Transactional Analysis Theory - Sweatshirts and Tombstones

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Sweatshirts and Tombstones

Sweatshirts

Ordinarily a sweatshirt identifies the team, group, company or gang a person belongs to. It provides a picture or slogan printed on it. These types of sweatshirts also announce the philosophy of the team, group or gang.

Sweatshirts are an imaginary apparel with a motto on the front and an inviting message on the back. The motto spells out what we want the world to see. The inviting message tells others what they should give us in return as reward for our engagements with them.

In TA a sweatshirt is a transactional or scripty sweatshirt. A person's demeanour and attitude makes known to others the type of person he is. It is as though he has worn a sweatshirt with a slogan printed on the back. Some of the popular ones are Kick Me, Stay Away, See How Hard I am Trying, Drop Me, Alcoholic. The front of the sweatshirt carries a motto. Some of them are I'm Dangerous, Single, Love Me, Get Along, Try Me Out.

Tombstones

The inscription on a tomb stone speaks the good aspects of a person. A tombstone is an interesting way to understand the two aspects of one's life. It has two inscriptions. One is written by others and the other one written by oneself. Here others would usually be parents and parent figures. The one by others has an obvious meaning. It is the antiscript slogan. The one written by oneself reveals the script injunction.

As an example an inscription on a tombstone may read:

Figure 34

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Relevance of Sweatshirts and Tombstones in the topic of Rackets

Rackets are feelings, inauthentic feelings that are unawarely expressed as substitutions for authentic feelings.

Rackets are also acts people engage in to influence and manipulate the environment to gain attention and strokes.

While these two are obvious ways of getting favoured strokes, sweatshirts and tombstones constitute subtle ways in which people get what they want from other people in their environment. They are invitation banners that get complementary players to join in to further their script.

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