Theory of Communication Transactional Analysis theory defines and differentiates various modes of communication and provides a method for understanding effective and ineffective communications. Transactional Analysis examines covert communications Personal distress arises out of archaic and inappropriate systems of communication. The infant-caregiver relationship is the primary relationship in which a child organises its life script, i.e. beliefs about self, others and the world. Life script is influential in all subsequent relationships and recreates and reinforces itself in order to maintain the status quo and resist change. Other schools of psychotherapy refer to this process as repetition compulsion, fixed Gestalt etc.
People have a desire for growth, self-actualisation and satisfying relationships.
At the same time there is a tendency towards regression and the maintenance of familiar internal and interpersonal structures. Life Script is perceived to be a child's creative adjustment, that is, a child's way of making sense and structure of their world. It helps the therapist to understand both the content and process of the client's functioning and informs therapeutic intervention. In Transactional Analysis the ultimate goal of psychotherapy is seen as script cure. Transactional Analysis supports people to become autonomous and to choose healthy ways of being in the world.