Monday 9 January 2023

Social Action

SOCIAL ACTION

Social action ordinarily means activities people engage in for personal change and growth.

Social Action is not directly defined in TA Theory. However Berne identifies Stroke as a fundamental unit of social action. Therefore all types of engagements that result in mutual recognition, social intercourse, games and scripty behaviours are aspects of social action through the agency of stroke generation. 

Berne describes Social Action in Games People Play as : the influence that each player has on each other is social action. 

Games generate social contact with the object of relieving tension. In this context the following contributors are listed in Clarke's TA Dictionary :

The advantages of social contact revolve around somatic and psychic equilibrium:

1. The relief of tension

2. The avoidance of noxious situations 

3. The procurement of stroking 

4. The maintenance of an established equilibrium may be stated as:

5. Translated into terms of social psychiatry,  they are

6. The primary internal advantage 

7. The primary external advantage

8. The secondary advantages

9. The existential advantage

Key words
Social Action, 
Social Contact, 
Advantages, 

Rene Spitz

Stroke represents an infant's need for touch. Rene Spitz (1987-1974) was an Austrian born, American Psychoanalyst. His area of specialisation was child development. He found that physical, maternal and emotional deprivation in infancy results in severe neurological and emotional damage. He called the condition anaclytic depression. There is also this famous story of Victor. He was a 'feral child' resembling a human. He was assessed to be twelve years old when he was captured in Aveyron forest in Southern France in 1797. Attempts to socialise with him failed several times. French scientists, physicians and psychiatrists concluded that he had been deprived of human physical touch all his life. It resulted in his retarded psychological, emotional and social development.

Key words for this section
Rene Spitz, 
Stroke Deprivation, 
Marasmus, 
Anaclitic Depression, 
Hospitalism