Reddit reviews Born To Win: Transactional Analysis With Gestalt Experiments

I went through the same thing with my father, half the time an abusive malevolent tyrant, half the time a pathetic sobbing runt of a man that made his little children take care of his emotions and responsibilities, while allowed no needs, joy, or fears of our own. Classic borderline narcissist mix, with immigrant sob story to cover it up. Our mom was too overworked and abused to leave him/protect us, and his violent tantrums made sure he monopolized all the attention, till no mom-time was left for the children :(

All kids freeze up in those environments, and their adulthood is basically stunted childhood coping mechanisms that just don't succeed in the world of healthy non-crazy adults.

-- get a toddler picture of yourself. Only you, no parent in the frame. Put some protective plastic on it, cuz you will be doing a lot of crying. It will be your bookmark for your next six months with this book you must buy in physical paperback, no digital bullshit https://www.amazon.com/Born-Win-Transactional-Analysis-Experiments/dp/0201590441/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

(the authors are dead or old as fuck, so don't accuse me of shilling) Sometimes you just need to spend $15 bucks for a good book. Just read the first pages titled "WINNERS AND LOSERS" for a sense of the style.

It's very Peterson-y about potential but also no-bullshit about YOU having to fix yourself. It was not your fault but it is your responsibility to heal the damage.

Don't buy the book if you're not going to do the exercises, that's where the magic happens. It's fucking painful for a reason. (Don't read the book at work or in a coffee shop, it needs privacy as you will need to sob or punch a pillow in fuming rage.)

Don't read it in one big go and say you'll go back to do the exercises, I guarantee you this is a form of psychological "resistance" to sabotage and get away from the hard stuff.

You must MUST must especially do the gestalt 'ghost' exercises, basically re-imagine all the scenes of your childhood self with you as an adult in the room, watching as your shitty mom screams at a toddler, feeling the fury of a bystander watching some shrill monster treat a kid that way.

Learn to listen to the toddler in your imagination. What does he say? does he want to make a mess? does he want to make a noise? You do a forbidden thing then wacth the ghost toddler do the forbidden thing and you laugh and hug him. This is a way of unlinking the terror emotional baggage from the action (slamming a thing, being noisy or sloppy etc) until it's just a physical thing.

You are not the toddler anymore, you must become the new parent and new protector of the toddler.

That's why you need the photo. You need to remember who you're saving, and how much they're worth it. That's your journey to the underworld to save the little kid stuck down there.

(A bunch of us never had Gepetto's, we never got to make our own mistakes, our parents were the very ones who threw us to the whales! You've got to go back and rescue Pinocchio from the belly of the whale. It's dark and lonely and he's been left there frozen in time for ages, he never got the chance to be a real boy.)

> Array parts is the Parent, Adult and Child stuff right?

Yep, that's the array. These are the books I read, in order of liking

Scripts People Live: Transactional Analysis of Life Scripts

https://www.amazon.com/Scripts-People-Live-Transactional-Analysis/dp/0802132103/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1554342946&sr=1-1

TA Today

https://www.amazon.com/Ta-Today-Introduction-Transactional-Analysis/dp/1870244028

Born to Win (awful name, but I liked the Gestalt angle)

https://www.amazon.com/Born-Win-Transactional-Analysis-Experiments/dp/0201590441/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=7YJ1ME1A477MM40Y24XH

I'm Ok - You're OK (a classic, but worst of them all)

https://www.amazon.com/Im-OK-Youre-OK-Thomas-Harris/dp/0060724277/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SV98QTFFDQEPNXJT0KZ0

TBH, I had a hard time really getting into Transactional Analysis once I understood the basics 1) it got really repetitive 2) I had a hard time mapping it to my experience 3) I'm just not that interested in other people :|

> I feel like they are kind of merged. Does this make sense?

Makes total sense. I've had a few therapists try different ego state work on me and we never got anywhere. Parts? I don't have parts. I have... me. Finally one of them explained a PD like schizoid doesn't have an cohesive sense of self + without that solid, "centered" stance, it's hard to grasp the parts/whole relationship between parts. Or something like that. In the end, we gave up. Goes back to object relations, if you want a deep dive into all things schizoid.

FWIW, in TA terms I'm almost all Adult with a little Parent (the crappy parts of my mom). Have yet to find much child in there which is incredibly schizoid of me.

Another good book I read on the topic was called "Born to Win: Transactional Experiments with Gestalt Analysis" which I'm just looking at on Amazon now and seems to have pretty good reviews. I liked it because "Games People Play" doesn't really offer you any solutions, it just describes the problem. Of course you can just resolve to not play games any more, but the story is more involved with that.

Born to Win gives you a whole load of exercises to do as well to cleanse your mental hygiene. Important for me was that my parent ego states were highly problematic due to, in my case, inattentive parents. It teaches you how to create new internal parents from your adults state that don't say destructive things to you as the natural ones have a tendency to.

After that, my recommendation is to look into a hypnotist called Marisa Peer. My partner bought her hypnosis course, and I've been tagging along, and I tell you what, just listening to those recordings for the past 4 weeks or whatever has utterly changed some parts of me. As someone who has been trying to hack their brain for over two decades via any and all means, I really really feel the fool to have overlooked the power of hypnosis as a means of rapid mental transformation. I'm definitely continuing with that!

But yeah, get that book :)

Looks like there's a pdf online.

Check out this book while you're at it.

There's a pdf torrent possibly here.

But, you know...two life changing books for $11 total? Yeah, fuck it. We should be feasting for free.

I posted this before under a procrastination thread. Somethings work for some people - and others might help you get to the bottom of the problem.

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A) Look at this - http://learningfundamentals.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Focus-mindmap-for-web.jpg

B) Look at this; http://cdn.information-management.com/media/editorial/dmreview/200407/200407_018_1.gif Which quadrant do you spend your time in? If you have lots of to-do lists, re-write them into an empty grid in the appropriate locations (important/not important.. urgent/ not urgent). Do everything in Q1 first. Then do Q2. Stay on top of Q2 and you won't have as many crisis.

C) Read this - http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/

D) Read this book - http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0671708635 (you need chapter 3)

E) Read this book - http://www.amazon.com/Born-Win-Transactional-Analysis-Experiments/dp/0201590441

F) Make contracts with yourself. Contracts need to be clearly defined (simple that a child would understand) and achievable. (Example: Today I need to do 3 things. 1) Read X; 2) Write Y; 3) Review Z).

F)ii) - Try reprogramming yourself. Write down or say out loud -->"when I start to do [unwanted behavior] , I will catch myself and will redirect to [wanted behavior]"

G) Watch this (1 hour) Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0

H) Everything on your to-do list needs a deadline and an estimate of how long it will take. (Example; Read [X], before [date], about [#] minutes)

I) Sometimes you need to ask yourself "What am I avoiding?" "What am I afraid of?"

J) Pomodoro Method -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique -- During your breaks you need to move (pullups/pushups/crunches/walk around)