T.A.I. NEWSNOTES

June 1996

Vol II / No. 6

Currently a personal perception edited and compiled by Elizabeth Cleary, 8 Seskin View Ave. Tallaght, Dublin 24, Ireland

Information, Comments, Articles or to get on free trial mailing list Phone 01-4511125

EDITORIAL

AGM - Bothering, Boring or Bewitching?

Sometimes I feel like a 'broken-record', forever churning out the same refrain about everything we do in TAI:

'You get out of it what you put into it'

Yes, I know sometimes a person might not want to hear this - they might even accuse me of wanting to spark off a 'guilt-trip' in them.

GUILT TRIP TRAP - that's a whole other difficulty, and I do not intend to get caught in it this month. I refuse to accuse ... that's my best defence aginst the Critical Parent voice inside me that sparks off those unproductive guilt feelings.

Refuse to accuse (myself or others) ... Describe the situation in factual terms from my Adult, instead of in judgemntal terms from my Parent.

So I encourage you to get into Adult when making YOUR decision wabout whether to attend the AGM or not, or whether to attend for even a short while.

TAI is not just an organisation or a group, it is real people with real feelings about real people.

Everyone who comes is going to be very welcome - no exceptions. Already we know of a group from larne who are planning to make the long journey to be with us.

Do come and make it a good night for yourself as well as for us. And a special welcome awaits anyone we haven't met yet, including those of you who get these notes 'ex officio'

We intend to get the business end of things over in the shortest possible time, so we can proceed with the 'cuppa/glassa'.

Looking forward to seeing YOU.

*PerDev Corner using TA in your everyday life

Further topics/suggestions welcome (Elizabeth 01-4511125)

Frame of Reference (continued)

FILTERING REALITY

Our Frame of Reference is like a series of screens laid one over the other, through which we peer in our efforts to make sense of the world in front of us.

Jacqui Schiff et al in CATHEXIS READER pub. Harper & Row 1975 gave this definition:

An individual's Frame of Reference is the structure of associated (conditioned) responses (neural pathwasy) which integrates the various ego-states in response to sppecific stimuli.

In lay terms it might be described as a babitual way of looking at life which often causes us to respond automatically to events.

WHERE DOES THIS REAME OF REFERENCE COME FROM?

We collect it bit by tiny bit as we go through life, but a lot of it is laid down in early childhood. As we make our won choices, decisions and responses to life's events, and as we watch ho other people respond, it is as if we make up our own version of what life is all about.

We then refer to this mental reference-book when we need to make judgements in new situations.

Some of our conclusions refer to what we should ignore, and some refer to what we should pay attention to. This can mean that we do not allow ourselves to receive important pieces of information about reality before us.

Example: a person whose freame of reference includes the idea that illness is a form of weakness and somehow degrading, may ignore (filter0out) important pain signals from some part of their body. They tell themselves repeatedly that it is only a 'little' pain, and delay going to the doctor until very late in their illness.

WHY DO WE MAKE A FRAME OF REFERENCE?

We mak it from necessity - how could we make sense of life if we had to examine each little detail every time our circumstances change. Whether we are a child or a grown-up, we find it difficult to exist in confusion.

Examples:

Occasionally a person will deny that an event has happened because they cannot face the trauma of change it will entail for them. A person might continue to set a place at the table for someone who has gone away. This person's frame of reference might include the idea that things would be better if they always stayed the same.

A different person might deal with the same situation by removing all traces of the person who has left. In this case the frame of reference would include some idea that there is 'no use frying over spilt milk' Life goes on regardless.

A particularly difficult kind of confusion is the feeling that we are out of step with those around us. It is our cultural FRAME OF REFERENCE that tells us about the common perceptions of people around us - it gives us a rule of thumb about how to be acceptable, how to fit in.

Awareness of reality is the first step in Personal Development.

*(PD) = Personal Development

Courses in September:

Some TA based Course in Gender Studies, Parenting, and Self-Imporvement are being organised in different venues. To get on mailing list send SAE to Elizabeth Cleary 8 Seskin View Avenue, Tallaght Dublin 24.

More TRAVELS OF A TRAINEE

This month (I am writing this in May) I went to Wealden College in Crowborough to do two work-shops with Muriel James who wrote BORN TO WIN with Dorothy Jogeward and has since written many more books including IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO BE HAPPY.

I am particularly glad to have been able to do these workshops - this is possibly the last visit Muriel will make to the UK. She was a friend of Eric Berne and a member of the San Francisco Seminars where original TA thinking was developed.

Here are some of the notes I took;

WORKSHOP 1:

Claiming the Human Spirit

inner-core functioning

We live in our bodies - if my body feels good, I feel good.

There are people whose bodies are not functioning well, whose personalities are not in good order either, yet somehow, they are able to surmount the difficulties they face.

Muriel searched for the answer to the question: What is this HUMAN SPIRIT/ and found that few people were able to agree a definition.

In her BORN TO LOVE, she developend the idea of INNER CORE.

There is no apple without a core; similarly there is no human without a spirit.

Muriel sees this inner core functioning like the tube in an old-fashioned coffe-percolator, that the energy welling up through this core overflows at the top on to the world around, but also percolates theourhg the perforations in the 'tube' into the PAC (Parent, Adult,child)

She also sees the 'membranes' around the PAC and the body membrane as permeable so that energy can flow in and out.

WORK-SHOP 2 Boundaries and ego-states.

HOW TO GET THE ADULT FUNCTIONING

Let the person tell their story

Insist on adult function - only stroke for adult behaviour - ignore everything else

Technique for regaining Adult:

Feet on floor

Chin parallel to floor

back straight, but not rigid.

*Watch for Child head on one side - signal of a game startting eith with self or with others)

SUMMER BREAK

No TAI meetings July or August - anyone coming to Minneapolis or Calgary or Seattle?

Put it in your diary in case you forget

Come and get news of TA personal development course

Share your summer adventures, and hear about Elizabeth's trip to Minneapolis.

ERIC BERNE QUOTE:

Take what you can and move on

MURIEL JAMES QUOTE:

Stand on my shoulders and develop your own ideas.

THE WAY GROUPS WORK (continued)

Last month I wrote about the IMAGO (mental picture) we have in our minds before we come to the meeting. We may have pictured who will be there and who will lead, and what we will be doing. If the topic has been announced in advance, we may think we are coming with an open mid, but there will almost certainly be at least some ideas there of what we would like to hear the speaker say.

So now let us look at what happens when we get there.

It may not be a bit like what we had imagined - new people may have turned up and we have to adjust our picture to accommodate them. The Leader may be missing, and we may feel some insecurity not knowing who 'should' now occupy their place.

The room may be hotter or colder than we had envisaged, the furniture may be arranged differently to how we expected.

We make these mental adjustments and now have IMAGO 2 which we tell ourselves is a REAL pciture of how things are. We may tell ourselves that 'obviously' this is how everyone else sees it - indeed we may convince ourselves that no other peicture would be possible to any 'reasonable person'.

The problem is that none of the IMAGO 2 pictures is identical. So the second situation is only a slight improvement on the first.

(Next month we will look at what happens when those present interact)

Write to Elizabeth Cleary

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