Author: Jumh Tantri
Transactional Analysis: Influences of Childhood on Adult Life
I would like to introduce a therapy modality called Transactional Analysis (TA) that has been close to my heart. I have been using TA to help clients to explore their adverse child experiences and how these have influenced and affected us as adults:
The Three key factors of TA are life scripts, drivers and injunctions.
Life scripts come from how we view the world as children, building a story for ourselves to carry through life.
Injunctions are messages we are given by our parents and other significant figures in our childhood, which then influence how we live our lives.
Drivers represent a type of survival mechanisms – mental strategies that we develop to counterbalance injunctions.
The analogy of someone in deep water
Injunctions are lead weights tied around our ankles, pulling us downwards, while drivers come in the form of helium-filled balloons to which we are clinging; these drivers counteract the downward pull by supporting us upwards.
Drivers - be perfect, be strong, hurry up, try hard, be pleasing
Injunctions - Don’t exist, don’t be you, don’t be a child, don’t grow up, don’t succeed, don’t be important, don’t be close, don’t belong, don’t be well, don’t be sane, don’t think, don’t feel.
These are crucial factors to explore using transactional analysis because most of our current thinking/perspectives, behavior patterns and how we perceive emotions/feelings are correlated with our past childhood experiences.
To know them in depth, book a session with me.
Grieving naturally with permission; be compassionate to self
Everybody has different ways of accepting losses whether coming to terms with them or even struggling with them. Counselor Jumh Tantri takes you through the stages of grief to help you learn how to grieve naturally, with permission, and with compassion. Everybody has different ways of accepting losses whether coming to terms with them or even struggling with them. Losses may not necessarily be just the loss of your close family members; or someone you know dearly like partners/close friends; it can also range to losing a dear pet and some materialistic items that hold a great meaning for you and not many people would know. Many times, we grieve either reasoning with the feelings/emotions or suppressing them until they become non-existent yet subconsciously our body knows and is aware of our unfinished businesses – they all have correlations to our upbringing in our environment especially how our parents/caregivers taught us or modeled to us on how we should be grieving. Some of us may be told to keep to the news of loss to ourselves and not sharing with others because it is a shameful thing or taboo; some are told to be strong and assume the responsibility, especially the eldest child; some are told to keep a ritual in the memories of the loss person either by offering incenses or visiting them in the graveyard, etc. All in all, if we do not grieve naturally, we may have a lot of unsettled businesses within our mental health state of mind and even our body will signal to us until we can be paranoid about getting certain illnesses or delusions about how unwell we can be when in fact, we are healthy physically but may not be mentally sound during this season of our life. Your mental health will affect your physical health, your gut is the “third brain”. Furthermore, nowadays some people even resort to google certain symptoms of physical or mental illnesses and if they find a few similar symptoms, they may jump to the conclusion that they have these illnesses which can be very dangerous or make individuals anxious for no reason.