How to Become a More Effective Coach with Transactional Analysis?
When I started working on Transactional Analysis in my coaching practice, I had a feeling that I was starting to decode relationships. After working on it for a long time, I then designed my Transactional Analysis trainings. The coaches who participate in these trainings, as well as my mentees who are in the credentialing process, are able to see how to use Transactional Analysis, how this theory will accelerate their coaching processes while practicing their coaching profession, and how to establish stronger bonds with their clients.
In this blog post I will be talking about how Transactional Analysis can support you on your journey to becoming a more effective coach.
How does Transactional Analysis benefit the coaching process?
Transactional Analysis, as developed by Eric Berne, is one of the most significant approaches I use in my coaching practice. Thanks to this communication theory, coaches who walk through the coaching process alongside me learn a lot more about the personality and personality structures of their clients in a short period of time, and thus add tremendous value to their coaching process.
Once you apply Transactional Analysis in your coaching processes, you will not be able to do without it.
TA provides insight into clients’ learning styles, assists us in understanding their thinking processes and creating space for them to choose change. Communication in the coaching session enables us to observe the relationships and the communication within the entirety of client’s life.
Coaching is a process of open communication and mutual acceptance. In this process, the goal is clear and the client seeks to achieve the desired outcome.
Thanks to the TA model, a coach who recognizes his/her client’s learning style, thinking processes, values and behavioral patterns can effortlessly achieve results in helping his/her client reach his/her desired goal.
5 Transactional Analysis techniques to use in coaching to become a more effective coach
- Ego States
People have three main ego states: Parent, Adult, Child. Within these ego states, people exhibit certain behaviors and experience certain feelings and thoughts. What the individual goes through and experiences contributes to the formation of his/her ego states. As a consequence, people experience these groups of emotions and behaviors throughout their lives over and over again.
We tend to shape the Parent ego state through our family and caregivers. What we learn from them, the set of behaviors we put into practice, our social and cultural rules, family traditions, perceptions of shame and prohibition or our rules of life represent our Parent ego state. We replicate them from our parents.
If your client frequently uses phrases such as “Don’t”, ” Stop”, “It’s not right”, “This is the way it should be”, “This is how it should be done/shouldn’t be done”, you can easily get an idea about their Parent ego state. It is likely that the client leads a controlled life, stuck with the rules and regulations of their Parent ego state, their rules are not their own, but those set by their parents, and their truths are not their own, but those of their family.
Our Child ego state acts on instinct and emotion, it is rather natural and unaccountable. It doesn’t care about social rules, and goes with the flow. It may cry, laugh, enjoy itself childishly, become irritable or aggressive. Reactions expressed with the naivety of a child can also manifest themselves in various ways in adulthood.
The client may be predisposed to experience feelings, thoughts and behaviors connected to childhood behaviors in adult life. For example, they may sulk when things don’t go his way. Even though the client may not be aware of it, it is not possible to make adult decisions in the Child ego state. A coach who recognizes this situation can easily guide their client to the level of the Adult ego state and help the client to have the psychological foundation that will enable them to make the right decisions.
From this, we understand that the Adult ego state is the state that facilitates making healthy decisions. To clarify further, the Adult ego state is here and now, it can think, feel, see the situation as it is, the way things are, and make observations.
It is rather simple to understand how your client communicates if you have a good grasp of the ego states. Furthermore, a coach who is familiar with this model knows where the clash and conflicts between the ego states of the client may come up. Thus, they can take proactive steps in the coaching process.
Does your client live in the past or is he/she capable of making decisions in the present?
The coach constantly observes their client. He/ she understands the client’s behavior patterns. The coach also observes the client’s culture and mindset. He notices how the client thinks and acts. Based on what he/she observes, the coach knows what kind of struggle the client is going through in their life, even if the client does not tell him/her. He understands how the client solves their problems.
Through listening to your client effectively and asking them the right and powerful questions, you can determine whether they are living in the past – that is, whether they are stuck in their Parent or Child ego states – or whether they have the ability to make healthy decisions, that is, how effectively they can use their Adult ego state, so that you can get positive results in a shorter time during the coaching process. In this way, you can draw your client’s attention to the “here and now”, raise their self-awareness and guide them forward.
- Strokes
Strokes are one of the important concepts of TA. Every person needs strokes. Communication is founded on these smallest pieces of recognition, called strokes.
Strokes can be verbal or non-verbal, positive or negative, conditional or unconditional. Understanding the concept of strokes brings you one step ahead as a coach. If you are familiar with the concept, you have a chance to understand what your client is telling you as well as what they are not telling you. You are able to read his/ her body language and understand what lies beneath his/ her words.
A coach who understands the contacts will be able to grasp the needs of the client more quickly. He/ she also recognizes the areas that need assistance, even if the client is not aware of them. Through positive stokes, the coach enables the client to go deeper into his/her feelings and thoughts.
If you have an understanding of how your client engages in strokes, you can tune the coach-client alliance accordingly.
- Communication process and transactions
When two people communicate, a transaction is formed. Talking to your client, asking them questions and receiving answers from them are separate transactions.
When you are aware of the ego states, you can discern between which ego states a transaction between two people can or cannot take place. In other words, it becomes easier for you to take your own position in communicating with your client, it also becomes possible for you to detect the aspects of your client’s relationships that are working well or that are not working well. It is possible to establish relationships between different ego states, as well as the same ego states… Learning and observing these and taking the right actions will enable you to establish a stronger and more authentic communication with your client, thus achieving effective and fast results and making a difference in the coaching profession.
If you can understand how your client communicates, you will know where and how you can empower them. You can then fully accompany your client’s journey.
- Transference and Countertransference
In some situations, the coach may encounter a negative reaction from his/her client, and sometimes the client may be reluctant to act on certain issues. This situation occurs when the client associates the coach with someone from his/her own past in the present situation, which is called transference. The coach may also encounter a similar situation in his/her relationship with the client, which is called countertransference.
A coach with a good knowledge of TA is prepared for this kind of transference and counter-transference. He/ she recognizes transference patterns at the very beginning of the process. In this way, he/she can assess situations from the right perspective and not steer the client out of the coaching frame or permit the client to be steered out of the coaching frame. In fact, this information is also quite useful for coaches when managing their supervision processes.
Keeping transference and counter-transference out of the coaching process ensures that the coaching process functions effectively. Otherwise, it is not possible to obtain the desired results from the sessions.
- Games
Clients will sometimes experience repetitive results in response to certain events. They may not realize what they are doing, but the results they are getting from life are always in the same direction. TA describes this situation with the concept of games. People unwittingly play various games with the people they interact with.
A coach who is familiar with these games, who can analyze them from the TA’s viewpoint, can easily analyze the repeated results. He/ she sees through the current situation, understands the current need, helps the client to give up the games they have been playing and adopt new habits. In this way, the client becomes aware of his/her own behavior patterns and acquires new behaviors.
Becoming a Transactional Analysis Coach
Becoming a TA coach means increasing your effectiveness in coaching, decoding relationships and becoming a master of awareness and communication in relationships.
If you would like to learn more about this subject, you can easily access other blog posts I have written about Transactional Analysis and participate in the trainings I provide on Transactional Analysis. By this way, you will realize that you are progressing step by step in your coaching profession as well as your relationships.