Why do the same conversations keep going sideways
Track a week of charged exchanges. Note which state you answered from, and which one they seemed to be in.
Eric Berne laid out Transactional Analysis in Games People Play in 1964, a way of explaining why people fall into harmful interactions without ever realizing they are doing it. It starts with three ego states: Parent, holding inherited beliefs about morality and duty; Adult, the rational processor running your ordinary day; and Child, holding the feelings and behaviors you developed early.
You carry all three at once and any one can take over without you noticing the switch. Most exchanges run Adult to Adult and are unremarkable. An ulterior transaction happens when a Parent or Child state takes control underneath what looks like a simple Adult-to-Adult exchange.
A manager asks for a status update and gets back a defensive can't you see I'm working on it. That is an Adult question landing on someone answering from a Child state, reacting as if to a critical parent. When the same pattern repeats with the same person, always arriving at the same emotional payoff, Berne called that a game.
What you get
- The three ego states, defined briefly
- What an ulterior transaction is, with the example that makes it obvious
- A one-week log with a repeat flag, which is what turns it into a finding
- Why an unreturned greeting can ruin a morning, and what strokes have to do with it
Where should we send it?
One email with the worksheet. You can unsubscribe from anything else in one click.
On its way
Check your inbox. If it has not landed in a minute or two, look in promotions or spam, and add sam@startuppatterns.com to your contacts so the rest arrive.
Adapted from the Mindfulness chapter of The Mindful Product Company by Sam McAfee.