Transactional
Analysis in the
OK Corral:
Grid for What’s
Happening
by
Franklin H. Ernst Jr., M.D.
Transactional Analysis
in the
OK Corral:
Grid for What’s
Happening
by
Franklin H. Ernst Jr., M.D.
Copyright © 2008
Permission is hereby granted to
any person, magazine, newspaper, other periodical, or media to reprint this
monograph in any single issue of the periodical in question, so long as two
conditions are met: (1) the monograph is printed word for word, including
diagrams, figures, and footnotes, and (2) the following reference is given at
the bottom of the first page on which the reprinted article begins: “This
article is taken from Transactional Analysis in the OK Corral: Grid for
What’s Happening by Franklin H. Ernst Jr., M.D.; published by Franklin
“Harry” Ernst III, Addresso’Set Publications, P.O. Box 3009, Vallejo,
California 94590.”
Transactional
Analysis in the
OK Corral:
Grid for What’s
Happening
by
Franklin H. Ernst, Jr., M.D.
Man
is repeatedly evaluating himself as to the value of himself to himself and also
to his companion; as to the value of his companionship for himself and for his
companion. These are in the often silent:
1. "How are you (How am I with you)?"
2. "What am I going to do with you?"
3. "How is this (situation with you) going to turn out?"
4. "How am I going to get out of this (situation with you)?"
5. "( I wonder) what (do) you think of me (now)?"
6. “What are you thinking of doing to me (now)?”
"What
am I going do with you?" can be understood as coming from one of the four
categories of dynamic social operations[1]
(Figure No.1). In fact, each of these
six questions is resolved by discerning the outcome of the particular encounter
with the identified other person. It has been found there are four major
classes of outcomes which result from social encounters.[2]
The four classes of outcome are called Get-On-With (GOW), Get-Rid-Of (GRO),
Get-Away-From (GAF), Get-Nowhere-With (GNW). [3]
a. The Get-On-With
(GOW) outcome of a social encounter occurs when the personal experience of
the particular person closes with an I-Am-OK
and You-Are-OK.
b. The Get-Rid-Of
(GRO) outcome of a social encounter occurs when the personal experience of
the particular person closes with an I-Am-OK
and You-Are-Not-OK.
c. The Get-Away-From
(GAF) outcome of a social encounter occurs when the personal experience of
the particular person closes with I-Am-Not-OK
and You-Are-OK.
d. The Get-Nowhere-With
(GNW) outcome occurs when the personal experience of the particular person
closes with I-Am-Not-OK and
You-Are-Not-OK.
By
placing “I Am OK” and “I Am not-OK” on the ends of a horizontal line AND the
“You Are OK” and “You Are Not-OK” at the ends of a vertical line as shown in
Figure No.1 we have drawn the grid for the outcomes of personal experience. [4]
The horizontal arrow point on the right represents “I am going ahead.” The arrow point on the left represents “I am not going ahead.” The vertical line: “You are OK (e.g. I look up to you) and “You are not OK” (e.g. I look down on you).
In day to day life, a person has a series of stroking encounters, one after another with a variety of persons.[5],[6] Some of the encounters are a simple greeting, a single transaction such as "Hi!” “Hi!" Other encounters (with their transactions) may involve a multitude of words exchanged between the involved persons. Some encounters (transactions) are ritualized, others are pastimes while hanging out with each other. Some are games. Some are activities. And some encounters are the occasional quality of intimacy. Brief or extended, at the conclusion of each encounter, no matter how many transactions between the parties, the outcome will fall into one of the four quadrants of the OK Corral.
Persons familiar with this method of classifying the outcomes of their social encounters described by the “OK Corral: Grid for What’s Happening” report that each individual uses these four categories of social outcome at least once each day.[7],[8]
For example:
A Get-Nowhere-With (GNW) social operation example:
Bob: "Hey, Al, will you sign this paper for me? I got to hurry up and get it down to the boss."
A reasoned (temporary style) GNW outcome resolution by Al could be: "Oh, hey, Bob. Let me think on it a little while first. I won't be able to do it right now." Al is saying "I-am-not-OK, yet ( I am not ready to do it ) -and-you-are-not-OK-with-me-either (on this). I want a few minutes to look it over first. I will probably see it your way, but first let me look it over." This is a temporary Get-Nowhere-With (GNW) act of postponing. Al did not let Bob get anywhere with him for the time being. (Conversely, it is also seen that Bob got-nowhere-with Al, either.) Al was not ready to make a decision on this, not ready to get somewhere with Bob. "I am not OK to handle it now and you are not OK with me yet either, as far as settling this one way or another now."
A Get-Away-From (GAF) social (movement) operation example:
Al:
"Hi Bob! Good to see you!"
Bob: "Yeah,
good to see you too! I want to talk to
you a minute, if you have it."
Al: "Sorry,
Bob. My supervisor has called a meeting down the hall that I have to get to
now. Maybe later in the day, though, we can do it. Okay? (while physically
leaving)." In this encounter,
Al is operationally concluding the event by getting-away-from Bob. He is not,
would not be OK if he tarried with Bob. (We also note that from Bob's view he
is, in effect, getting-rid-of Al.)
A Get-Rid-Of (GRO) social operation example:
Al: "Well, let's see. I think that covers all the points we had to go over for this staff conference today. Good to have met with you. See you next week. Good-bye for now.”
A Get-On-With (GOW) social operation example:
Al: "Well, Bob, the papers here look like they are all in order and clear. I'll sign here and you can sign right over here! OK?"
Bob:
"OK! Thanks! We can get this new distribution system working now!"
Get-Well Mechanical Style:
After a person has made the decisive commitment to get-on-with getting well of a problem (such as forgiving somebody he has been holding a grudge against), the therapist and the patient become increasingly desirous of locating and identifying ways of conferring more "Okayness" into some of the person’s (patient's) Adult oriented encounters.
An individual can initiate the use of his own Adult to bring about “in a thoughtful manner” some more Get-On-With operations with selected persons he encounters, in order to activate “the position for getting well” (get-on-with) in himself more often. In group treatment this is called "getting well mechanical style" because of the oft announced “but I don't feel like it,” “It feels artificial when I do it.”
The person can be told that the childhood part of himself may not have changed his mind, yet, but that his Adult self is able to carry out some transactions in a manner to selectively increase the frequency of getting-on-with some situations and persons. His own Adult can make decisions which differ from his own Child self’s view of the same situation.
A person's Adult can be sorted and strengthened by a therapist (or teacher). One way is for the therapist/teacher to highlight when the other person’s Adult is in charge; so also, the Get-On-With (GOW) operation can be identified when such is underway or just concluded by the given person. [9], [10]
Millie attended
group therapy to get well of a long-standing high blood pressure.
"And-nothing-more-was-said" was the usual payoff to her game of
"Furthermore." For a long
time she rarely talked to anyone in group unless in derision or to give a
soothing-toned "Why don't you …
..?" (platitude) which on decoding meant "go practice drowning"
or "get lost." By
prescription, her Adult ego state began (at first haltingly) to give more
"
“Prescriptions for getting well” are techniques for increasing the frequency of get-on-with encounters. Teaching, learning, and using these techniques will result in more “I am OK AND You are OK” encounters. These techniques at first are experienced as “mechanical” vs emotional style “real” activities.
An example of a prescription is to recommend to a person: "Give more frequent thank-you’s to more people. You can start doing it now." The Adult of the person is explicitly told that these activities are techniques (giving an OK) Okaying another person and are to be carried out in order to secure (receive/get) more (reciprocated) OK's coming back to himself. This is a get-on-with program for getting well.
Thoughtfully planned (thinking) Adult exercises when practiced in a “mechanical” manner (rather than with Child emotion/emotionally) will result in improving one’s social skills.
The Adult in the person may at first say they feel stiff, artificial when doing this. Often the particular person carrying out the exercise “mechanical style” says “I feel like a phony” or “That’s being insincere, isn’t it?”
The person committed to getting well, often reports a few days later: "I feel OK now when I am giving these thank-you’s, especially when I see the other person warming up back to me. It works!"
Other “prescriptions for getting well” are:
(1) "Get a level (head)," [11]
(2) "Gently rub your back teeth over each other,"
(3) "Give a Named Hello to 15 people a day,"
(4) "Make a (name) Seating Diagram of meetings and classrooms.
(5) "When saying hello to people call him/her by name (e.g. Hi John). If you don’t remember their name, ask him/her for it. Get a hello AND your name said back to you."
(6) "Talk in duet with a friend for 20 to 30 seconds, every once in awhile."
For those to whom "get-well-mechanical style" is strange, there is this to say: “Get Well Mechanical Style” is an operational form of the Adult ego state in the person leading his own inside "troubled" Child “to come on and get a GET-WELL” (of your symptom). “Let’s get well first and (we can) find out why later!” The initial mechanical stiffness is similar to learning to play a musical instrument or speak a new language, or when first riding a bicycle. With some practice it gets easier and feels more sincere. On occasion, “get well mechanical style” is referred to as “Get Some PRACTICE AT BEING WELL!”
Taking Advantage of the Windows of Opportunity for a
get-on-with:
There are various kinds of opportunities
people have for a get-on-with each other (I am OK AND You are OK kind of
events). There are Parent types of encounters. Encounters can be handled by
personal Adult monitored mechanical style procedures or encounters resulting in
get-on-with can be left to occur at the whim or “unconscious feeling” of a
capricious Child inside oneself or both parties.
Opportunities often come in the form of encounters with other individuals and can be taken advantage of in some manner or other. Opportunities can be explored either by personal (Adult monitored) design or at the whim of an “unconscious feeling” of the capricious Child inside one or both persons.
Encounters are opportunities [to use, to exploit, to explore, to play with, to take care of, to take advantage of, to handle] to deal with in some form or other during a day's time.
Conscious, deliberate, objectively computed "manipulations" to procure a Getting-On-With for one's self can add zest to the other person's life, for example a reciprocated glowing smile.
Let’s look at the following example:
In a prison therapy group[12],[13], Terry had been "leading the therapist on." After some ten transactions:
Bob: "Hey,
Doc! Doc!"
Therapist: "Yeah! What?"
Bob: "Doc, you been HAD!"
Therapist
playfully said: "What? Oh no! Not Terry! Terry, you wouldn't?"
The therapist reflected a few seconds and noticed he had, in fact, become manifestly quite warm. For sure, Bob was right. Therapist thought some more afterward,[14] and discovered that by deciding that it was okay to be HAD, there was an enjoyment and pleasure in "being HAD." After all, the first person who ever HAD anyone was his "Mommy."
A person playing one of his own “Games People Play” can choose the timing of the particular experience for example “to be rebuffed” (in the service of his Childhood decision to be rebuffed) with his own "I-Am-Not-OK And You-Are-OK" by carefully timing when he is most likely to be rebuffed by the other party. This exercise of getting rebuffed is carried out in order to prove the validity of his own non-winner (Childhood selected lifetime decision) thesis that it doesn't pay to ever give yourself away (be open with someone else); "See! See there! It just doesn't pay to try to be friends with you or anybody else here, and this proves it!"
Telling a person to "get-rid-of a mannerism of behavior (such as biting his fingernails)" is to affirm to the symptomatic person the accuracy of his own personal estimate of himself, namely "I-am-not-OK-and-you-are-OK" and that he should be prepared to get-away-from (GAF) the situation at hand. The teller with his statement to the nail biter to "stop biting your fingernails” is effectively announcing "I am OK and You are Not OK."
In contrast, the act of getting-well-of a symptom is done in order to get-on-with (GOW) other goals in life. [15],[16] Getting well does not mean to never, ever, have the behavior/symptom again, as with fingernail biting. It does mean the identified person will bite his fingernails less frequently and be able to control when not to bite his nails. It is done in order to bring about more frequent openings for other behavioral options, i.e. getting his fingers and hands and words into other activities more often and getting "burned" in social acts less often. To “get well” here means to be using one's ability to pick up fine gradations and variations, rather than biting off one's fingernails and words.
“Getting well of a game” and being a winner does not infer the super-man, the indomitable, undefeatable, and everlasting. It does, however, mean to be very good at something, to be very much better than most other people at some tasks and skills.
The OK Corral: Grid for What’s Happening is a method for making it possible to organize social events: Get-On-With, Get-Nowhere-With, Get-Away-From, Get-Rid-Of.
THE FROG PRINCE
One couple recognized that their games (of Games People Play) were regularly ending with reciprocated Get-Away-From (GAF) and Get-Rid-Of (GRO) payoffs. Allegorically, this Frog Prince, Simon, was repetitively going down to the bottom of the pool and retrieving Sue’s ball for her. When he gave the ball to her he would also provocatively act gruff, play Pounce ("bwwrrraaawwwaaawwk" like a Frog should). This would frighten Sue again into running away from him. One night after fleeing from home, she thought to herself:
"How am I going to get away from him? I
was furious at him for scaring me again. How was I going to get-away-from Simon
so that he would never, ever, ever again find me, to scare me. Then I began to
think (say) to myself: ‘Hey, wait a
minute! What am I doing here? This looks familiar. This is what I have been doing all
along. This isn't what I want to
do. If I get away from him then that's
the get-away-from outcome and I don't want to do that. What am I supposed to be wanting to
do?’ Then I figured to myself: ‘What I
want to do is get-on-with him. Oh,
gee! Shucks! Heck!’
So I thought to myself: ‘This is my fighter Child. I give up. What I want to do is to get on
with Simon, not get away from him.’ So
I went home."
The “Get-Away-From”, etc. terminology itself was a tool.
Once Sue decided to let her husband be OK he became a “King” in her
thinking about him, AND she “grew up”, became a Queen in her own life.
The OK Corral: Grid for What’s Happening
diagrammatically represents how people are moved by their friends AND move
their friends in their day to day social encounters with each other. It is the diagram of social dynamics. It
shows how personal experiences are concluded with others.
Example of Get-On-With
John, in group, was familiar with sorting his
Parent, Adult, and Child. He was rather
skillful at recognizing the inception of his own games and also at spotting
and determining how he would handle the beginnings of the games of those close
to him. He now enjoyed autonomy for
himself and the pleasure of the related autonomy exhibited by his intimates. He reported his Child-self still feeling
occasional moments of "emptiness" when he had repudiated his own
Parent with excessive vigor. John was
increasingly successful in organizing his objectives into systems of
priorities, i.e. what was most important to do today, what was 2nd,
3rd, 5th, l0th; he was doing better at
ordering his priorities for the next week and month and he could conceptualize
longer range goals, those extending over the next 5-15 years.
One day, in his group he reported an event of
readying himself to take a 10-minute walk around the block “to get my mind
clear and get my thinking going again.”
As he was doing this his wife Claudine came bustling up to accost him:
"Are you objecting to my leaving the clothes around the hamper or are you
objecting to the hamper not being in the clothes closet?" Reflecting a second that he hadn't been
objecting to anything for at least two hours and that he did want to finish his
income tax report that day, he responded: "Golly, Deen, looks like I'm
supposed to be objecting one way or another.
OK, if, for now, I don't?" Claudine let him be for another minute
or two. "During the next few
moments before he left she tried three more times to start up some action with
me, but I knew that if I picked up any of these invitations to play with her it
would be at least an hour, maybe more, before I got back to the report and that
had to get into the mail by tomorrow. So
I told her what I was going to do (take a walk) and why. I saw that both of us
wanted some recognition from each other, a few words, a few minutes would
do. She knew the report was due
tomorrow. When I started out the door I
didn't say good-bye because I had already asked her to come with me and she had
not accepted nor declined. I walked the
first 14 steps outside the door slowly knowing she could see me and would come
after me. She did, asking “Do you want to be alone or do you want me to come
with you?” I told her she's the best for
me and to come on. Then she asked with
the tiniest smile, did I want her to bitch at me or be quiet. I told her I wanted some words from her while
we walked. She asked where she fit into
my life that day and I told her again, she was third. Claudine already knew I had the report to get
out and also I had to figure out how to pay the IRS what was due. So as we were walking she bitched some about
how all my reports came before her. I
kidded her back, grabbed her hand, telling her there's nothing like promoting
herself to fifth place when she's already got third for the day and working
herself up to first. In fact, I did not
say so but I thought, she knows that right now she is first with me and I knew I
was first with her at that moment, but that this moment was going to end and
go on to another, so that our taxes could get paid and the report filed on
time. At the end of our walk around the
block, I touched her for a brief second, caught her eye to see she was still
pouting some and without waiting, I went back to the den and the work, feeling
refreshed. And she let me get the job
done."
John reported that Claudine didn't like to see
how much they were taxed, nor the taxing of their time for the reports to be
done. He figured that by not collecting
“brown stamps” from her on this and holding down the number she collected from
him he could "Spin a little gold with her later."
By
ranking the priority value of the private and public objectives, it becomes
possible to get-on-with those items that have been selected. A therapist may form multiple-goal agreements
with a patient but these are more reliably and effectively treated when explicitly
ranked in the treatment contract.
Separating
and ranking interwoven goals assists a person to get-on-with life. "I can't get along with my wife, we
fight too much, and I want to find out why," is best handled by
"Which is more important, to stop fighting or why you fight?" This brings the person around to a program
that is approximated by "First get well of fighting with your wife
(measured e.g. by “reducing the number of fights to three per week” and in the
longer term by reducing the separations and silences after the fights to being
no more than 60 minutes). Maybe after that we can find out why you fight!"
In
general the encounters a person has with a spouse, parent, sibling or
"playmate" will have a higher personal value (intimacy value) than
an encounter with a casual office, school or grocery store acquaintance. Nevertheless, each encounter that a person
has with another person in a day, upon its conclusion, can be assigned by the
person to one of the four quadrants of "The OK Corral" (See Figure
3.); i.e. a Get-On-With, or a Get-Rid-Of, or a Get-Nowhere-With, or a
Get-Away-From.
“TIME in the OK
CORRAL”
A
lifetime has approximately 2 to 2½ billion seconds, depending on whether a
person lives to be 67 or 83 years old.
It is within this amount of time that getting well and becoming a winner
in the selected arena of life will occur. (See Figure No. 4)
“The OK Corral and
Warm Faces”[17]
“The OK
Corral and Warm Faces” Figure No. 5
TWO WINNERS IN THE OK
CORRAL
Losers
call it blushing, being embarrassed, getting-red-in-the-face, being (made to
feel) self-conscious. For winners, it is
"to glow", to be warm. To be a
winner is to be "now and here" with someone else[18]. It is to be the best. It is to be seen, identifiable, to be
awarded. A winner has given himself away
for others to know. He has earned an
award, demonstrated a skill and an ability of merit, whether to win an Olympic
Medal, an Oscar or a spouse in marriage.
This award is given by another person, the awarder. On arriving in center circle, there to be
awarded, the winner meets the awarder.
In receiving the award, the winner visibly glows, manifests pleasure,
and "gives himself away" to the awarder. Then it is seen that the awarder is glowing
back at the winner. To be a winner is to
be an authentic person; winning is the essence of authenticity. A winner gets cheers and he gets jeers from
onlookers; but he gets more acclaiming than defaming.
Transactional Analysis in
the OK CORRAL: Grid for What’s
Happening. This is the diagram for classifying the outcomes of the events
in your life:
Get-On-With, Get-Away-From, Get-Nowhere-With, or Get-Rid-Of
YOU CAN CHOOSE how you want a situation to come out BEFORE the end of it. Not all events can end in a get-on-with. To have a get-on-with for some events, you can choose to have other events come out in one of the other three ways. You cannot get-on-with everybody and everything. Healthy people use each one of the four ways at least once a day.
One person’s get-on-with is also the other person’s get-on-with.
One person’s get-away-from is the other person’s get-rid-of AND vice versa.
One person’s get-nowhere-with is the other person’s get-nowhere-with.
The arrow points on the four sides of the grid show there are four kinds of strokes a person can give: “I Am OK,” “I AM Not-OK,” “You Are OK,” “You Are Not-OK.” One person strokes the other, gives words (gestures and/or touches) to move (stimulate) the other, AND MORE: to move the other person to the extent that first person gets words given back, to complete one transaction. Whatever else, while transactions are continuing, the parties are negotiating the answer to the psychological-business questions of “What are we going to do with each other?” and “How is this going to come out?” For the persons involved, the ending will come out in one of the four corners of their respective OK Corrals when they have arrived at a psychological-level form of (mutual) agreement about each person being OK or Not-OK.
“I Am OK” is drawn to the right. For example: “I am going
ahead.”
“I Am Not-OK” points to the left. For example: “I am
going backward.”
“You Are OK” points up. For example: “I look up to you;
think well of you; admire you.”
“You are Not-OK” points down. For example: “I look down on you; think poorly of you; give you a put down.”
When used for named people, insert the first person’s name at the ends of the horizontal axis and the other person’s name at the ends of the vertical axis.
People form alliances, friendships. The “I Am OK (or Not-OK)” becomes a “We” after “I” and “You” have negotiated to become a “We;” “You” recruit “Me” or “I” recruit “You,” either way. The “We” are now dealing with others. The others can be a “You” (singular or plural), “He,” “She,” Named Person, “They” or Named Group. Then the “We” are listed on either end of the horizontal axis instead of “I” and the other party on either end of the vertical axis.
“You Are OK” Strokes: for example “Either way (you take
it), you are OK with me!” “It’s on me!” “Treat is on me!”
“I Am OK” Strokes:
for example “Either way (you take it) I AM OK!” “It’s on you, if you will be OK
with me or not!”
“I Am Not-OK”
Strokes: for example “It’s because of me!” “It’s my fault!”
“You Are Not-OK” Strokes: for example (the jeers, put downs and psychological rackets) “It’s because of you!” (It’s ALL MY FAULT means “It is your fault!”)
All four kinds of strokes are useful.
Transactions of games are built on combinations of the four kinds of strokes: they will usually include more than one stroking (dynamic) arrow in the transactions given and received.
SOCIAL PROCESS is the long range trend of a person’s or a group’s life.
In closing: the strokes a person exchanges during his/her encounters with others (encounter by encounter) have consequences.
Transactional
Analysis in the OK Corral: Grid for What’s Happening