The Cultural Parent

By Diya Beharie

Introduction

Transactional analysis is a psychoanalytic theory that assists the interpretation of what happens within and between people. It is how you communicate with the world, whilst being aware of how others communicate with you. Since the 1950s when Eric Berne first instated it, it has established itself in fields of psychotherapy, education, and organizational development. There are four factors to consider which are personality, relationship, confirmation, and identity. The influence of patterns of positive or negative interactions and their predictable outcomes. (2016, GoodTherapy). The topic of discussion for this essay is the Cultural Parent - which unpacks the generational trauma of behaviors, communication, interactions, and dynamics which are passed down the generations. It is left up to parents that raise new generations, to either conform to what they know and refuse to change any unhealthy patterns; or overcome and do better to break those patterns in the best way they can for themselves and future generations. (2020, Paras). Especially for people of colour, South Asians specifically. This can be reflected on by using transactional analysis concept and theory such as ego states of the parent-adult-child model, transactions, and strokes. The Articles of Tiriti O Waitangi, Mana motuhake and Mana tangata, play an important role in the reflection process of the concepts and theories that are practiced in light of it.

Behaviours

During the evaluation of behaviours through a transactional analysis lens that Berne was able to create, it is important to make note that the Cultural Parent may have mental health issues due to generational trauma. The interactions of people formed together through a series of transactions have two main parts: the motivation and the response. In this interaction people can enter any three of these types of ego states, which are the Parent, Adult, or the Child and each will have different patterns of thinking formed in the brain. This is the reason they have unhealthy ego states when it comes to all three phases of Child, Parent, and Adult states. (1983, Drego). These get passed down throughout generations because each generation lives through different experiences and hardships. People of colour have gone through life altering changes in the past and present. They place effort into breaking barriers that were once seen as impossible, but these barriers usually consist of materialistic value, purchasing a bigger home or a nicer car rather than investing into their mental health. For further insight, during colonization in India, around 1.2 million Indians emigrated as indentured workers as they were promised a better life. They left mainly to British colonies such as South Africa, Fiji and Mauritius. (2020, Bose). However, once they set sail, the instructions were given in a forceful, massive, micro-managed, state-controlled, hard laboured environment to build up the economies. Whether you are a first, second or third generation South Asian in these countries that were once colonized, it does not matter as our forefathers suffering has contributed to our mental health through the generational line. (2016, Salberg, Grand). Grandparents went through oppression, domestic violence, abuse, PTSD, patriarchy, and extreme poverty. Parents went through alcoholism, physical abuse, repressed anger, emotional abuse, untreated mental illness, and co-dependency. Following this, the youth display approval seeking tendencies, identity confusion, eating disorder, depression, anxiety, alcoholism, attachment issues and co-dependency. (2021, Patel). It is important for the youth to break the toxic cycle in the best way they can and break the intergenerational trauma trends. This can both be very healing, but mentally exhausting. 

Communication

With communication there are times where individuals are faced with situations that may trigger or cause them to transition between the Child, Parent or Adult ego state. Sometimes they can transition into either one, both or all ego states during an argument. For example, the way we handle our romantic relationships are a reflection on the environment and family history we have. In a long-term romantic relationship, there comes a point where past trauma gets triggered. (2021, Patel). It is essential to work together as a couple and as two separate individuals to get through this. The person must reflect through transactional analysis and come to the realisation of what they are fighting for. They must reflect on the underlying reasons, traumas, or triggers. As well as question whether they are fighting you, the problem or possibly in a state of fighting their cultural parent through their partner. The Cultural Parent dynamic can be quite authoritative and demanding, thereby making the youth transition into survival mode. Berne summarised Etiquette as, “what one is supposed to do,” Technicality as “what one has to do,” and Character as “what one might like to do.” The following will identify the ego states of a culture and what influences the Cultural Parent’s communication in their eyes of etiquette; culturally inherited beliefs, ideologies, values, rules, moral codes, beliefs about life and death, about good and evil, about being male and female, about wealth and poverty, about fertility and entropy, superstitions, customs, rituals, social hierarchies, prejudices, expectations of the ideal man, the ideal woman, methods of reward and punishment. (1983, Drego). Through the listing of Etiquette requirements, it presents the way an unhealthy Cultural Parent maintains control. The unhealthy Cultural Parent feels the constant need to have unnecessary and repeated communication with a subject, that do not serve the times we currently live in. South Asian families are often subjected towards this as they constantly communicate and pick on their children even when they are adults and do not allow them to grow or form their own opinions. This is also seen for people of colour as during the developmental stages of life, it is easier to pick up communication styles that your parents have. As a result of the exposure to these communication styles that are seen normal for the Cultural Parent, a person can also develop other communication styles as a trauma response to certain situations. Whether this communication response is beneficial or detrimental to the parties involved it is not taken into consideration if that person has not worked on themselves enough. (2017, Wolynn). While it is understandable that this may be an unconscious automatic trigger response, the individual should take responsibility to remove the destructive part over time. Naturally trauma resurfaces, but how we maintain and heal from it, is what is essential. A healthy cultural parent is one who diminishes the social hierarchy through working things out with themselves, so they do not pass these communication styles down, minimizing the effect of intergenerational trauma.

Interactions

During interactions as an Adult, the Child ego state often misses the contact they had with their Cultural Parent. The word “miss” is to be taken with a grain of salt. If an individual had unhealthy interactions with the Cultural Parent in their developmental stages of life, they are not used to having healthy interactions and would crave attention through chaos created in those unhealthy interactions. This leads to self-sabotaging themselves in healthy environments, which reinstates the idea of generational, unhealed trauma that lives on inside them because they are so used to it. (2017, Wolynn). Berne mentioned that Transactional Analysis allows us to view these experiences from all points of view through discussing the various ego states, but also through Strokes and Transactions. A Stroke is a healthy dialogue, most effective when it is short. It is either a meaningful compliment or a respectful and constructive criticism. A Stroke can be verbal or nonverbal, positive or negative, conditional or unconditional. Giving positive Strokes is foreign or conditional for an unhealthy Cultural Parent. (1983, Drego). Also, negative Strokes are not delivered in a respectful or constructive manner by them. For example, commenting on how their child looks better today because they are wearing something they approve of but still degrade them in the process by commenting on their weight. Or the unhealthy Cultural Parent can expect their children to care for them when they are old, because they feel as though their children owe them that after all their sacrifices. A healthy Cultural Parent can give encouragement and suggestions to the child, but still support them no matter what their choice, within reason. The quality and intensity of strokes are important and can be experienced differently and subjectively. Relationships are not meant to be transactional. When one has a transactional motive and expects a transactional response, it is not a healthy interaction. (2014, Key Concepts in TA). Healthy interactions proceed to do so, because they want to, not so they can get something out of it. If picked up unknowingly during childhood, it can hurt the relationship to everything as transactional. Being an active listener during interactions to pick up a person’s triggers is necessary. While it is not your responsibility to manage other people’s emotions during interactions, if the relationship is a romantic one, the dynamic is different. It is important to hold space for your partner during interactions. As you spend more time with each other, both partners begin to realise their traumas and triggers and point it out to each other. This can be a difficult to handle because you see all ego states, strokes and transactions and they do not reflect on who your partner truly is, as it is rather the triggered version.

Dynamics

An unhealthy Cultural Parent is one which wants to (1) repeat old history over and over again without change; (2) keep things the way they are, because this is safe and familiar; (3) assume responsibility for others that these others can well assume for themselves; (4) provide punishments for new and untried behaviour even where such behaviour is life-giving and healthy (6) keep power over others and enjoy controlling them for the sake of controlling; (7) destroy anything, however good, that threatens the maintenance of control. (1983, Drego). This pattern the unhealthy Cultural Parent creates is relived repetitively instead of trying to break free from toxic cycles. For future generations to break free from a toxic cycle, it is important to be open to acceptance and change. This is often seen in South Asian households which are either stuck in that cycle or are breaking out of it. Holding space for your wounded Child ego state is good, but so is putting them on pause until you have the mental capacity to deal with the needs of those traumas. What this means is that sometimes the inner child can be destructive to relationships, especially romantic ones, because many allow themselves to go on in life as unhealed and refuse to change. Through a healthy Adult ego state, one can fight the problem, instead of each other. However, the wounded Child ego state surfaces when the person unintentionally sparks a trigger within them during a conversation or argument. Therefore, the unhealthy Cultural Parent ego state that was witnessed whilst the Child ego state was growing up, gets aggravated within and comes out to defend the child. This then leads the dynamic to be unchanged and stagnant, because as individuals who experience trauma, it is up to us to control our reaction as we cannot control the words and actions of others. Dynamics can only change if one is willing to put in the work to stop these unproductive encounters and view conversations or arguments to reflect and grow, rather than as an attack and need to flee. There must be work on both ends to hold space for both parties if one must fall back into their destructive self, but they need to be able to learn how to bounce back and hold themselves accountable. This will allow for change to occur within the dynamic and create a healthy Cultural Parent ego state for future generations to come. This will also develop your Adult ego state, because what you heal will transition into relationships other than your family dynamic. There are several sources of stress that are common to most parents who are exposed to them, and this can affect their health and well-being. Although the stress process is dynamic and there are ways to cope, the unhealthy Cultural Parent are used to having constant worries, which sometimes they have no control over. It can be as complicated as poverty but can be as salvageable as accepting an interracial marriage and placing differences aside. South Asian families tend to gravitate towards these two types of issues. The sociocultural and physical environment that the parent and child are in, sets the stage for the outcomes of certain situations and the coping methods they choose. (2017, Deckard, Panneton). The stress can potentially affect the Child ego state and their development. However, it can also hurt the Adult Ego state and be detrimental to their relationship as they are still viewed as a child in the unhealthy Cultural Parent’s eyes. This is seen as condescending and a way for the unhealthy Cultural Parent to maintain control.  For the Cultural Parent to be a healthy parent, they must reflect on their daily lives and experiences to be the change to reset their ego states and generational traumas.

Reflection of Transactional Analysis concepts, theory, and practice regarding the Articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

The Te Tiriti o Waitangi which is commonly known as the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand, the British Crown first signed and established it between the Maori chiefs on the 6th of February 1840. It resonates with the Transactional Analysis concepts, theory, and practice such as ego states and transactions, are Mana motuhake and Mana tangata. Mana motuhake is, “enabling the right for Māori to be Māori (Māori self-determination); to exercise their authority over their lives, and to live on Māori terms and according to Māori philosophies, values and practices including tikanga Māori.” (Waitangi, 2020) Through Transactional Analysis, Berne allows space to be held to accommodate. For Māori’s needs, it is important they feel heard. The ego states of the Child, Adult and Parent can be in a fragile state based on issues that surfaced in their childhood, but still resurface today. For example, learning about land that got taken away as a child through a Cultural Parent, but facing it first-hand through an Adult ego state is confusing, because times should have changed. An example of this is the Ihumātao case which had the indigenous visions for the future of the sacred land competing against corporate visions for real estate. Ihumātao is one of the oldest settlements in New Zealand that was lived upon and is seen as significant cultural heritage. (2020, Hancock, Morgan, Newton, McCreanor). It is important that New Zealand has the Waitangi for reasons such as that, so that the trauma is acknowledged. Māori must be allowed to be Māori; Western views should not be imposed on their core and fundamental values. It is their way of life and New Zealand’s authorities, and principals apply but cannot be used to discriminate against. The country must let them be themselves, continue their values and way of life and cannot try to change their fundamental values. Mana tangata is, “achieving equity in health and disability outcomes for Māori across the life course and contributing to Māori wellness.” (Waitangi, 2020) There are transactions that take place with this article, that must maintain a Complementary standard, which means that they must make a constant, continuous effort that provides for Māori wellness throughout their life course. It cannot be a Crossed or Ulterior transaction as a shift in ego states or psychologically deciding the outcome with a hidden agenda is wrong. The healthy Cultural Parent allows a child to have the freedom to do what they want by placing their bias aside and breaking the generational trauma trends. This is why the country is able to hold space, understand they have their own identify and try not to impose on western values.

Conclusion

The navigation of the role Transactional Analysis played in the topic of the Cultural Parent with the Ego states, Strokes and Transactions was articulated in a critical manner. Berne created this theory so that it could help pinpoint all point of views regarding topics like these. The Articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi discussed gave a wider world outlook.

Bibliography

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