August 3, 2021
Transactional Analysis has three simple yet empowering principles –
- I’m okay – you’re okay.
- We can all think.
- We all make decisions early in life and we are capable of changing them later in life.
We all have three ‘ego states’ – Parent (learned messages from our caretakers), Child – our learned responses to those messages, and Adult – our rational responses to ‘here and now’. According to Transactional Analysis, at least one of the ego states at a time is active within us as a response to triggers of our daily lives.
When we are young, we internalise relationships with our carers and people around us and we carry a lot of that into our adult lives.
Trauma, whether it’s a one time or recurring incident, can undoubtedly form how we view the world and ourselves. The whole world can become a threatening place in our eyes, in everything we do.
In therapy, by looking within, we can find ways to give ourselves the safety, love, nourishing we need and deserve. In other words, we go back in time and hug our hurt self, so we can build a future that allows us to function and live a fulfilling life.
We cannot change our past, but we can find ways to heal from awareness, acceptance, forgiveness and self-love.