Now that we have developed a language, we come to the central technique: using that language to analyze a transaction. The transaction consists of a stimulus by one person and a response by another, which response in turn becomes a new stimulus for the other person to respond to. The purpose of the analysis is to discover which part of each person - Parent, Adult, or Child - is originating each stimulus and response.

There are many clues to help identify stimulus and response as Parent, Adult, or Child. These include not only the words used but also the tone of voice, body gestures, and facial expressions. The more skilful we become in picking up these clues, the more data we acquire in Transactional Analysis. We do not have to dig deep into anecdotal material in the past to discover what is recorded in Parent, Adult, and Child. We reveal these aspects in ourselves every day.

The following is a list of physical and verbal clues for each state.

Parent Clues - Physical: Furrowed brow, pursed lips, the pointing index finger, head wagging, the 'horrified look', foot-tapping, hands on hips, arms folded across chest, wringing hands, tongue-clicking, sighing, patting another on the head. These are typical Parent gestures. However, there may be other Parent gestures peculiar to one's own  Parent. For instance, if your father had a habit of clearing his throat and looking skyward each time he was to make a pronouncement about your bad behaviour, this mannerism undoubtedly would be apparent as your own prelude to a Parent statement, even though this might not be generally seen as Parent in most people. Also, there are cultural differences. For instance, in the United States people exhale as they sigh, whereas in Sweden they inhale as they sigh.

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Parent Clues - Verbal: I am going to put a stop to this once and for all; I can't for the life of me ...; Now always remember ... ('always' and 'never' are almost always Parent words, which reveal lie limitations of an archaic system closed to new data); How many times have I told you? If I were you ...

Many evaluative words, whether critical or supportive, may identify the Parent inasmuch as they make a judgment about another, based not on Adult evaluation but on automatic, archaic responses. Examples of these kinds of words are: stupid, naughty, ridiculous, disgusting, shocking, asinine, lazy, nonsense, absurd, poor thing, poor dear, no! no!, sonny, honey (as from a solicitous saleslady), How dare you?, cute, there there, Now what?, Not again! It is important to keep in mind that these words are clues, and are not conclusive. The Adult may decide after serious deliberation that, on the basis of an Adult ethical system, certain things are stupid, ridiculous, disgusting, and shocking. Two words, 'should' and 'ought', frequently are giveaways to the Parent state, but as I contend in Chapter 12, 'should' and 'ought' can also be Adult words. It is the automatic, archaic, unthinking use of these words which signals the activation of the Parent. The use of these words, together with body gestures and the context of the transaction, help us identify the Parent.

Child Clues - Physical: Since the Child's earliest responses to the external world were nonverbal, the most readily apparent Child clues are seen in physical expressions. Any of the following signal the involvement of the Child in a transaction: tears; the quivering lip; pouting; temper tantrums; the high-pitched, whining voice; rolling eyes; shrugging  shoulders; downcast eyes; teasing; delight; laughter; hand-raising for permission to speak; nail-biting; nose-thumbing; squirming; and giggling.

Child Clues - Verbal: Many words, in addition to baby talk, identify the Child: I wish, I want, I dunno, I gonna, I don't care, I guess, when I grow up, bigger, biggest, better, best (many superlatives originate in the Child as 'playing pieces' in the 'Mine Is Better' game). In the same spirit as 'Look, Ma, no hands', they are stated to impress the Parent and to overcome the not ok.

There is another grouping of words which are spoken continually by little children. However, these words are not clues to the Child, but rather to the Adult operating in the little person. These words are why, what, where, who, when, and how.

Adult Clues - Physical: What does the Adult look like? If we turn off the video on the Parent and Child tapes, what will come through on the face? Will it be blank? Benign? Dull? Insipid? Ernst {1} contends that the blank face does not mean an Adult face. He observes that listening with the Adult is identified by continual movement - of the face, the eyes, the body-with an eye blink every three to five seconds. Non-movement signifies non-listening. The Adult face is straight-forward, says Ernst. If the head is tilted, the person is listening with an angle in mind. The Adult also allows the curious, excited Child to show its face.

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Adult Clues - Verbal: As stated before, the basic vocabulary of the Adult consists of why, what, where, when, who, and how. Other words are: how much, in what way, comparative, true, false, probable, possible, unknown, objective, I think, I see, it is my opinion, etc. These words all indicate Adult data processing. In the phrase 'it is my opinion', the opinion may be derived from the Parent, but the statement is Adult in that it is identified as an opinion and not as fact. 'It is my opinion that high school students should have the vote' is not the same as the statement 'High school students should have the vote'.

With these clues to assist us, we can begin to identify Parent, Adult, and Child in transactions involving ourselves and others.

Any social situation abounds with examples of every conceivable type of transaction. On a full day some years ago I was riding a Greyhound bus to Berkeley and made a note of a number of transactions. The first was a Parent-Parent exchange (Figure 9) between two cheerless ladies, seated side by side, across from me. They were developing a rather extensive philosophy around the point of whether or not the bus would get to Berkeley on time. With great knowing, sympathetic nods of the head they produced a long exchange which began with the following transactions:

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Lady 1: (Looks at her watch, winds it, mumbles, catches the eye of the lady next to her, sighs wearily.)

Lady 2: (Sighs back, shifts uncomfortably, looks at her watch.)

Lady 1: Looks like we're going to be late again.

Lady 2: Never fails.

Lady 1: You ever see a bus on time-ever?

Lady 2: Never have.

Lady 1: Just like I was saying to Herbert this morning - you just don't get service any more like you used to.

Lady 2: You're absolutely right. It's a sign of the times.

Lady 1: It costs you, though. You can count on that!

These transactions are Parent-Parent in that they proceed without the benefit of reality data and are the same kind of judgmental exchange these ladies, as children, overheard between their mummies and aunties over the vicissitudes of riding streetcars. Lady 1 and Lady 2 enjoyed recounting the 'awfuls' more than they would have enjoyed getting the facts. This is because of the good feeling that comes from blaming and finding fault. When we blame and find fault, we replay the early blaming and fault-finding which is recorded in the Parent, and this makes us feel ok, because the Parent is ok, and we are coming on Parent. Finding someone to agree with you, and play the game, produces a feeling well-nigh omnipotent.

Lady 1 made the first move. Lady 2 could have stopped the game had she responded, at

any point, with an Adult statement I to any of Lady 1's statements:

Lady 1: (Looks at her watch, winds it, mumbles, catches the eye of the lady next to her,

sighs wearily.)

Adult Response Possibilities:

1. Non-acknowledgement of sigh, by looking away.

2. A simple smile.

3. (If Lady 1 were sufficiently distressed): 'Are you all right?'

Lady 1: Looks like we're going to be late again.

Adult Response Possibilities:

1: What time is it now?

2. This bus is usually on time.

3. Have you been late before?

4. I'll ask.

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Lady 1: You ever seen a bus on time - ever?

Adult Response Possibilities:

1. Yes.

2. I don't usually ride the bus.

3. I've never thought about it.

Lady 1: Just like I was saying to Herbert this morning - you just don't get service any more like you used to.

Adult Response Possibilities:

1: I can't agree with that.

2. What kind of service do you mean?

3. The standard of living is as high as ever, the way I see it.

4. I can't complain.

These alternative responses would have been Adult, but not complementary. Someone who is enjoying a game of 'Ain't It Awful' does not welcome the intrusion of facts. If the neighbor girls enjoy an every-morning session of 'Husbands Are Stupid', they will not welcome the new girl who announces brightly that her husband is a jewel.

This brings us to the first rule of communication in Transactional Analysis. When stimulus and response on the P-A-C transactional diagram make parallel lines, the transaction is complementary and can go on indefinitely. It does not matter which way the vectors go (Parent-Parent, Adult-Adult, Child-Child, Parent-Child, Child-Adult) if they are parallel. Lady 1 and Lady 2 did not make sense in terms of the facts, but their dialogue was complementary and continued for about ten minutes.

The 'enjoyable misery' of the two lady passengers came to an end when the man in front of them asked the driver if they would be in Berkeley on time. The driver said, 'Yes - at 11:15'. This, too, was a complementary transaction between the man and the driver, Adult-Adult (Figure 10). It was a direct answer to a direct request for information. There was no Parent component (How are our chances of getting to Berkeley on time for a change?) and no Child component (I don't know why I always manage to get on the slowest bus). It was a dispassionate exchange. This kind of transaction gets the facts.

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Behind the two women were two other people, whose activity illustrates another type of transaction, Child-Child. One was a fuzzy-faced, surly-looking boy with unkempt hair, who was wearing dusty, black trousers matched by a black-leather jacket. The other adolescent was dressed similarly and wore a look of forced dissipation. Both were engrossed in reading the same paperbacked book, Secrets of the Torture Cult. Had two priests been poring over the same book one might have assumed they were looking for Adult data about this strange subject; but from observing these two adolescent boys one was more likely to assume that this was a Child-Child transaction, involving somewhat the same cruel pleasure two five-year-old boys might find in discovering how to pull the wings off flies. Let us assume the adolescents acted on their new knowledge and found a way to torture someone as outlined in their text. There would be no Adult input (no understanding of consequences) and no Parent input ('It's horrible to do something like that'). Even if the transaction turned out badly for them (the arrival of the police - or of a mother in the case of the five-year-olds pulling wings off flies), the two persons involved in the transaction itself would have been in agreement. Therefore, it is complementary, Child-Child (Figure 11).

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Additional Illustrations of Complementary Transactions

Parent-Parent Transactions (See Figure 9):

Stimulus: Her duty is home with the children:

Response: She obviously has no sense of duty.

Stimulus: It is disgusting the way taxes keep going up to feed all these no-goods at the

public trough.

Response: Where will it all end?

Stimulus: Kids nowadays are lazy.

Response: It's a sign of the times.

Stimulus: I'm going to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

Response: You should! You have to nip this kind of thing in the bud.

Stimulus: Illegitimate, you know.

Response: Oh, that explains it.

Stimulus: John fired? How dare they do such a thing?

Response: There, there, honey. I don't know why he worked for that stupid company in the first place.

Stimulus: She married him for his money.

Response: Well, that's all she got.

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Stimulus: You can never trust one of those people.

Response: Exactly I Their kind are all alike.

Adult-Adult Transactions (See Figure 10):

Stimulus: What time is it?

Response: My watch says 4:30.

Stimulus: That is a good-looking suit.

Response: Thank you.

Stimulus: This new ink dries very quickly.

Response: Is it more expensive than the other kind?

Stimulus: Please pass the butter.

Response: There you are.

Stimulus: What smells so good, dear?

Response: Cinnamon rolls in the oven ... almost ready!

Stimulus: I don't know what to do. I can't decide what's right.

Response: I don't think you should try to make a decision when you are so weary. Why

don't you go to bed and we'll talk about it in the morning?

Stimulus: Look's like rain.

Response: That's the forecast.

Stimulus: Public relations is a function of management.

Response: You mean it can't be arranged through an agency?

Stimulus: The Lurline sails at 1 o'clock Friday.

Response: What time do we have to be there?

Stimulus: John has seemed worried lately.

Response: Why don't we have him over for dinner?

Stimulus: I am tired.

Response: Let's go to bed.

Stimulus: I see that taxes are going up again next year.

Response: Well, that's not good news. But if we're going to keep spending we've got to get the money somewhere.

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Child-Child Transactions (See Figure 11):

It becomes readily apparent that there are very few game-free complementary Child-Child transactions. This is because the Child is a get-stroke rather than a give-stroke creature. People have transactions to get stroking. Bertrand Russell said: 'One can't think hard from a mere sense of duty. I need little successes from time to time to keep ... a source of energy'. {2} Without Adult involvement in the transaction, no stroking accrues to anyone, and the relationship becomes uncomplementary, or dies of boredom.

A clear social example of this phenomenon is the hippie movement. The flower children extolled a life of Child-Child transactions. Yet the dreadful truth began to become apparent: It's no fun to do your thing if everybody else is only interested in doing his thing. In cutting off the Establishment they cut off the Parent (disapproval) and the Adult ('banal' reality); but, having cut off this disapproval, they found they had also cut off the source of praise. (A couple of four-year-olds may decide to run away from home, but give up the idea when they think it would be nice to have an ice-cream cone, and that takes mummies.) The flower children looked to each other for strokes but these became more and more impersonal and meaningless: Boy to girl: 'Of course I love you. I love everybody!' Life thus began to settle down into more and more primitive means of stroking, such as fantasy stroking (escapism through drugs) and continual sexual activity. Sex can be solely a Child-Child activity inasmuch as the sexual urge is a genetic recording in the Child, as are all primary biological urges. The most pleasurable sex is more, however, in that there is an Adult component of considerateness, gentleness, and responsibility for the feelings of another. Not all hippies are devoid of these values, just as not all hippies are devoid of a Parent and Adult. Many, however, live on a self-seeking basis and, in a sense, use each other for sensory stimulation.

Happy hippie relationships, or childhood friendships which are full of fun, will be found to contain not wholly Child-Child transactions but Adult data-processing and Parent values as well. For example, two little girls playing:

Girl 1 (Child): I'll be the mamma and you be the little girl.

Girl 2 (Child): I always have to be the little girl.

Girl 1 (Adult): Well, let's take turns; you be the mamma first, and then next time I'll be the mamma.

This exchange is not Child-Child because of the Adult input (problem solving) apparent

in the last statement.

Also, many of the transactions of small children are Adult-Adult, although they may seem 'childish' because of data deficiency:

Little Girl: Emergency, Emergency! Buzzy [the cat] lost a tooth.

Sister: Does the good fairy bring money to cats?

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Both stimulus and response are Adult - valid statements on the basis of the data at hand. Good data processing; wrong data!

Complementary Child-Child transactions can more readily be observed in what persons do together than in what they say to each other - as is true of very small children. A couple  holding on to each other for dear life and screaming at the top of their lungs in the middle of a roller coaster ride are having a Child-Child transaction. Tagliavini and Tassinari singing the Act III duet from Mefistofele could be said to be having an intense Child-Child transaction. Grandma and Grandpa walking barefoot on the beach could be said to be having a Child-Child transaction. Yet the Adult made the arrangements for these happy experiences. It took money to ride the roller coaster. Tagliavini and Tassinari trained for years in order to experience the ecstasy of singing. Grandma and Grandpa share the joys of togetherness made possible by a lifetime of give-and-take. A relationship between people cannot last very long without the Adult. Thus we may say that complementary Child-Child transactions exist with the permission and supervision of the Adult. When the Adult is not around, the Child gets snarled up in crossed transactions, which will be described later in this chapter.

Parent-Child Transactions

Another type of complementary transaction is one between Parent and Child (Figure 12). The husband (Child) is sick, has a fever, and wants attention. The wife (Parent) knows how ill he feels and is willing to mother him. This can go on in a satisfactory way indefinitely as long as the wife is willing to be mothering. Some marriages are of this nature. If a husband wants to play 'little boy' and his wife is willing to be parental, take the responsibility for everything, and look after him, this can be a satisfying marriage so long as neither wishes to change roles. If one or the other tires of the arrangement, the parallel relationship is disturbed, and trouble begins.

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In Figure 13 we diagram a complementary transaction between George F. Babbitt (Parent) and Mrs Babbitt (Child): Babbitt (looking at the newspaper): 'Lots of news. Terrible big tornado in the South. Hard luck, all right. But this, say, this is corking! Beginning of the end for those fellows! New York Assembly has passed some bills that ought to completely outlaw the socialists! And there's an elevator-runners' strike in New York and a lot of college boys are taking their places. That's the stuff! And a mass-meeting in Birmingham's demanded that this Mick agitator, this fellow De Valera, be deported. Dead right, by golly! All these agitators paid with German gold anyway. And we got no business interfering with the Irish or any other foreign government. Keep our hands strictly off. And there's another well-authenticated rumour from Russia that Lenin is dead. That's fine. It's beyond me why we don't just step in there and kick those Bolshevik cusses out.'

Mrs Babbitt: 'That's so.' {3}

Child-Adult Transactions

Another type of complementary transaction is one between Child and Adult (Figure 14). A person in the grip of not ok feelings may reach out to another person for realistic reassurances. A husband may fear an upcoming business encounter, which a promotion depends on. Even though he is qualified in every respect, he has an overload of Child data coming into his computer: I'm not going to make it! So he says to his wife, I'm not going to make it', hoping for her recount of the reality reasons why he can make it if he doesn't let his not ok Child ruin his chances.

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He knows she has a good Adult and 'borrows it' when his own is impaired. Her response is different from a Parent response, which might be reassuring even if reality data were not present or which might simply deny the Child feelings: 'Of course you'll make it; don't be stupid!'

Adult-Parent Transactions

Another type of complementary transaction is Adult-Parent (Figure 15) and is represented by a man who wants to quit smoking. He has adequate Adult data as to why this is important to his health. Despite this, he asks his wife to play the Parent, to destroy his cigarettes when she finds them, to react strongly if he lights one. This transaction has very good game possibilities. As soon as he turns the responsibility over to his wife's Parent, the husband can be a naughty little boy and play 'If It Weren't for You I Could' or 'Try and Catch Me'.

Uncomplimentary, or Crossed, Transactions

The kind of transaction that causes trouble is the crossed transaction (Figure 16). Berne's classical example is the transaction between husband and wife where husband asks: 'Dear, where are my cuff links?' (An Adult stimulus, seeking information.) A complementary response by wife would be, 'In your top left dresser drawer', or 'I haven't seen them but I'll help you look'. However, if Dear has had a rough day and has saved up a quantity of 'hurts' and 'mads' and she bellows, 'Where you left them!' the result is a crossed transaction. The stimulus was Adult but the wife turned the response over to the Parent.

This brings us to the second rule of communication in Transactional Analysis. When stimulus and response cross on the-P-A-C transactional diagram, communication stops. The husband and wife can't talk about cuff links anymore; they first have to settle why he never puts anything away. Had her response been Child ('Why do you always have to yell at me?') (Figure 17), the same impasse would have developed. These cross transactions can set off a whole series of noisy exchanges which end up with a bang somewhere in the purple  outer reaches of 'So's your old man!' Repetitious patterns of this type of exchange are what constitute games such as It's All You', If It Weren't for You I Could', 'Uproar', and 'Now I've Got You, you S.O.B.', which will be further elaborated in Chapter 7.

The origin of the non-Adult responses is in the not ok position of the Child. A person dominated by the not ok 'reads into' comments that which is not there: 'Where did you get the steaks?' 'What's wrong with them?'; 'I love your new hairdo!' 'You never did like it long'; 'I hear you're moving'. 'We can't really afford it but this neighbourhood is getting run down'; 'Pass the potatoes, dear'. 'And you call me fat'. As one of my patients said, 'My husband says I could read something into a cookbook.'

Additional Illustrations of Crossed Transactions

Patient (A): I would like to work in a hospital like this.

Nurse (P): You can't cope with your own problems.

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Mother (P): Go clear up your room.

Daughter (P): You can't tell me what to do. You're not the boss around here. Dad's the boss!

 (Figure 19)

Therapist (A): What is your principal hang-up in life?

Patient (C): Red tape, red tape (pounding table), damn it, red tape! (Figure 20)

Son (A): I have to finish a report tonight that's due tomorrow.

Father (P): Why do you always leave things to the last minute? (Figure 21)

Man (A), standing with friend: We were trying to get this cap unlocked and dropped the

key behind the bumper. Could you help us get it out?

Service Station Attendant (P): Who did it?

Little Girl (A): Dirty shirts are warm.

Mother (P): Go take a bath.

(Figure 23)

Adolescent Girl (P): Well, frankly, my Father likes Palm Springs best.

Friend (P): Our family tries to avoid the tourist places.

(Figure 24)

Little Girl (C): I hate soup. I'm not going to eat it. You cook icky.

Mother (C): I'm just going to leave and then you can cook your own icky food.

(Figure 25)

Little Boy (C): My Daddy has a million dollars.

Little Girl (C): That's nothing. My Daddy has 'finnegan' dollars. ('Finnegan' was this four year-old's way of saying 'infinity'.)

(Figure 26)

Babbitt's Daughter, Verona (A): 'I know, but - oh, I want to contribute - I wish I were working in a settlement house. I wonder if I could get one of the department stores to let me put in a welfare-department with a nice rest-room and chintzes and wicker chairs and so on and so forth. Or I could-'

Babbitt (P): 'Now you look here! The first thing you got to understand is that all this uplift and flipflop and settlement work and recreation is nothing in God's world but the entering wedge for socialism.

The sooner a man learns he isn't going to be coddled, and he needn't expect a lot of free grub, and, uh, all these free classes and flip-flop and doodads for his kids unless he earns 'em, why, the sooner he'll get on the job and produce - produce - produce! That's what the country needs, and not all this fancy stuff that just enfeebles the will-power of the working man and gives his kids a lot of notions above their class. And you - if you'd tend to business instead of fooling and fussing - All the time! When I was a young man I made up my mind what I wanted to do, and stuck to it through thick and thin, and that's why I'm where I am today'. (Figure 27) {4}

Parent responses, like Babbitt's, still stem from the not ok in the Child. He felt that his children did not appreciate him, that they did not comprehend how hard he had struggled; he still felt not ok around those who had more than he did. If he had let his Child be activated, he might have wept. So he took the safer course and turned the transaction over to the Parent, wherein resided self-righteousness, correctness, and 'all the answers'.

The person whose not ok Child is always activated cannot get on with transactions which will advance his dealing with reality because he is continually concerned with unfinished business having to do with a past reality. He can't accept a compliment gracefully because he doesn't think he deserves it, and there must be a barb in it somewhere. He is involved in a continuous attempt to maintain the integrity of the position that was established in the situation of childhood. A person who always lets his Child react is really saying, 'Look at me, I'm not ok'. A person who always lets his Parent react is really saying, 'Look at you, you're not ok (and that makes me feel better)'. Both manoeuvres are an expression of the not ok position and each contributes to the prolongation of despair.

The not ok position is not solely expressed in the response. It also can be found in the stimulus. Husband says to wife, 'Where did you hide the can opener?' The main stimulus is Adult in that it seeks objective information. But there is a secondary communication in the word hide. (Your house-keeping is a mystery to me. We'd go broke if I were as disorganized as you. If I could once, just once, find something where it belongs!) This is Parent. It is a thinly veiled criticism. This stimulates a duplex transaction (Figure 28).

The progress of this transaction depends on which stimulus the wife wishes to respond to. If she wants to keep things amiable and feels ok enough not to have been threatened she may respond, 'I hid it next to the tablespoons, darling'. This is complementary in that she gives him the information he desires and also acknowledges good-naturedly his 'aside' about her housekeeping. If her Adult computes that it is important to her marriage to do something about her husband's gentle suggestion, she may take the hint and become more organized. With her Adult handling the transaction, she can.

However, if her not ok Child is hooked, her primary response will be to the word hide, and she may respond along the lines of, 'So what's the matter with you - you blind or something?' And there endeth the quest for the can opener while they wrangle over each other's merits and demerits in the area of organization, blindness, stupidity, etc. His beer is still unopened, and a game of 'Uproar' is well along.

Some transactions of this nature can involve stimulus and response at all levels: A man comes home and writes 'I love you' in the dust on the coffee table. The Adult is in command of the situation, although both his Parent and Child are involved (Figure 29). The Parent says, 'Why don't you ever clean this place up?' The Child says, 'Please don't get mad at me if I criticize you'. The Adult takes charge, however, on the basis that to be loving is important to my marriage, so I won't let my Parent or my Child be activated. If I tell her I love her she won't get mad at me, but perhaps she'll get the idea that it is important, after all, for a man in my position to have a home that looks nice.

Figure 29.

This can turn into a complementary transaction if the wife is ok enough to take a little constructive criticism. The outcome would be happy if she shined up the house, met her husband at the door with a tall, cool drink, and told him what a sweet, sentimental, imaginative husband he is: Other husbands just moan and groan - but look what a jewel I've got!  This approach is bound to succeed. However, if she can't do this, her Parent will probably retort, 'When was the last time you cleaned the garage' or her Child will send her out on the town to run up the charge accounts. This transaction illustrates that even though the Parent and Child are involved, the outcome can be amiable and advance a good marriage if the Adult is in charge.

The Adult has a choice as to how it will respond to a stimulus in a complementary way that will protect both the relationship and the individuals in the relationship. This sometimes takes some very rapid (intuitive) computing:

The scene is a cocktail party. The transaction is initiated by a man who (Child) pinches a woman's bottom. She responds (Adult): 'My mother always told me to turn the other cheek.' Why is this response identified as Adult?

She could have responded Parent: 'You dirty old man!' or even slapped him.

Had she responded Child, she may have cried, become embarrassed, angry, shaky, or seductive.

Hex response was Adult, however, in that she got a lot of information across in her one response.

1. I had a mother who always told me- - so you watch out!

2. Turn the other cheek -I know the Bible, too, so you see I'm not that kind of girl.

3. The humor of the play on words told him, 'My Child is getting a laugh, and you're ok, and I can take a joke'.

4. Transaction completed!

The person who always comes out 'smelling like a rose' does not do so accidentally. He has a high-speed Adult. As handy as this is in social situations, as above, it is not as critical there as in the home. You can walk away from a cocktail party. Walking away from home is something else.

The question arises: How can the Adult work better and faster? When someone knocks on the front door of life, who is going to get there first - the Parent, the Adult, or the Child?

How to Stay in the Adult

The Adult develops later than the Parent and Child and seems to have a difficult time catching up throughout life. The Parent and Child occupy primary circuits, which tend to come on automatically in response to stimuli. The first way, therefore, to build the strength of the Adult is to become sensitive to Parent and Child signals. Aroused feelings are a clue that the Child has been hooked. To know one's own Child, to be sensitive to one's own not ok feelings, is the first requirement for Adult data processing. Being aware that, 'That is my not ok Child' makes it possible to keep from externalizing the feelings in actions. Processing this data takes a moment. Counting to ten is a useful way to delay the automatic response in order that the Adult maintain control of the transaction. 'When in doubt, leave it out' is a good practice for curtailing archaic, or destructive, Child reactions. Aristotle claimed that the real show of power is in restraint. The strength of the Adult shows first also in restraint - in restraining the automatic, archaic responses of Parent and Child, while waiting for the Adult to compute appropriate responses.

Parent signals can be monitored in the same way. It is helpful to programme into the computer certain Adult questions to apply to Parent data: Is it true? Does it apply? Is it appropriate? Where did I get that idea? What is the evidence?

The more one knows of the content of Parent and Child, the more easily one can separate Parent and Child from the Adult. This approaches the home remedy of 'sorting yourself out'. It is precisely the process required for developing the Adult. The more sensitive one is to one's own Parent and Child, the more separated, autonomous, and strong becomes the Adult.

One way to practise identifying the Parent and Child is to monitor the internal dialogue. This is relatively simple, inasmuch as there are no external demands for response, and one has time to examine the data. When one feels badly, gloomy, regretful, depressed, one can ask the question, 'Why is my Parent beating on my Child?' Internal, accusatory dialogues are commonplace. Bertrand Russell wrote about Alfred North Whitehead: 'Like  other men who lead extremely disciplined lives, he was liable to distressing soliloquies and when he thought he was alone, he would mutter abuse of himself for his supposed shortcomings' {5}

When one is able to say, 'That is my Parent', or 'That is my Child', one says it with the Adult, so by the very process of questioning one has shifted to the Adult. One is able to feel immediate relief in a stressful situation simply by asking, 'Who's reacting?' As one becomes sensitive to one's own Child, one begins to become sensitive to the Child in others. No man loves the man he fears. We fear the Parent in others; their Child we can love. One helpful practice in a difficult transaction is to see the little boy, or the little girl, in another person, and talk to that little boy or girl, not in a condescending way but in a loving, protective way. When in doubt, stroke. When one is responding to another's Child, one is not afraid of the other's Parent.

An example of 'talking to the little boy' appears in Adele Rogers St Johns, Tell No Man, wherein Hank Gavin says:

'I -I had a sort of sight of her through what she was now. I'd had this happen a couple of times on big deals with men, heads of companies -I got a sight of them as though I were seeing through -and it was sometimes a kind of strange, wistful, desperate fellow -like the kid he'd been when he went fishing with angleworms. That may sound far out, but it had happened a couple of times, and - and I'd made the pitch to - to that fellow and it worked.' {6}

That fellow was the Child.

Another way to strengthen the Adult is to take the time to make some big decisions about basic values, which will make a lot of smaller decisions unnecessary. These big decisions can always be re-examined, but the time it takes to make them does not have to be spent on every incident in which basic values apply. These big decisions form an ethical basis for the moment-to-moment questions of what to do.

Conscious effort is required to make these big decisions. You can't teach navigation in the middle of a storm. Likewise, you can't build a system of values in the split second between your son's statement 'Johnny punched me in the nose', and your response. You can't carry through a constructive transaction with the Adult in charge if basic values and priorities have received no thought beforehand.

If you own a cruiser, you become an expert navigator because you have acquainted yourself with the consequences of being a poor one. You don't wait until the storm hits to figure out how to work the radio. If you have a marriage, you become an expert partner because you have acquainted yourself with the consequences of being a poor one. You work out a value system to underlie your marriage, which then serves you when the going gets rough. Then the Adult is prepared to take over transactions with a question such as, 'What's important here?'

The Adult, functioning as a probability estimator, can work out a system of values that encompasses not only the marriage relationship but all relationships. Unlike the Child, it can estimate consequences and postpone gratifications. It can establish new values based on a more thorough examination of the historical, philosophical, and religious foundations for values. Unlike the Parent, it is concerned more with the preservation of the individual than with the preservation of the institution. The Adult can consciously commit itself to the position that to be loving is important. The Adult can see more than a parental mandate in the idea 'it is more blessed to give than to receive'.

The kind of giving which is Adult is reflected upon by Erich Fromm:

The most widespread misunderstanding is that which assumes that giving is 'giving up' something, being deprived of, sacrificing. People whose main orientation is a nonproductive one feel giving as an impoverishment... Just because it is painful to give, one should [Parent] give; the virtue of giving, to them, lies in the very act of acceptance of sacrifice ...

For the productive character [Adult] giving has an entirely different meaning. Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness [OK]. {7}

This kind of giving can be a chosen way of life. This choice can underlie all decisions as the Adult asks: What is important here? Am I being loving? Once such value decisions are made one can constructively intercept 'Where did you hide the can opener?' and proceed with a day-to-day strengthening of the I'm ok - you're ok position.

In summary, a strong Adult is built in the following ways:

1. Learn to recognize your Child, its vulnerabilities, its fears, its principal methods of expressing these feelings.

2. Learn to recognize your Parent, its admonitions, injunctions, fixed positions, and principal ways of expressing these admonitions, injunctions, and positions.

3. Be sensitive to the Child in others, talk to that Child, stroke that Child, protect that Child, and appreciate its need for creative expression as well as the not ok burden it carries about.

4. Count to ten, if necessary, in order to give the Adult time to process the data coming into the computer, to sort out Parent and Child from reality.

5. When in doubt, leave it out. You can't be attacked for what you didn't say.

6. Work out a system of values. You can't make decisions without an ethical framework. How the Adult works out a value system is examined in detail in Chapter 12, 'P-A-C and Moral Values'.