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.

Have you been rushing around doing every online workshop, exercise class and zoom quiz since lockdown began?

Perhaps you feel the need to hide your emotions and “be strong” for your friends and family, during times like these?

Maybe you’re someone who constantly feels the need to be perfect – home-schooling your children, cooking them delicious and nutritious meals every night, while simultaneously acing your full-time job?

In Transactional Analysis, we call these aspects of your personality “Drivers”.

Drivers are ways we learned to adapt to our environment when we were young. They are developed at an age when we can understand what is approved and disapproved of by the adults around us.

As children we attempt to adapt to grown-up’s expectations, in order to feel ok about ourselves. We pick up the verbal and non-verbal messages and act accordingly.

Taibi Kahler, who developed this theory, noticed there were five sets of behaviours that people consistently displayed. These were divided into five categories, which he called Drivers.

Drivers are double-edged swords and they all have positive and negative attributes.

One struggle with Drivers is that people tend to make themselves feel “not ok” if they slip out of them. For example, if you were the “be perfect” working mum and found that one area of your life was slipping during the Covid-19 lockdown, you might be overwhelmed with negative, self-critical thoughts and feelings.

The key to making Drivers work for you is self-awareness. Once you can identify “Drivers”, you can get a better understanding of your own and other people’s behaviours.

Better self-awareness has been found to increase self-esteem, improve relationships, help manage stress and improve quality of life.

The last few months have been a struggle for many, with financial worries, loneliness and isolation putting a strain on our physical and mental wellbeing.

During this time, you may have looked at others and wondered why and how they are reacting to the situation in such an opposing way to you.

The way we cope during a crisis, can say a lot about our learned behaviours or Drivers.

If someone looks like they’ve created the “perfect” lockdown life, it may be that they have a strong “Be Perfect” Driver, while someone who has thrown themselves into work and created hundreds of new projects might be more “Try Hard”.

Most people have two main Drivers. Can you identify yours from the list below and consider them in relation to your reaction to Covid-19?

1. PLEASE OTHERS

Characteristics

Widened eyes, raised eyebrows, nodding, toothy smile, horizontal forehead lines, looks up with head down, goes up at the end of a sentence, uses qualifying words (sorta, kinda, ok).

Benefits

Good team member, enjoys being with others and aims to please without being asked. Understanding and empathic.

Uses intuition. Notices body language and other signals. Encourages harmony in groups/teams. Invites quieter members into discussion. Considerate of others feelings.

Difficulties

Avoids any risk of upsetting someone and therefore does not to challenge ideas (even if wrong). Cautious with criticism and can then be ignored. Appears to lack commitment.

Presents own views as questions, appears to lack assertiveness, critical faculties and courage of convictions.

Takes criticism personally even if constructive. Allows others to interrupt.

Trying to “read minds” can lead to not asking for necessary information and feeling misunderstood when others don’t like results.

2. BE PERFECT

Characteristics

Upright erect posture, precise, look up to right frequently. Mouth goes slightly out, counts on fingers. Even, steady tone. Language often over-detailed and uses parentheses. Steepling hands.

Benefits

Accurate, reliable worker, checks facts thoroughly and prepares well. Good attention to detail, well organised, looks ahead, plans well with contingency plans. Smooth, efficient well coordinated projects with progress monitored. Cares about how things look.

Difficulties

Cannot be relied upon to produce work to deadlines, as may check too carefully and often for mistakes – keeps asking for minor changes and does drafts rather than final versions. Finds it difficult to incorporate others’ input. Misjudges level of detail, always applies high standards to self and others, failing to recognise when good enough is good enough. Demotivates through criticism. Problems delegating. May feel worthless and dissatisfied.

3. TRY HARD

Characteristics

Hand on side of cheek or behind ear; peering – lines on forehead and around eyes as a result of screwed up face. Tone strangled, tense, muffled, choked back. Incomplete sentences. Words such as try, hard, difficult, can’t think. Body moves forward.

Benefits

Tackles things enthusiastically, energy peaks with something new to do. Others value motivation and ability to get things off the ground. Popular. Problem solver. Volunteers for new tasks. Follows up all possibilities. Finds out the implications of everything. Pays attention to all aspects of a task, including what others overlook.

Difficulties

Yes but…….more committed to trying than succeeding. Initial interest wears off before task is finished. Others may resent not doing the interesting bits when they are left with the mundane bits. Makes task impossibly large. Creates havoc with time schedule. Written work full of irrelevant details. Communication may be pained, strained and frowning – listeners become confused. Gripes and sabotages.

4. BE STRONG

Characteristics

Erect, stoical posture, face expressionless, few wrinkles, monotone, long pauses, short sentences; fine. Absence of feeling words; uses one, it, and distancing pronouns.

Benefits

Stays calm under pressure. Feels energised when having to cope. Good in a crisis. Thinks logically when others panic. Stays emotionally detached, problem solves, deals with stressed people. Can make unpleasant decisions without torturing soul. Seen as reliable and steady. Handles others, firmly and fairly. Gives honest feedback, and constructive criticism. Even tempered.

Difficulties

Hates admitting weakness: failure to cope is weakness. Gets overlooked rather than ask for help. Hides work away – tidy appearance. Highly self-critical. Others feel uncomfortable about lack of emotional responses – hard to get to know robots or masked people whose smile does not extend to eyes. Fears being unlovable, so doesn’t ask for anything, lest it’s refused. May become absent minded and withdrawn.

5. HURRY UP

Characteristics

Agitated gestures; looks at watch; fidgety. Screwed up face, eyes moving around. Rapid staccato tone. Words such as quick, got to.

Benefits

Works quickly and gets a lot done in a short time. Responds well to short deadlines – energy peaks under pressure. Enjoys having too many things to do:  if you want something done give it to a busy person. Prepares quickly, saves time on tasks to spend with people. Juggles.

Difficulties

Delays starting until deadline is near. Makes mistakes in haste; corrections can take time and thus misses deadlines. Quality of work may be poor. May come across as impatient. Rushes with crammed diary, doesn’t get to know people, feels like an outsider.

THE LINK CENTRE OFFERS COURSES IN COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY, WITH A FOCUS ON TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Interested to learn more about this 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 throughout July. For more info go to thelinkcentre.co.uk or email info@thelinkcentre.co.uk.

Got questions about our counselling and psychotherapy courses? We’re hosting an online open evening on 29th July, 6.30pm-8pm.

Words: Laura Nikita Mitchell

The post Personality Types in a Crisis appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

The problem for most people is that they tend to repeat habitual patterns, so rather than developing and growing they remain stuck in well-worn ruts. In Transactional Analysis (TA) we can use a model of ego state’s to understand what happens to create these habits. The ego state model is a way of understanding how we operate in the world (in terms of our perceptions, thinking, feeling and impulses to behave). In TA we talk of 3 ego states, which are shown below:

Parent – as others were in our past

Adult – direct responses to the here and now

Child – as we were in the past

One way of thinking about the Child ego state is that this develops like rings of a tree. As we grow up we incorporate new experiences that are stored away in the child ego state. When we have more difficult experiences, in the same way as a tree creates a knot in the wood, we incorporate a ‘lesion’ in the rings of experience (as shown below).

When we experience something in our everyday life that resonates with a lesion from our past we can trigger back into perceiving, thinking, feeling and acting or wanting to act like we did when we had the original experience. This process can be further intensified by the responses we received from other people at the time of the original incident. Their response will be stored in our Parent Ego State and can often be heard as an internal voice when we start to resonate with a previous difficulty.

So to give an example, if we think about a young child on their first day at school, this can be a potential difficult experience for most children; what they need at the time is soothing and reassurance to help them manage this experience without it becoming a lesion. If a parent is dismissive of the child’s fear, perhaps telling them “Don’t be a baby! You’re making a fool of yourself! Pull yourself together!” this experience of the other is stored in Parent. Later in life, when experiencing a situation involving being alone and meeting a new group of people for the first time the voice in our head starts repeating this message.

Like growth in nature, people require support and nurture to thrive. When we receive these we are then more able to deal with difficulties in later life. Yet it is never too late to provide ourselves with the necessary psychological nutrients for healthy life. As a first step, awareness of how our individual background’s influence us now. This can be achieved through an understanding of Transactional Analysis, amongst other approaches. From this we can identify more healthy ways of managing our past and present difficulties.

Transactional Analysis is an approach that is used to understand ourselves and relationships in organisations, education, counselling, psychotherapy, and parenting as well as many other fields.

Mark Head MSc (TA Psychotherapy), BSc Hons (Psychology), CTA (P), UKCP Reg. Psychotherapist, TSTA (P), Chair of the Accreditation and Assessment Committee for UKATA (United Kingdom Association for Transactional Analysis ).
Mark is an internationally qualified trainer, supervisor and Psychotherapist and a Mindfulness trainer, he 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. Mark’s passion is to facilitate people’s self-awareness to enhance their quality of life.
The Link Centre

The post Understanding ourselves with Transactional Analysis 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.

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.

‘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.

The post Health through Transactional Analysis appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

It’s that time of year again – the evenings are dark, the cold, wet weather is here and last year is a memory. This is when people often make decisions about the future – resolutions to lose weight, to change jobs, to give up chocolate. If you’ve already fallen off the particular ‘wagon’ that you set yourself, don’t worry.

Firstly you’re not alone. Millions of people make New Year resolutions and don’t carry them through. Secondly it’s not too late. You can make changes at any time of the year, not just the 1st January.

It’s best to start with a really honest assessment. Ask yourself: What do I want to change? How come I want to change it? On a scale of 1-10 how much do I want to change it? Then consider whether what you want to change is for you or to please someone else. How motivated are you to change this thing? Change can be challenging – are you really willing to go through that discomfort? What will you lose? This may seem like a strange question and, at first, you may think ‘nothing’. Be really honest with yourself. For example, it might be that you want to lose weight. You may lose the ability to feel bad about your weight, which is a familiar place for you. Human beings prefer familiarity even if it is uncomfortable.

You may lose the ability to be able to talk to your friends about it and get sympathy and support. We all need attention and one way we can get it is by continuing to have problems and get attention from our social group or family. There may also be other things you will lose that may be unique to you. How might you sabotage achieving your goal? Again, be really honest.

Often we unconsciously sabotage or undermine ourselves. By being aware of the ways we might do this we can plan for it and as a result are much less likely to sabotage ourselves. Write your goal down. Studies have shown that you are much more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. When you have really identified what you want ñ think about these questions*:

1. Is making that change achievable? – has at least one other person in the world achieved this?
2. Is it positively worded? What are you going to do rather than what are you going to stop? What are you going to have instead of what are you going to lose? You are much more likely to achieve you goal if you focus on what you will gain.
3. Is it sensory-based? How will you/ others see, hear, physically feel, smell, taste as a result of this change? The more that you can picture your goal and ground yourself in it the more likely you are to succeed.
4. Can it be finished? – How will you/anyone know when you have finished doing this? How many/ how often/ how long before you know you have got what you wanted? You need to be clear at what point you will have achieved your goal.
5. What is the context? – Where are you going to do this? When are you going to do this? With whom are you going to do this?

Whatever your aim, get some support – change can be hard, unconsciously we tend to find ways to keep things the same, even if we are not happy with them. Consider in advance what sort of support you want and where it could come from. Then go and ask for it.

Don’t expect perfection from yourself, this is a sabotage. Most changes happen over time. We have certain habits and we may at times fall back into old ways of being. If this happens, don’t worry – it is part of the process. Forgive yourself and get back to your programme. Eventually you will learn and integrate your new habit. Go for it!

* Based Transactional Analysis Counselling in Action by Ian Stewart ( 1989) www.thelinkcentre.co.uk

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