●​ Transactional response - response to the stimulus 2.​ Structural Analysis ●​ Observation of spontaneous social activity reveals that people show noticeable changes in posture, viewpoint, voice, vocabulary & other behavior. ●​ Behavioral changes accompanied by shifts in feeling ●​ Certain set of behavior patterns corresponds to one state of mind; another set is related to a different psychic attitude ●​ Method of observing individuals as they shift with varying degrees of readiness from one ego state to another ●​ Examining statements in a transaction as to which ego states are exhibited ●​ Emotional shifts ●​ Ego state ○​ Rise from the changes and differences in a set of behaviors Page 9 October 2025 a.​ The Parent ●​ Resembles parental figure ●​ Like a tape recorder; a collection of recordings in the brain of unquestioned or imposed external events perceived by a person in their early years (first 5 years) ●​ Everything the child saw their parents do, not edited ●​ The Taught Concept ●​ Can supply values and quick solutions but may also perpetuate outdated rules ●​ Attitudes, rules, and behaviors internalized from parental figures ○​ Critical Parent - judgemental, controlling, prescriptive (“You should..”, “Always remember..”) ○​ Nurturing Parent - protective, caring, supportive b.​ The Child ●​ Feelings, impulses, creativity and memory traces from childhood ●​ The Felt Concept ●​ Supplies warmth & creativity, but an overdominant, confused Child can cause difficulties ○​ Natural Child - hateful or loving, impulsive, spontaneous, playful ○​ Little Professor - thoughtful, creative, imaginative ○​ Adapted Child - compliant, rebellious, fearful; reactions shaped by how one was treated as a child c.​ The Adult ●​ Objective, data-processing part of the self ●​ Tests reality, evaluates options, and mediates between Parent and Child ●​ Like a computer that processes input and produces reasonable responses ●​ Healthy adult can be contaminated (uses incorrect information) and needs decontamination ●​ Prejudice, contamination from the Parent; Delusion, contamination from the Child ●​ Allows the self to cope with problems by figuring out situations, making one feel more capable and self-actualized ●​ The Thought Concept 2.3 statement triggers a parent-like response) Ulterior (covert) transactions ●​ two -level communications with a social (overt) message and a psychological (covert) message ●​ Exchange looks complementary but underneath a different (manipulative) interaction is happening ●​ Basis of games ●​ Two types ○​ Angular Transaction - three ego states involved; on surface the interaction seems adult -> adult, but covertly ○​ Duplex Transaction most complex, with multiple simultaneous messages between different ego states Figure 1.2 Types of Transaction Complementary Transactions ●​ Stimulus and response come from compatible ego states (e.g. Adult -> Adult) ●​ Communication is smooth ●​ Parallel lines ●​ Two types ○​ Type I - stimulus and response from the same ego state ○​ Type II - do not regard each other as equals but complementary (responses are appropriate to the stimulus) Crossed Transactions ●​ Response comes from an ego state different from the one addressed (e.g., you speak Adult→Adult but the other answers from Child) ●​ Cause misunderstanding, tension ●​ Two types ○​ Type I - Adult-to-adult crossed by Child-to-parent (one speaks from their adult but the other responds from their child) ○​ Type II - adult-to-adult crossed by parent-to-child (one neutral Page 10 October 2025 2.4 Strokes and Stroke Economy Stroke ●​ Any unit of recognition ●​ Physical touch, smile, comments ●​ Positive strokes - praise, affection ●​ Negative strokes - criticism, put-downs Stroke economy ●​ Rules (internalized from the critical parent) that limit giving, asking for, accepting, or giving oneself strokes ●​ “Stroke hunger” ●​ Transactional Analysis therapy works to change unhealthy stroke economies by encouraging freer, healthier exchange of strokes 2.6 Games Games ●​ Crooked ways of exchanging strokes ●​ Repetitive sequences of ulterior transactions with predictable payoffs (emotional payoff for players) and a hidden agenda ●​ Looks social but end in a negative payoff (embarrassment, hurt, reinforcement of a life script) ●​ Way of gaining intimacy with other ●​ Payoff - hidden agenda of sorts that motivate the players to participate ○​ Biological Payoff - strokes ○​ Social Payoff - time structuring ○​ Existential Payoff - Confirms the existential position of each player based on their decision as to how they want their life to be 2.7 Life Positions and Life Scripts Life Positions ●​ Basic existential attitudes formed in early life ●​ Developed during childhood ●​ Positions color expectations and choices in relationships 1.​ I’m OK — You’re OK (healthy) ●​ Adult must be realistic, aware, tolerant and has control over the child and parent ●​ Based on thoughts, faith 2.​ I’m OK — You’re not OK (superior) ●​ Child brutalized by parents enough to get used to it ●​ Self-centered, self-serving, distrust, insulting, do not feel guilt 3.​ I’m not OK — You’re OK (inferior) ●​ Universal position during childhood ●​ Not OK because of weakness & can’t do what adults can ●​ Higher risk of being anxious, depressed, passive ●​ Strokes present Page 11 October 2025 4.​ I’m not OK — You’re not OK (hopeless) ●​ No one a person can run to ●​ Feeling of hopelessness, despair, extreme withdrawal, insanity ●​ Strokes cease Life Scripts ●​ Unconscious, early-formed life plans (made from parental injunctions, early decisions, and events) that guide behavior and outcomes ●​ Script determines recurring choices, the games people play, and emotional patterns ●​ Through analysis and re-decision techniques, people can rewrite scripts and choose different outcomes