Facebook, Twitter and the Stroke Bonanza

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facebook logoI have just rejoined Facebook again after a long time away and along with Twitter and LinkedIn it’s having a surprising effect on me. Lots of smiles!  As a naturally private individual I have thought long and hard about joining the plethora of people already involved with social media sites. Over the past few months though I have made a conscious decision to get out there and connect with more people.

There’s much debate about the ethics of participating on social media sites as a psychotherapist.  The International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA) group on LinkedIn have been discussing this for the past few weeks and the topic has seen a range of opinions put forward on the morality of it all.

There is no doubt though that social media sites cannot be ignored.  According to social media experts Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, there are more than 200 million active users of Facebook with half of them logging on every day.  Its fastest-growing demographic of people are those in the 35 years and older category. So why are they so popular?

in TA terms Social media sites provide a constant and pretty endless source of strokes.  Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis defined a stroke simply as “a unit of recognition”.

Here’s some facts about strokes:

  • Strokes can be physical, e.g. a pat on the back, or verbal, a quick “hello” or a lengthy conversation.
  • Strokes can be conditional; “When you clean your room I think you’re fantastic”, or unconditional; “you’re fantastic”.
  • Strokes can be positive “you’re great” or negative; “you stink”.

As social animals humans crave strokes.  We will pretty much do anything for them.  If we can’t get positive strokes then negative ones will do.  For most of us, the only thing worse than being treated badly is being completely ignored.  This explains why solitary confinement is the worst punishment a prisoner can be subjected to and why children who receive no praise quickly find that behaving badly gets them attention.

Both my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts are now regularly churning out positive strokes for me and I love it!  It’s great to make contact daily with people I’ve known for years and I also love contributing ideas to discussions on LinkedIn and engaging with people I know less well. I’m finding the exchange of ideas thought provoking and can see how social media sites, with their groups and fan clubs, provide instant communities and a feeling of belonging.

In an age when real community is on the wain and relationships suffer as a result of our busy lives, social media sites can provide a stroke fix that can be a benefit to us all.  I’m pretty sure that most people are sensible enough to realise that face to face relationships are also very important and should be valued and nurtured and that can be done if people use social media sites sensibly.  In fact I would argue that sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, if used well, can enhance our face to face relationships as we communicate with our friends more frequently online.  I also acknowledge that e-safety and boundary issues do raise their heads when using social media sites, maybe this is where common sense needs to come into play?

Join me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

What do you think about this post?  Please leave a comment if you have read it.  It doesn’t have to be super intellectual, even a “Hi!” would be great!

If you are looking for therapy in Manchester give me a ring on 07966 390857

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Achieving Emotional Literacy by Claude Steiner

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Category: Psychotherapy.
Target audience: General.  Great for individuals and for couples who want to communicate better.
How challenging is it to read? Straight forward.  No previous knowledge assumed.

Ok, I’ll Admit it from the start of this review, I’m a bit of a Claude Steiner groupie!  If you have had therapy in Manchester with me, you’ll know I talk about him a great deal.  I think Steiner has some great theories and enjoy his larger than life personality and outspoken ideas.  As you will pick up in this review, I love his emotional literacy stuff and encourage my clients to become emotionally literate because I am sure it brings improvement to relationships and increases feelings of self worth.  I will be blogging about emotional literacy in more detail for sure!

If you’re not sure who Claude Steiner is, he one of the foremost figures in the development of TA.  He trained with and was a good friend of Eric Berne, the founder of TA,  and had a major influence on TA basic concepts, especially the theory of script formation and strokes.

The aim of “Achieving Emotional Literacy” is to teach you to do exactly that!  This is a handbook to teach you to accept your emotions and take responsibility for the impact that your behaviour has on the emotions of others.  After a brief introduction the book splits into three stages.  Stage one is “Opening the heart”; Stage two “Surveying the Emotional Landscape” and Stage three “Taking Responsibility”.  But before I describe what’s in each section I think it’s important to describe what Steiner means by Emotional Literacy.

Steiner puts it thus:

“To be emotionally literate is to be able to handle emotions in a way that improves your personal power and improves the quality of life around you.  Emotional Literacy improves relationships, creates loving possibilities between people, makes cooperative work possible, and facilitates the feeling of community.” Steiner p11

Step one of the book “Opening the Heart”, talks in detail about strokes and the stroke economy.  Strokes are an important concept in TA and are defined as “A unit of recognition”.  That could be through conversation with another, physical contact or even a smile.  Strokes are important to all of us and as a species we seek them out voraciously.  Steiner explains how to give, recieve and reject strokes appropriately.  He emphasises the need for honesty in relationships and discusses how we are all intuitive and will the spot the lies or half truths other people tell us.  When we lie to others it will be picked up on some level and will damage our relationships.  Steiner also explains why self stroking, confronting that negative parental voice that tells us that we are no good, is so important if we want to be happy, healthy individuals.

Step two of the book entitled “Surveying the Emotional Landscape” goes into detail about how to talk about our emotions to others in a safe and caring way whilst also inviting others to meet our needs.  Intuition is discussed in detail and he also relates the best way of talking about the “hunches” we have with others.

Step three, “Taking Responsibility” is mainly about how to give and receive apologies.  Saying sorry is very important when we make mistakes.  It repairs damage and lets the other party know they are valued and respected.  Steiner takes us through the right way and wrong way of doing this.

There then follows brief chapters on using emotional literacy with children, in the work place and a chapter on personal power and how being emotionally literate allows us to be powerful without the need for power plays or violence.

So why do i recommend this book so highly?  It’s because  Emotional Literacy is such an important part of forming relationships with ourselves and others.  When we are in relationships with others it’s key that we are able to explain our wants and needs without being judgmental of them or assuming we know what they want or why they behaved in a certain way towards us.  Steiner explains all of this clearly and gives practical advice on how to achieve this.

I love Steiner’s ideas about the stroke economy, especially as it rings so true.  I can see how the rules of the stroke economy restrict us in the way we may relate to others, and perhaps more importantly, the way we see ourselves.  I’m sure most of us have had experiences where some one we care about can say lots of nice things to us and we barely notice yet the second they say one negative thing it hits home hard.  That’s the stroke economy in action!

It’s not always easy for any of us to truly feel safe enough to show our emotions.  This book takes us through it in stages and encourages us to realise that those that are truly strong are in touch with their emotions and know themselves well.

The bad news is that the book I have reviewed costs £60 new (at the time of writing) if you click my amazon link above.  The good news?  This book: Emotional Literacy: Intelligence with a Heart, is an updated version published in 2003 and retails for around £10.  Want the even better than good news?  Steiner has a great website, and a history of giving away his books for free, so you can actually read this book for nought pence!  So now you have no excuse not to read one of the best books out there on leading a happy balanced life.  Enjoy!

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Why All Teachers Should Learn Transactional Analysis

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teachers should learn transactional analysisI am a lucky man because I work in two areas that I enjoy and find fascinating. These are the vocations of teaching and psychotherapy and I love it when they come together. This is lucky because they come together frequently. In fact they’re rarely apart. Teaching is about relationships. Psychotherapy is about relationships. They are made for each other.

There is an unfortunate trend in education over the last few years. We seem to have moved away from relationships and towards “measurable outcomes”. We can measure a child’s IQ, CAT score, SAT score, GCSE grade, AS level etc etc. but it’s pretty hard to put a number on how happy he or she is at school and whether he feels cared for, nurtured, respected, inspired or safe. My argument is that all of these things are essential before any learning can take place. Once they are secure then the child may fly. She can feel safe enough to have a go, make mistakes and learn that it’s OK. Then real learning begins.

Who inspired you?

Look back at the teachers you found inspiring at school. Were they the ones that marked your homework on time? Was it the way in which they set work for you that you remember? The thing that we remember about our special teachers is how they connected with us. How we felt when we were with them. I remember clearly how I felt with my English teacher when I was I kid. I felt valued, inspired and special and I loved going to English lessons. For most homework assignments I would do the minimum just to make sure I didn’t get into trouble (typical boy). For my English teacher I would write reams!

So what’s all this got to do with Transactional Analysis? In order for a child to learn anything within the classroom setting you need a good teacher to facilitate the process. Teaching is a demanding, stressful and high pressured vocation where the humanness of the teacher is often forgotten by all parties. This is regularly demonstrated by excited children running up to teachers during the school day to tell them “I saw you in Tescos”! Yep, teachers have to eat too! As teachers we often forget that we are human too and we are not our jobs. We take poor behaviour in our classrooms personally, feel stressed when we are being observed (mention Ofsted to a teacher and they tend to react as if they are to be visited by the grim reaper to have their very soul brought to judgment) and find it difficult to unwind in the long holidays we are endlessly lambasted for.

How can Transactional Analysis help teachers?

Transactional Analysis offers teachers a way of understanding what is happening on a social level within the classroom and within themselves. It provides a map, a framework to start hanging experiences on.

Here’s a list of a few features of transactional analysis and how they can be used by teachers;

  • Ego states – once understood, teachers can figure out what’s going on with their thinking, feeling and behaviour in the classroom and choose to respond rather than react.
  • Transactional Analysis Proper – teachers can use their knowledge of TA proper to keep irate children (and parents!) placated, cut dead unproductive conversations and make their points seem clear during lessons.
  • Strokes – the understanding of the stroke economy makes the poor behaviour of some children more comprehendible and encourages teachers to be positive in their classrooms as a method of behaviour management. I’ve done a lot of work with students explicitly discussing strokes and the stroke economy, they find it fascinating too!
  • Games – there are many games played out in the classroom including “Do Me Something”, Wooden Leg”, “If It Wasn’t For You” and “Now I’ve Got You, You S.O.B”. If teachers understand them they can avoid them or at least be aware when they enter into them and avoid the negative payoff for themselves (for example, that common feeling of hopelessness that teachers can feel, or feelings of anger) and for the students.
  • Scripts – understanding our own script helps us language why we wanted to be a teacher in the first place and gives us permission to pursue our vocation from a positive place.

My examples above barely scrape the surface of the uses of TA within teaching and there are many more aspects of TA such as the drama triangle, the OK corral, script matrix, discounting that are also very useful.

By learning Transactional Analysis a teacher can gain more insight to how human relationships tick. They can make more sense of the behaviour they see around them and put it into a wider context. Transactional Analysis provides a language to explain why certain classroom management techniques are going to be more effective than others and gives permission for the teacher to retain humanness in the face of adversity.

Transactional Analysis brings greater awareness into the classroom and with this comes options and the possibility of doing things differently.

 

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