Transactional analysis is the science of human social exchanges based on a fundamental unit, called a stroke, in which some form of recognition of the other is conveyed during social activity. These exchanges are not random they are programmed. They are programmed by any one of the ego states, Parent, Adult, or Child, and each is influenced by their corresponding source: Society, the material world, or spontaneous idiosyncrasy.
Procedures and rituals are the simplest form of social activity. “A procedure is a series of simple complementary Adult transactions directed toward the manipulation of reality….and reach their highest development in professional techniques” when under the control of the Adult ego state. When the Child or the Parent takes over a procedure, it is reduced in effectiveness for the simple reason that the Child and the Parent have a different social function than manipulating the materiality of the world. Therefore, an airline pilot becomes less effective as a pilot if he is trying to parent while flying or if he is goofing off as a Child.
[A] “ritual is a stereotyped series of simple complementary transaction programed by external social forces….The form of a ritual is Parentally determined by tradition….Many formal rituals started off as heavily contaminated though fairly efficient procedures, but as time passed and circumstances changed, they lost all procedural validity while still retaining their usefulness as acts of faith. Transactionally they represent guilt-relieving or reward-seeking compliance with traditional Parental demands. They offer a safe reassuring (apotropaic), and often enjoyable method of structuring time.” Rituals can be formal, as in religious services, or informal as in a standard greeting or goodbye. Every ritual is made up of complementary strokes. The total number of strokes represents the significance of the relationship within the economy of personal relations. For example, acquaintances at the office may simply say “hi” to each other once a day; with the boss it may be a bit more, “hello,” and “how do you do?”, finally with a significant other, there may be many daily greetings of various levels that all add up to the highest number of strokes. We all also seem to maintain a calculation of how many strokes we ought to get in any exchange. If we get too many or too few, we become concerned.
In both cases, procedures and rituals are predictable and once started will lead to an obvious end. Pastimes, on the other hand, are much more free for self-expression. A pastime is “a series of semi-ritualistic, simple, complementary transactions arranged around a single field of material whose primary object is to structure an interval of time. The beginning and end of the interval are typically signaled by procedures or rituals.” The participants are adaptive and try to maximize their strokes. Chit-chat and/or arguments are pastimes. Complaining about Trump or discussing the pandemic are two examples of common pastimes today. One’s preferred pastimes change over one’s lifetime and are affected by class, gender, socio-economic status etc.
“Besides structuring time and providing mutually acceptable stroking for the parties concerned pastimes serve the additional function of being social-selection processes. While a pastime is in progress, the Child in each player is watchfully assessing the potentialities of the others involved. At the end of the party, each person will have selected certain players he would like to see more of, while others he will discard, regardless of how skillfully or pleasantly they reach engaged in the pastime. The ones he selects are those who seem the most likely candidates for more complex relationships—that is, games. This sorting system, however well rationalized, is actually largely unconscious and intuitive.” Pastime sorting is the basis for finding friends and lovers.
Pastimes also help us in the “confirmation of role and the stabilizing of position.” A role can be thought of as the most common adjective that goes with an ego state. Although everyone has the three ego states, the role we play may be different in the sense that we all present ourselves differently. For example, a Parent ego state can generally be any one of: tough, righteous, indulgent, helpful, loving, etc. “The role of each one is confirmed if it prevails—that is, if it meets with no antagonism or is strengthened by any antagonism it meets or is approved by certain types of people with stroking.”
“The confirmation of his role stabilizes the individual’s position, and this is called the existential advantage from the pastime. A position is a simple predicative statement which influence all the individual’s transactions; in the long run it determines his destiny and often that of his descendants as well. A position may be more or less absolute….a position is primarily manifested by the mental attitude to which it gives rise, and it is with this attitude that the individual undertakes the transactions which constitute his role.”
“Procedures may be successful, rituals effective, and pastimes profitable, but all of them are by definition candid….Every game…is basically dishonest, and the outcome has a dramatic, as distinct from merely exciting, quality.” In other words, games have a hidden agenda and a “surprise” pay off. Games are an “ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined predictable outcome.” In a game, operations (simple transactions for a stated purpose), are revealed to be maneuvers (“not honest requests but moves in the game”).
Let us consider a common game played by spouses called “If it Weren’t for You” (IWFY). A wife lives under a domineering husband that does not let her do anything outside the house. She complains bitterly to her friends. While in marriage counseling, the husband lets up and the wife enrolls in dance lessons but finds she has a fear of dance floors. Several other activities are attempted with new phobias manifesting. The wife starts losing her friends. Mean while the husband is losing it and is riddled with increasing anxiety and depression.
What happened was that the counselling session disrupted a necessary (although sub-optimal) game of IWFY. On the social level the husband and wife were in a Parent-Child relationship with the husband looking after the wife and the wife happily resenting the husband’s care. She had a great pastime complaining about him to her friends. At the psychological level the game was Child-Child. The husband is terrified (perhaps of abandonment); the wife is terrified too (perhaps of the outside world). So, their pact was to protect and reassure each other in their fears. The wife probably unconsciously picked out this man as “the one” because of his dominating tendencies – her Child found the best play partner. However, as a result of counselling the game was disrupted and its function became clear. The game is necessary because it works for them (in the sense that they have found a local maximum for strokes) but tragic because both are avoiding true or better intimacy (the highest possible payoff of strokes). Games represent hill tops rather than the highest summit of living the good life.
All social actions so far discussed are learned. They are taught by the caregiver and based on their station and position in the local situation. It follows that social actions (and therefore games too) are multi-generational phenomena. “As elements of his script, or unconscious life-plan, his favored games also determine his ultimate destiny…the payoffs on his marriage and career, and the circumstances of his death.”