Lifespan Development & Personality Paper On Eric Berne

Lifespan Development & Personality Paper On Eric Berne

Introduction

Probably the most significant traces of the origins of transactional analysis are contained in the first five of six articles on intuition Berne wrote beginning in 1949. Already, at that early date, when he was still working to gain the status of psychoanalyst, he dared to defy Freudian concepts of the unconscious in his writings. When he began training in 1941 at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, and later when he resumed his training at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, Berne obviously believed that becoming a psychoanalyst was important. However, in the end that coveted title was withheld; his 1956 application for membership was turned down with the verdict that he wasn't ready, but, perhaps after three or four more years of personal analysis and training he might reapply.

Discussion

Throughout history, and from all standpoints: philosophy, medical science, religion; people have believed that each man and woman has a multiple nature. In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud first established that the human psyche is multi-faceted, and that each of us has warring factions in our subconscious. Since then, new theories continue to be put forward, all concentrating on the essential conviction that each one of us has parts of our personality which surface and affect our behaviour according to different circumstances (Stewart 1987).

Eric Berne proved, using conscious human subjects, by touching a part of the brain (the temporal cortex) with a weak electrical probe, that the brain could be caused to 'play back' certain past experiences, and the feelings associated with them. The patients 'replayed' these events and their feelings despite not normally being able to recall them using their conventional memories (Stewart 1992). Penfield's experiments went on over several years, and resulted in wide acceptance of the following conclusions:

The human brain acts like a tape recorder, and whilst we may 'forget' experiences, the brain still has them recorded.

Along with events the brain also records the associated feelings, and both feelings and events stay locked together (Rosner 2005).

It is possible for a person to exist in two states simultaneously (because patients replaying hidden events and feelings could talk about them objectively at the same time).

Hidden experiences when replayed are vivid, and affect how we feel at the time of replaying.

There is a certain connection between mind and body, i.e. the link between the biological and the psychological, eg a psychological fear of spiders and a biological feeling of nausea.

In the 1950's Eric Berne began to develop his theories of Transactional Analysis. He said that verbal communication, particularly face to face, is at the centre of human social relationships and psychoanalysis (Jorgensen 1984). His starting-point was that when two people encounter each other, one of them will speak to the other. This he called the Transaction Stimulus. The reaction from the other person he called the Transaction Response.

The person sending the Stimulus is called the Agent. The person who responds is called the ...