TA Knowledge
The life that keeps repeating has a name
Transactional Analysis (TA) explains why we repeat the same mistakes and the same hurts. Read the core ideas in plain language, then apply them to yourself with a free test.
What Is a Life Script? Why Your Life Keeps Arriving at the Same Ending — the Childhood Decision, and Redecision as the Way Out
A life script is an unconscious life plan you wrote for yourself in childhood. From Berne’s definition to injunctions, drivers and early decisions, winner, non-winner and loser directions, and redecision — how the repeating pattern in your life works.
Read more →What Is an Egogram? How to Read the Graph of Your Five Ego Energies — CP, NP, A, FC and AC
An egogram is a Transactional Analysis tool that shows, as a graph, how your energy is distributed across five ego functions: CP, NP, A, FC and AC. How to read it, the constancy hypothesis, the N and reverse-N profiles, and how it differs from MBTI.
Read more →What Are the P-A-C Ego States? How to Meet the Parent, Adult and Child Inside You
Ego states are the three positions of the mind — Parent, Adult and Child (P-A-C) — set out by Eric Berne. Everyday examples of contamination, exclusion and the crossed transactions that make conversations go wrong, with a free ego state test.
Read more →The Four Life Positions — Your Basic Stance Toward Yourself and Others, and Finding Your Place on the OK Corral
A life position is the basic conclusion you reached in childhood about “Am I OK? Are you OK?” The four positions of Berne and Ernst’s OK Corral, how each looks in daily life, how you move under stress, and how to practice moving toward I+U+.
Read more →What Is a Psychological Game? The Drama Triangle, Repeating Relationship Patterns, and How to Get Out of a Game
The definition of a psychological game and the game formula, Karpman’s Drama Triangle (Victim, Persecutor, Rescuer), classic games such as “Yes, but…”, and how to get out of a repeating relationship pattern — explained through Transactional Analysis.
Read more →Repeating Relationship Patterns: Why Do I Always End Up With the Same Kind of Person? — The Psychology of Script and Attachment
The psychology of repeating relationship patterns, explained through the life script of Transactional Analysis, the four attachment styles and psychological games. How to tell familiarity from safety, and the first steps to breaking the pattern: noticing, testing and naming.
Read more →Repeating the Same Mistake: Why Is It Only Me? — It Is Not Willpower. It Is Your Life Script at Work
Resolutions that last three days, procrastination, undoing yourself at the decisive moment. Repeating the same mistake is not a lack of willpower. It is a pattern made by the drivers and injunctions of your life script. Transactional Analysis explains the structure.
Read more →Burnout Self-Check — Why Rest Doesn’t Feel Like Rest, and the Five Drivers That Keep Pushing You
If your mind is not at ease even on a day off, there is something to look at before a burnout self-check. How the five drivers of Transactional Analysis create guilt about resting and the burnout cycle, and the remedy called “permission.”
Read more →The Psychology of Listlessness — Not Wanting to Do Anything May Not Be Laziness. It May Be a Signal From an Injunction Inside You
The listlessness of not wanting to do anything is not laziness. The psychology of listlessness explained through the injunctions and discounting of Transactional Analysis (TA), a way of recovery that starts very small, and a free injunctions test.
Read more →Egogram vs. MBTI — What Is the Next Step From “What Kind of Person Am I?” to “Why Am I Like This?”
What comes after the “What kind of person am I?” that MBTI tells you? The difference in viewpoint between the egogram and MBTI (type classification vs. energy distribution), and how to use the two tests together.
Read more →What Is Transactional Analysis (TA)? The Psychology That Explains Why Your Life Keeps Repeating
Transactional Analysis is the psychology that explains why we repeat the same mistakes and the same hurts. A plain-language summary of its core concepts: ego states, the life script, injunctions, drivers and more.
Read more →What Is an Injunction? The 12 Unconscious “Don’ts” That Hold You Back
An injunction is an unconscious “Don’t” command received from your parents in childhood. The 12 injunctions — Don’t exist, Don’t feel, Don’t succeed and more — and how they hold back adult life.
Read more →What Is a Racket Feeling? The “Substitute Feeling” That Covers Your Real One
A racket feeling is a familiar feeling, learned in childhood, that takes the place of the real one. If the same feeling keeps repeating — like the fear behind anger — it may be a racket feeling. How it works and how to notice it.
Read more →What Is a Driver? The 5 Unconscious Commands That Keep Pushing You
A driver is an unconscious command that pushes you on without end, such as “Be Perfect” or “Be Strong.” The five drivers, and how they lead to burnout and relationship problems.
Read more →Apply it to yourself