In behavioral diagnosis, you judge which ego state a person is in by observing his behavior. As you do so, you can see or hear: Words, Tones, Gestures, Postures and Facial Expressions

1. Behavioral diagnosis

2. Prepared By
Manu Melwin Joy
Research Scholar
School of Management Studies
CUSAT, Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com
Kindly restrict the use of slides for personal purpose.
Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public
forms and presentations.

3. Behavioral diagnosis
• In behavioral diagnosis, you
judge which ego state a
person is in by observing his
behavior.
• As you do so, you can see or
hear:
– Words.
– Tones.
– Gestures.
– Postures.
– Facial Expressions.

4. Standard clues
• Its traditional for books
about TA to give tables of
standard clues for
behavioral diagnosis.
• For instance, wagging
finger is said to fit with
controlling parent.
• But this is not what ego
state model says.

5. Standard clues
• When I say I am “ in my child”,
I mean I am behaving,
thinking and feeling as the
child I once was – not just like
any child.
• It follows that for a reliable
behavioral diagnosis of my
Adapted Child ego state, you
would need to know how I
looked and sounded back in
my childhood when I was
obeying my parents.

6. Standard clues
• The set of behavioral
clues that define my
Adapted Child or Free
Child will be different
from yours, because we
were different children.
• Because we had
different parents, we
will each have our own
unique set of behaviors
to mark Controlling or
Nurturing parent.

7. Standard clues
• Does this mean that tables of standard clues are
useless?
• No. There are some kinds of behavior that are
typical to children in general and same with
Parent and Adult.
• Instead of using standard clues, it is better to
draw up your own.

8. Activity
• Take a sheet of paper and
draw six vertical columns on
it.
• Head the left hand column
“Clues from “. Head the
other five columns with the
five functional ego state
labels you used in ego gram
– CP, NP,A,FC and AC.

9. Activity
• Go back to the column
headed “Clues from –”. Evenly
spaced down it, write five
headings – words, tones,
Gestures, Postures and facial
expressions.
• Draw in horizontal lines so
that you finish up with give
empty boxes, down each
column.
• The idea is that you fill in the
behavioral clues for yourself in
each column.

10. Standard clues
• Sometimes when you are
observing my behavioral
clues, you may need to
ask more questions to
help you judge which of
my ego states a particular
behavior fits in.

11. Standard clues
• Suppose you see me sitting in a
drooping pose. I am leaning
forward, head in hands. The
corner of my mouth are turned
down. I am sighing deeply, and
my eyes filled with tears.
• From all these clues, you
gather that I am expressing
sadness. But what ego state
am I in?

12. Standard clues
• Perhaps I have just heard that a close
relative has died? My sadness then would
be an appropriate response to the here and
now, hence Adult.
• Or I go back in contact with some memory
of a loss I experienced when I was a child,
and which I have never let myself be sad
about until now. In that case, my feeling
expression is from free Child.
• Still another possibility is that I am replaying
a negative Adapted Child pattern in which I
droop and get sad as a way of manipulating
the people around me.

13. Standard clues
• To back up your assessment of
my behavioral clues, you may
want to ask questions about
how other people relate to me.
• You may ask about my personal
history and what my parents
were like.
• And you may explore what I can
re – experience from my own
childhood.

14. Thank You

15. Other TA topics available on slideshare
1. Strokes - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/strokes-24081607.
2. Games People Play - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/psychological-
games-people-play.
3. Structural Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/the-ego-state-model.
4. What is TA? - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/what-ta-is
5. Cycles of Development - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/cycles-of-
developement-pamela-levin-transactional-analysis.
6. Stages of Cure - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stages-of-cure.
7. Transactions - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/transactions-33677298.
8. Time Structuring - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/time-structuring.
9. Life Position - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/life-position.
10. Autonomy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/autonomy-33690557.
11. Structural Pathology - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/structural-pathology.
12. Game Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/game-analysis-33725636.
13. Integrated Adult - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/integrated-adult.
14. Stroke Economy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stroke-economy-
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