Part of me is desperate to have freedom and choice, to be able to see the people I love and to hug them again. More surprisingly perhaps, part of me doesn’t want to return to “normal” life.

I am really shocked by this second response and I am aware that it is what we call “Impasse” in Transactional Analysis.

What is an impasse?

An impasse is a stuck place – a place where we have two competing thoughts, needs, wants.

An example is  “I want to be close to people” and “I don’t want to be close to people” or “I want to develop myself” and “I want to stay as I am”.

We all experience impasses in our lives. They can be confusing and challenging and we often shut them away and get on with whatever we feel needs to be done or is expected of us.

My current impasse is “I want to get back to normal life” and “I want things to stay as they are now”.

I think part of my impasse is due to the fact I feel slightly institutionalised in my own home.

Although there have been times when I have felt frustrated, confined and bored, there is also comfort in familiarity and not having to face the big wide world.

May of us will have resorted back to our inner child and regressed to earlier stages of our lives, after being told what we can and can’t do for nearly a year.

As a result, we may be experiencing thoughts and feelings from our childhood. In TA we call this our Child Ego State and all humans regress back to this state at some point.

When we are at an impasse it’s important for us to acknowledge both parts of ourselves and our desires. We should sit with the impasse while we decide from our Adult Ego state what we want and want makes sense.

It’s important for us to listen to our inner child and to offer comfort to that part of us (as we would do if there was an actual child in distress).

Change is not always easy for human beings, but we will all come through this challenging time, and one day it will just be a memory.

Going into lockdown was mentally challenging for many of us and coming out of it will be no different.

Take care, look after yourselves and know that whatever you feel is okay.

Leilani Mitchell – The Link Centre

Interested in learning more about Impasse, Ego States and other TA Theory?

The Link Centre offers everything from a two-day Introduction to Transactional Analysis (TA101) to an accredited Diploma in Counselling.

We are also running a series of by-donation online workshops on different topics bi-weekly (Mondays 10am-12pm and Tuesdays 6pm-8pm).

Our workshops are now being translated LIVE into Russian, Hindi, Romanian, Italian, Croatian, Bengali, German & Dutch. We are striving to make TA (and some other topics) accessible to all.

If you’re interested to learn more about this particular topic, Mark Head will be running a workshop on Impasse on 8th of March.

For more information please visit thelinkcentre.co.uk or email enquiries@thelinkcentre.co.uk.

The post Why do I have mixed feelings about coming out of lockdown? appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

• Monday from 10am-12pm
• Tuesday from 6pm-8pm

We’ve set up these accessible webinars as a way to support the community during the pandemic.

They have been extremely popular and thousands of people around the world have attended.

We are thrilled to open these webinars up to even more people by offering simultaneous translation into various languages. We are starting with Italian, Croatian, Russian, Romanian and Hindi, and other languages will be available very soon.

To see what’s coming up go to Online TA Events at thelinkcentre.co.uk or email Leilani Mitchell – leilani@thelinkcentre.co.uk to be added to our mailing list.

You can also find us on:

Twitter (@thelinkcentreuk)

Facebook (@TheLinkCentre)

Instagram (@TheLinkCentre)

The post New TA Webinars with translation in 5 languages – live! appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

This morning I am feeling sad, my heart is heavy and tears are very near the surface for me. I am tired and feel depleted, this is quite unlike me.

There are many challenges that we are going through at the moment and those running small businesses, like ours have another challenge. People who run small businesses are rarely motivated by profit. Starting up your own business usually takes a huge amount of time and commitment, many many hours of unpaid work, investment of time, energy and resources driven by the passion to create something useful and hopefully viable. We take a leap of faith and put our heart and soul into it and we also often create jobs for other people who depend on our success for their livelihood.

From new beginnings

I remember when Mark and I first set up The Link Centre. We had no money behind us, we started with a small homemade advert posted on notice boards around Lewes in Sussex. We hired a room from a local business and had 7 people on our first two-day course and slowly slowly grew from there.

As with most other small businesses we were passionate about what we did. The Link Centre is so much more than a business to us. We created it and have nurtured it, loved it, developed it, we have travelled with it, made decisions about it, struggled with it and in the odd moment have hated it. It is central to our lives and we care deeply about our business, our work, our colleagues and our students. We have an emotional attachment to it and it is part of us.

It has not always been easy, we have completed mountains of paperwork, fought battles for the good of our students, made mistakes along the way, been lied to by people we trusted, made difficult decisions and had to confront others unethical behaviour.

We have also had many many triumphs – growing numbers every year, becoming a UKATA Registered Training Centre, working collaboratively with other training centres, launching new courses, gaining accreditation for our Diploma in Counselling, seeing the moments of connections and realisation on students faces, hearing feedback from placements and supervisors about the quality of our students and, possibly the best of all, being with the students as they qualify and move on to set up thriving businesses for themselves.

And how we have grown

Over the last 17 years we have impacted thousands of peoples lives in a positive way. That was my goal. In my teens and twenties I felt like there was so much destruction in the world and I really wanted to do something that made a positive contribution. Mark and I have achieved that.

As a Counsellor and Psychotherapist, I have worked with a wide range of individual clients, couples, and groups to enhance the quality of their lives. As an Internationally Qualified Trainer and Supervisor I have trained and supervised hundreds of counsellors and psychotherapists, supporting many through training, qualification, accreditation and going on to set up successful practices and to support others in their lives.

Over the last 17 years we have built up a very successful small business with various courses, accreditations with a good reputation both locally and within the counselling and psychotherapy field. We offer short workshops for personal and professional development, part time courses to Qualify as an Accredited Counsellor, Courses to Qualify as a UKCP Psychotherapist with national and international recognition, a Diploma in Supervision course, Cert. in Working with Couples, Cert, in Working with Therapy groups and many other workshops. I am proud of The Link Centre.

To the present day challenges

There are many threats to small businesses but coronavirus was not one we saw coming. We are lucky to be in a situation where we can move some of our courses online. We are an established business with a good reputation and still we, like others, are impacted. We pay a range of staff and this is not just our livelihood but theirs too. We don’t know how long this situation will go on for, we don’t know what the full impact of this will be on our business. It is painful to see something we have worked so hard for and nourished too, be impacted in a negative way. We will survive this and we will bounce back but others won’t. For some people life will not be the same after this. Many people are much worse off than us, many businesses will fail, many people will lose their income completely.

Support

From one business owner to others out there I want you to know that we know something of what you are going through, the heartbreak of seeing years and years of hard work being destroyed by this current situation. I am sad for us all and I want you to know that I am with you. Mark and I will do what we can to support small businesses as best we can now, and in the future.

Take care and know you are not alone. 

Words: Leilani Mitchell MNCS (Acc).

The post New challenges for small businesses due to the Coronavirus crisis appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

The answer is YES! Very much so. In fact research now shows that our reactions and therefore our behaviours and decisions are affected by our bias and much of this in unconscious. Unconscious bias refers to a bias that we are unaware of, which happens outside of our control. It happens automatically and is triggered by our brain making quick judgments and assessments of people and situations, influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences (ECU: 2013 Unconscious bias in higher education)

We also have conscious bias: the types of people, nationalities, genders that we have a preference for and are drawn towards. When things are conscious we can attend to them but when they are not it means they can impact us and our relationships in negative ways. We may avoid people, discriminate, treat people differently, make bad decisions and potentially cause harm to ourselves and others.The more we can be aware that we all have unconscious bias and the more we can bring it into our consciousness, the better for all.

There has been lots of research that illustrates this concept. For example, a study of science faculty applications (Yale University, Moss-Racusin et al, 2012) sent out identical applications apart from the names being gender specific. Even though the information was exactly the same (apart from the name) the assessors consistently judged the one with male names on to be better qualified, more likely to be offered the position, would be given a higher starting salary and were more likely to be invested in long term. This was consistent whether or not the assessor was male or female themselves. Other studies, such as The Sentencing Project 2013, show that African-Americans are much more likely to be sentenced than whites, and that the sentences are generally longer. Although the figures are lower, this is also true in the UK.

Generally we have a preference for people who we see as belonging to our core group, whatever that may be. We gravitate towards what we see as same-ness and identify with, and away from people who we see as different from us. This, of course, has all sorts of implications in terms of prejudice and therefore discrimination. We have laws and policies that demand that we must not discriminate and of course it’s important that we do our best not to. However I believe this can invite a level of shame and we then shut down on exploring our own process and its effect on ourselves and others.

Your biases are affected by your past, the culture you grew up in, the messages you received or perceived when growing up, and the culture in which you now live. They are also affected by stereotypes and how much we potentially feed those views via the media, literature or seeing things from our own frame of reference.

We all have unconscious bias and it does affect our behaviour and decisions in the world. If we remain open and curious we can explore our unconscious process and bring it into our conscious awareness. Only with awareness can we take these biases into account so that they affect our behaviour and decisions as little as possible.

If you would like to know more about this concept or others, we run a range of workshops for personal and professional development at The Link Centre

Leilani Mitchell Dip. Couns. CTA (P) UKCP Reg. Psychotherapist, TSTA (P) is an internationally qualified trainer, supervisor and Psychotherapist. She is Director of The Link Centre, a training centre based in Newick, Sussex that offers courses in personal and professional development as well as longer term courses in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Leilani’s passion is to facilitate people’s self-awareness to enhance their quality of life.

The post Unconscious Bias appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

I have been interested in people’s different responses to the situation such as: taking no notice; people absorbed in their own worlds; a vague understanding though ‘it’s far away and doesn’t involve me’; ‘they are all terrorists and out to kill us’; ‘keep them out (and certainly don’t help them)’; ‘I feel powerless and overwhelmed’; ‘what can I do?’; getting involved with various donations, charity etc; and people giving up jobs to go and help.

I invite you to consider what your reaction(s) and action(s) are, or lack of action, and where those reactions come from. Human beings have an amazing capacity for generosity, kindness and compassion and it’s one way that we attach to each other, which is necessary for us as social beings. We would not watch a child we love freeze or starve to death, and yet we will let this happen to children who are strangers.

In September last year the media showed us images of a dead child, dressed in familiar clothing, on a beach. It was shocking, traumatic and terrible and people responded. As a nation many people empathised. We thought of the child, of his life, his death, and his parents.

To empathise is to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and to imagine what life is like for them. If that person’s experience is painful, traumatic and difficult then that is what we feel as we empathise. Empathy is vital for human beings, for connection, for relationships and for brain development. And sometimes we avoid it because we don’t want to feel the pain, sadness, loss and discomfort and choose to disconnect, blame, fear, distance or ignore.

In 2015 over 3500 men, women and children drowned off the coast of Turkey; very dangerous and disturbing outcomes resulting from desperate choices. Last week another boat sunk and over 30 people died. Amongst them was a young boy whose parents both drowned. He is now in hospital traumatised, isolated and disorientated; he stares blankly at the wall. What will happen to him, how will he deal with such trauma? This is one of thousands of similar stories. What happens for you when you hear that story? If we empathise and connect we are more likely to reach out and help.

In my view it is increased empathy that will create a more peaceful world, not more bombs. It takes courage to truly empathise with others; it is our compassion and empathy that is at the very core of our humanity and our decision to act that can make a difference in the world. We also need to be careful not to traumatise ourselves through doing it. This could just as easily be us. We are privileged to have been born into a country where materialistically we have much more than we need. We don’t have drought, famine, bombing, earthquakes, volcanos, and many of the things that other humans have to contend with.

We have created a world where we use warfare and horror to entertain ourselves. We aim to teach our children the values of living peacefully together and then expose them to video games and films which desensitise us when it comes to reality. The media (led by our appetites) is full of sport, celebrity and TV programmes which can so easily distract us and we forget this continuing crisis.

If you had fled your home and country, lost everything, were cold, hungry, traumatised, scared and desperate, how would you like the world to respond?

Leilani Mitchell Dip. Couns. CTA (P) UKCP Reg. Psychotherapist, TSTA (P)
thelinkcentre.co.uk

There is much we can do
There is a distribution warehouse in Calais who always need help and donations calaid.co.uk

I have set up a wish list in my name, where you can buy things that will go to refugees in crisis. Simply go to the link, put my name in the search bar, and then choose Leilani Mitchell, Crowborough, Sussex, and then you can click on the Wish List.

Leilani is an internationally qualified trainer, supervisor and Psychotherapist. She is Director of The Link Centre, a training centre based in Newick, Sussex that offers courses in personal and professional development as well as longer term courses in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Leilani’s passion is to facilitate people’s self-awareness to enhance their quality of life.

The post Can empathy create a more peaceful world? appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Sometimes things happen to us and we don’t have any choice; we do have some choice in how we respond to them though. Other times, we create what happens to us – good and bad.

I guess for most people quality of life is important. No one wants to struggle, to be unhappy, to feel stressed or overwhelmed and yet I wonder how often we, consciously or unconsciously, set up situations that result in these things. We will also face difficult times in our life; we all have challenges and we all have personal issues that hinder us. When we experience these it can feel like climbing a steep and rocky mountain.

If you are physically fit and climb a mountain it is easier than if you are not. Psychological health and strength are the same. If we are in good shape we will manage the challenges more easily and they will not last as long. Psychological health is an interesting area because you generally can’t see it. We can’t look in the mirror in the morning and see that our brain is looking a bit peaky. We don’t see that it looks a bit tired and run down and needs a holiday. Our brains are hidden underneath our skull and it’s so much easier to ignore something that we can’t see and so neglect it. Also, human beings are very good at coping – you don’t need a sense of wellbeing to survive, to work, to shop, to cook, clean, run errands – however you might want it. You can directly affect your psychological health as you can your physical health: The choice is yours.

There are lots of things that we can do to improve our psychological health and feeling of wellbeing in our lives, and like many other things in our life it’s about motivation – how much do you want quality of life? How much do you want to build your resilience so when you face those mountains they are not as challenging for you? And are you willing to do anything about it?
Your life is your life – you own it – it’s yours to do whatever you please with. Your body and your mind are yours and no one else’s – they are completely your responsibility and how you choose to treat them is up to you.

If we consider the makeup of our brains, both sides of our brains are important. New research shows that the right hand side of the brain is more to do with survival and the left hand side is more to do with wellbeing. To survive, human beings need to learn lessons and remember things that are threatening to us. If you have been let down or hurt by someone, if you have been assaulted, threatened or had bad experiences, you will remember them. These past experiences help us not to put ourselves at risk again. This side of the brain is more suspicious and negative and can be very useful to us. Of course, there are also times when it isn’t.

The left hand side of the brain is more to do with a sense of wellbeing. The bushier the dendrites are on the left hand side of the brain, the more of a sense of wellbeing you will have in your life. The more we trigger this side, the better we will feel and the easier it will be to climb those psychological mountains.

The VERY exciting news is that we can change our brains! We can create new neural pathways, new connections in the brain, and we can create fertile ground and cultivate the bushiness on either side of our brain. If you spend your time triggering the right hand side of your brain, then that is what will grow and flourish: more suspicion, more negativity, and more protective mechanisms. If on the other hand you spend time triggering the left hand side of your brain then that is what will develop and grow.

There are many ways that you can trigger your brain. You can make yourself think happy thoughts or bad thoughts. You can focus on the good in your life or the bad. You can take care of yourself and get enough sleep, meditate, provide opportunities in your life for pleasure and/or engage in successful counselling or psychotherapy. All of these things, and more, are likely to help cultivate more of a left hand shift in your brain action.

Maybe 2015 will be the happiest year so far for you and maybe it won’t. You don’t have ultimate control, but there is a lot you can do to improve your chances – you choose!

words: Leilani Mitchell Dip. Couns. CTA (P) UKCP Reg. Psychotherapist, TSTA (P) Chair of UKATA (United Kingdom Association for Transactional Analysis ).

Leilani is an internationally qualified trainer, supervisor and Psychotherapist; she is Director of The Link Centre – www.thelinkcentre.co.uk – a training centre based in Newick, Sussex that offers courses in personal and professional development, as well as longer term courses in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Leilani’s passion is to facilitate people’s self-awareness to enhance their quality of life.

The post Make your brain bushier! appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Most people have a range of different people in their life. It is rare for human being to have no one. Generally we have friends, lovers, family, colleagues, neighbours, pets and random people we say hello to in the street (or is that just me?) From this range of people hopefully we get our relational needs met at least to some degree.

Erskine, Moursand, and Trautmann, in their book Beyond Empathy talk of our eight relational needs. In their book they focus particularly on the therapeutic relationship but I like to think more widely about these. I really like this piece of theory because it helps me to think both about my own life and my own need and of those I work with. I invite you to consider your own life and how and from whom you get these needs met, or if there are needs that you are not getting met – how that impacts you.

The need for the other to initiate – in all satisfying relationships at times we need the other to take the lead. This is an interesting one as often in relationships people fall into habits of one or the other being the active initiator and the other being more passive. Do you have balance in your relationships?

The need to express love – again an interesting thought that this might be a human need. If I think of myself I feel this is a need but I wonder if it is a need for everyone. Human beings seek out loving relationships; we know that, for me I know I like to express my love for others.

The need for security – this is about trust and survival. We need to feel that our world is familiar and predictable to some degree and that we are safe. This is why things like moving house, death of a loved one or divorce can be hugely stressful for us.

The need for valuing – we all need to be valued, cared about, and thought worthy even if we don’t think these things about ourselves. This and the next one are often issues that people bring to therapy as even when people are valued they don’t always allow themselves to know it.

The need for acceptance – the need to be accepted. Again a very common issue that people don’t feel accepted and don’t accept themselves. This can often be about what we have experienced in the past and ideally we have people in our lives who truly accept us for who we are. Of course for this to happen we need to really show people the reality of us rather than adapt to who we think others want us to be.

The need for mutuality – the need to be with someone who has walked in their shoes. We need to be able to identify to and feel similar to, at times. I think this is about human connection, it is comforting for us to know that others have experienced similar things to us.

The need for self-definition – the people need to express who they are and be acknowledged and respected for their own uniqueness. We do this in a range of ways, how we dress, how we present ourselves, what we say to people. It’s a phase that teenagers are in – really showing who they are that is different from their parents – and maybe it is on ongoing need.

The need to make an impact – to be able to make an impact on the other. Some people need to make more impact than others and we can see this in a range of behaviours. If you tell someone something shocking and they do not react it is not very satisfying to our systems – we need to know that we can impact the world and other people and be responded to.

I don’t know if I fully agree with all of these as human needs but I do love the ideas and to think about these in a way that can enhance my life and others. Are these needs for you and are you getting them met and by whom? If not maybe you could consider how you might get what you need for your own quality of life.

Leilani Mitchell Dip. Couns. CTA (P) UKCP Reg. Psychotherapist, TSTA ( P) Chair of UKATA ( United Kingdom Association for Transactional Analysis ).

Leilani is an internationally qualified trainer, supervisor and Psychotherapist, she is Director of the Link Centre www.thelinkcentre.co.uk  a training centre based in Newick, Sussex that offers courses in personal and professional development as well as longer term courses in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Leilani’s passion is to facilitate people’s self-awareness to enhance their quality of life.

The post Are you getting your needs met in your relationship? appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

I have been pondering contentment and discontentment recently. I think as a species we are generally discontent. This is, of course, a terrible generalisation and will not be true for everyone. It also sounds a bit negative and it can be, however it is also the reason that we have evolved so much and that we have all the amazing things we have around us. Electricity was developed because someone was not content with a candle, medicines are developed because people are not content to watch others suffer and die, we have the internet (a mixed blessing you may think) because people were not content with accessibility of information. This, however causes us unhappiness as well. Having worked with people all my life I know that people are rarely content – we seek, we search, we want to improve ourselves, our houses, our jobs our income.

Take a moment to think about yourself – how would you score your level of contentment in these areas? From 1- 5, with 5 being completely content:

Your work            1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your income        1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your house          1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your family          1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your friends         1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your body/fitness 1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your self esteem  1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Of course this will vary depending on many things. Are all your sores 5’s? If they are, DO NOTHING! Stop reading, go and put your feet up and revel in your contentment!

The New Year is often a time when we re-evaluate and decide to do things differently, we look at the things we are not content with and make decisions – I am going to work less, lose weight, get fit, write a book, change jobs, move house, be happy, get therapy, manage my stress, and so on. How often do we not stick to them though? So what’s going on? Well, we know something is going on because if you continue like this, then it is likely to be a repeating pattern in your life. Anything that happens over and over again in your life is very likely to be to do with you – sorry about that! This is both good and bad news. The bad news is that you have to take at least some responsibility and could have done something about it before now. The good news is that if it’s you that’s doing it, it’s you that can stop and do it differently!

The Key is Self-Awareness.

All sorts of studies are coming out now about how self-awareness can help us in every area of our lives – self-esteem, relationships, stress, depression, anxiety and achieving goals we set for ourselves. I remember a boyfriend of mine at school saying that his Grandad had said to him ‘study hard and get your exams, once you have them no one can take them away from you ‘. It’s a shame I didn’t listen at the time – that’s another story! I think self-awareness is the same – once we have awareness, no one can take it away – not that it’s a finite journey by any means! Human beings, as well as being a little weird, are fascinating, creative, wonderful and inventive creatures. There is always more to learn about ourselves, how we function, what we unconsciously set up for ourselves, how we communicate and miscommunicate with others, and what our motives are for success and failure of things we set out to achieve.

My passion is about facilitating others in their self-awareness. Every area of my work as a Transactional Analyst is about that. It’s such a thrill for me when people experience those ‘ah-ha’ moments of realisation – ‘oh that’s what’s going on in my relationship’ or ‘that’s what’s going on for me at work’. Each time I think ‘and no one can take that away from you’ and each and every insight will be useful to that person in other areas of their life as well.

So, rather than setting yourself the same old goals that you haven’t historically stuck to, how about setting yourself a new goal for 2014? How about going on a journey of self-discovery and self-awareness (or starting a new chapter of this journey as many of you will be on already), the more you learn and understand the better it will be for you. That’s not to say that some realisations are not painful and difficult for us to face, however with awareness, we are empowered to make the changes we want and build on our contentment scores. Begin a new project called ‘Me’ and see how much you can discover about yourself by the end of the year. You are an amazing, fascinating, wonderful human being, full of contradictions and creativity. Yes I am talking to YOU! Your life has been a rich tapestry of experience and I wish you well on the rest of your journey.

The post Developing self-awareness appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Christmas is such an interesting time. As the evenings draw in we tend not to look after ourselves so well – we eat too much, drink too much and don’t get enough exercise. We have unrealistic expectations – putting pressure on ourselves to get things done before the break, in order for us to have that ‘perfect’ Christmas – sold to us by the media and advertising campaigns. We spend far too much money buying that ‘ideal’ present for the person who has everything, and we force ourselves to spend time with the family member that we avoid for the rest of the year. And then, surprisingly, we wonder why we don’t enjoy it!

Tips for a stress free Christmas

It is a perfect recipe for Psychological Games. The theory of Games was developed by Eric Berne the founder of Transactional Analysis. We all play Games. They are unconscious and repetitive. We learn to play Games in our family of origin, as a way of getting our needs met when we are young. Once these games may have been useful to us, but as adults, they’re generally unhelpful and destructive. We are much more likely to play them when we are tired, run down or stressed, and with those who will play them with us! At Christmas, we often put ourselves back into our family of origin where we first learned to play the Games.

Steve Karpman developed the Drama Triangle (see image) to help us to understand the concept of Games. When we are in a Game, we are on this triangle and as the Game progresses, we move to a different position.

When we are in the Rescuer position we are taking care of, looking after, doing more than, the other person. Often doing more then we want to! Have you ever experienced this at Christmas? Doing things you don’t want to do? Spending time with people you would rather not spend time on? Spending money on things you don’t want to buy? When we are in the Rescue position we often build up resentment. When in the Persecutor position, we are generally angry or resentful. We ‘have a go’ at the other participant in the Game, put them down, belittle and undermine them. We feel that we are right and they are wrong and blame others. We offload our frustrations onto others. Have you experienced times when you have offloaded frustration onto another person, possibly even when the frustration had nothing to do with them? When we are in the Victim position – we are in a victim role. (This is different from actual victims, who do not invite what happens to them.) We are undermining ourselves, believing we can’t do things – we are powerless and unable. We might say things like, ‘I can’t find the right present,’ or ‘it’s all too much for me.’

When we are in a Game we unconsciously seek others who will play the opposite roles. Once found, we will then play out our Games. An example might be adult children who come home for Christmas. It always amazes me how my own grown-up children, who are very capable adults in the world, can regress back to being children as they walk through my door. It might be that you haven’t seen them for a while and want to make it a great Christmas for them. You shop, cook, clean and spend time thinking about what they would like. You plan and bake and wrap. You buy the biggest tree, decorate it, and put a pile of presents underneath. You wear yourself into the ground and are tired. Which position do you think you are in? Your children then come in from having fun with their friends and say, ‘It’s so boring here, there is nothing to do’ If you were thinking, rather than just reacting, you would realise they are in a Victim position. It’s not up you to provide their entertainment. They are adults. What do you think you might feel? It could be anger – and you move into the Persecutor position. If you play this Game out, you might start to have a go at them. You might tell them they are ungrateful, after everything you’ve done for them etc. etc. etc. We would all go away feeling bad.

There is a whole range of different Games we can play. It depends which ones we have learnt as a child. Look out for the Games you might play – at the end of them, we always feel bad in some way. You can avoid these Games, by really taking care of yourself – both physically and psychologically – by not doing more then you want, by expressing frustrations before they build-up, and by realising that you can do things for yourself, enjoying a stress free Christmas.

The Link Centre offers various courses in counselling and psychotherapy, counselling skills and various workshops in Kent and Sussex. Please visit www.thelinkcentre.co.uk for more details

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‘She/he is just attention seeking’ – how often do we hear or say this statement? We use it as a put down as a criticism, and yet if someone is attention seeking that is because they need or want attention – what’s wrong with that?!

Human beings are social animals and need attention to survive. Orphans who are fed and watered and given shelter do not thrive and often deteriorate if they are not given human contact and attention. We will each have learnt ways to get our attention needs met in our family of origin and are probably still using the same, sometimes outdated, patterns that we learnt then to get our needs met. In times of stress when we may be worried about money, Christmas, our jobs etc we are more likely to revert to unhealthy ways of getting our needs met, which often compound the situation.

In Transactional Analysis we talk about Strokes. A stroke is a unit of recognition. Recognition can be verbal or non-verbal, positive or negative. Strokes are required for psychological (and some would say physical) health.

Types of strokes

There are two main types of stroke: POSITIVE STROKE – e.g. “You look well.” NEGATIVE STROKE – e.g. “I hate you!” They can be conditional (e.g. “You look pretty in that dress”) or unconditional (e.g. “I love you!”). They can be verbal (as simple as “hello!”) or non-verbal (for instance a smile).

The effects of strokes

Strokes reinforce behaviour/emotions/thinking. For instance, as children grow up in their family they will be positively stroked for the behaviour/emotions/thinking the family wants in them, and negatively stroked for the behaviour/emotions/thinking, which the family wish to discourage. This effect can be seen not only in families but also in all situations where people interact, including the professional relationships, social contacts and the workplace. If people feel deprived of strokes, they will behave in such a manner as to elicit them. If they cannot get positive strokes they will seek negative strokes rather than have none. In the current climate people are worried, stressed and concerned about the future they may feel devalued, unappreciated and unsafe.

The stroke economy

Why do we find ourselves in situations where few of the preferred strokes are available? Claude Steiner in his book Scripts People Live (1974) identifies this as the stroke economy. He suggests that in Western civilisation our parents provide us with five rules about stroking, These are:-

• Don’t give strokes when you have them to give.
• Don’t ask for strokes when you need them.
• Don’t accept strokes if you want them.
• Don’t reject strokes when you don’t want them.
• Don’t give yourself strokes.

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