Module 01. Glossary
Terms of the module
- ABC model
- Adult (position)
- Agreements (10 common-sense principles)
- Bite (taking the bait)
- CAP+ (Child — Adult — Parent)
- Cornered Child
- Critical Parent
- Cushioning
- Doors that block change (4)
- External defense against manipulation (“Fire — Water — Earth — Air”)
- Filters of perception (3)
- Free Child
- Hook
- Hungers (three kinds)
- Implied and expressed
- Internal defense against manipulation (ABC → DEF)
- Karpman Drama Triangle
- Ladder of mastery (6 rungs)
- Nurturing Parent
- Open questions (5 working principles)
- Placating Parent
- Pleasure and mastery journal
- Psychological game (formula)
- Rebellious Child
- Self-confirming beliefs
- States (the “8 states” model)
- Structuring Parent
- Taking the lead
- Tool-use journal
- Vision of the future (principle)
- Well-Adapted Child
ABC model
The basic model of thinking: A is the event, B is the thoughts and beliefs about it, C is the emotions and behavior; in the course’s full version — Event — Thinking — Reaction (emotion, body, behavior) — Result. The idea is older than psychology: the Stoic Epictetus observed that people are disturbed not by things but by their opinions about things; in the twentieth century Albert Ellis made it the basis of rational emotive therapy, and Aaron Beck the basis of cognitive therapy. The key claim: the emotions a person feels when faced with an event are the result of their thinking, not of the event itself. One person will read the same call from their manager as “nitpicking again” and get angry; another will read it as “a chance to show what I can do” and get focused.
Between the event and the reaction there is a gap, and in the gap — the choice of which thought to support: you can rarely change A, but changing B is always in your power. Psychoanalysis and cognitive therapy look at the letter B from different sides: the first asks which early relationships and unconscious expectations it grew out of, the second works with it directly; the course takes the practicality of the second without giving up the depth of the first. This is the foundation the course keeps coming back to: the SOMED cycle and cognitive distortions (module 2), the components of thinking (module 3), the rules of how the mind works (module 8), schema mottos (module 9) — all of these develop that same letter B.
Adult (position)
Not a ninth state but the organizing point of the “8 states” model: the Adult is flexible switching between the plus states and the discipline of not falling into the minus ones. For Berne the Adult is the part of the personality that works with facts here and now, like a dispassionate computer; the course goes further and makes it not one of the states but the point of choice between them — what psychoanalysis calls the observing ego. The star stands in the middle of the diagram because the doors to positive change open from the inside; it is easy to be in the minus states, while staying in the plus, whatever happens, takes training.
The minus states have one thing in common: not understanding the cause-and-effect link between your own actions and their results; the Adult sees this link and therefore doesn’t look for someone to blame. Checking yourself is simple: if in a difficult situation your first question is “whose fault is it,” you are not yet in the Adult; if it is “what here is mine and what am I choosing,” you are already there. This is the position from which decisions are made (CAP+), goals are set (module 2), people talk as equals (module 9) and childhood conclusions are rewritten in the life review (module 10). A rule of the course: I get the kind of treatment that I ask for; minuses attract minuses, pluses attract pluses.
Agreements (10 common-sense principles)
A set of rules for reliable agreements: I keep the agreements I make, even if there is no penalty for breaking them; I don’t make agreements I don’t want to or can’t keep; I turn the implied into the explicit, even when I don’t feel like it; I make only mutually beneficial agreements; only those whose breach I can afford; I point out the fact of a breach by the other side, because keeping quiet means training them; I initiate negotiations on new terms as soon as the conditions have changed; I apologize and make up for the damage if I was the one who broke the agreement; I give an act of recognition to the person who kept an agreement; I support the other person in keeping their agreements, but no more than once, so as not to become their crutch. In transactional analysis the contract is a central concept, and Claude Steiner required it to have mutual consent, a fair exchange, competent parties and a lawful aim; psychoanalysis calls the same thing the frame and knows that it is precisely the frame that holds everything that could not otherwise be agreed upon.
Most conflicts grow not out of ill intent but out of the fact that the two sides each took something “for granted” in a different way; the sixth principle is the most uncomfortable and the most necessary: a single unnoticed breach of an agreement teaches the partner that breaking agreements is allowed. The principle runs through the whole course: it comes back in boundaries and the transparency square (module 4), RBT (module 5), family rules (module 6), partnership (module 7) and in the “Fierce” negotiation strategy (module 9), which is built entirely on terms agreed in advance.
Bite (taking the bait)
A response to a provocation: you gave in, picked up the hurtful tone, you’re justifying yourself or launching a counterattack — exactly what was expected of you. In Berne’s game formula this is the response to the lure, and it is dangerous because it happens faster than thought, which is why it feels as if “it just slipped out.” A psychoanalyst would say that the bite is acting out: action takes the place of thought, and the feeling discharges into a deed before anyone has had time to notice and name it. The fishing metaphor is accurate down to the details: a fish doesn’t bite on just any bait, but on the one that looks like its food — a hook is always chosen to match your hunger.
Not biting means noticing the hook and holding the pause, that very gap from the ABC model; a second lived through in silence costs less than an hour of having it out. A conscious refusal to bite is the entry into the anti-bite (module 2); in the course’s training, the bite and the anti-bite are shown on the same hook so that the difference becomes visible.
CAP+ (Child — Adult — Parent)
A model of decision-making through three inner positions: the Child — desires and spontaneity (what taking care of myself means to me); the Adult — rationality and a systematic approach (what it means not to carry water in buckets with your bare hands but to build a water supply); the Parent — values and morality (which values matter to me). The exploration closes with two questions: what was useful, and what will the first step be. The three positions are Eric Berne’s ego states, which have an older relative: Freud’s structural model with its id, ego and superego; the difference is that Freud’s agencies are unconscious and invisible, while Berne’s states can be observed in voice, posture and words, and so it is convenient to work with them in five minutes of talking to yourself.
When all the vectors point the same way, every wind is a fair wind. An imbalance is easy to recognize: only “I want” — impulsiveness; only “I must” — a life of duty without joy; only “I can” — calculation without soul; a decision made by one position is later sabotaged by the other two. The “want / can / must” check is built into goal setting (module 2) and into the vision-of-the-future session (module 10), and the three positions themselves come back in the life review (module 10). From the course: the body governs thought, and the mind serves the instincts — under severe stress the organism falls back on basic reactions, which is why taking care of the body keeps thoughts clear.
Cornered Child
An unresourceful state of learned helplessness: “What’s the point of trying? Nothing will come of it anyway, I don’t even want to start.” The person discounts their chances in advance and tells themselves the story of their failures, refusing actions that could lead to success. The term learned helplessness belongs to Martin Seligman: dogs that for a long time had been given no way to escape an electric shock stopped trying, even when the door was open; in people, the same is done by experience in which effort, time after time, changed nothing. Freud considered the infant’s helplessness the prototype of all anxiety, and the Cornered Child is an adult in whom that early state switches on again.
In this way a person cuts off their own chance to grow with their own hands, and others take it for laziness. The way out of the victim position is to notice the moment when “I’m cutting it off” and to find at least one open door: a small action whose result depends on me. The opposite is the Free Child; what helps is self-permission (module 2), “I allow myself” (module 6) and counter-permissions (module 8). One of the four Child states in the “8 states” model.
Critical Parent
An unresourceful state of criticism, attacks, anger and irritation. A person in this state creates situations that justify the belief “I am good and others are bad,” and easily moves into the role of the Persecutor: looks for someone to blame in order to confirm their superiority or rightness once again. In transactional analysis this is the negative side of the Controlling Parent; psychoanalysis sees here Freud’s superego in its punishing guise — internalized parental prohibitions that now speak from within, and Melanie Klein showed that in a child this inner tribunal can be far harsher than the real parents. Turned outward, it demands that others be punished; turned inward, it punishes the person themselves.
You recognize it by the tone: not “this could be done better” (that’s the Structuring Parent), but “you’re all thumbs, as usual.” Once you recognize a tendency to blame in yourself, it is easier to step out of the state and move the conversation in a constructive direction without discounting the other person. In adult life this state becomes fixed as the Inner Controller (module 8); it is weakened by the Nurturing Parent and by counter-permissions.
Cushioning
The first move in response to what the other person says: “okay,” “uh-huh,” “got it,” “I hear you.” This is agreement not with the other person’s opinion but with the fact that they may hold such an opinion — a confirmation that their words have been heard; not “you’re right,” but “got it.” The word comes from Mikhail Litvak’s “psychological aikido,” which suggested agreeing with the attacker, but in the course the technique is more precise: you acknowledge the person’s right to their point of view, not the point of view itself. In psychoanalysis the same movement is described most deeply by Bion: the mother takes in the infant’s unbearable state, digests it and gives it back in a bearable form; cushioning is the first, most modest act of such containment, and Winnicott would add that an object that has survived an attack and not struck back becomes truly useful for the first time.
To the reproach “you’re always late” — “yes, it happens,” and then a calm conversation on the substance; the attacker has nothing to break through, because you neither defend nor attack, and you yourself gain a second for the gap between stimulus and reaction. In the external defense model “Fire — Water — Earth — Air,” cushioning is Water, the first step of the framework “cushioning + an answer of substance + taking the lead,” on which almost all the speech techniques of the course rest (modules 3, 7 and 8). The limit of the technique: it defuses everyday pressure; with systematic aggression it is more reliable to reduce contact than to cushion.
Doors that block change (4)
Four ways of shutting yourself off from change. The mindless door: “Oh, I don’t know, you tell me, my head just isn’t working.” The aggressive door: looking for a scapegoat — “it’s all their fault, they drove me to it.” Self-aggression: the same attacks, but aimed at yourself — “I’m a loser, I’m the one who ruined everything.” The passive door: “What’s the point? I don’t want anything and I’m not going to do anything.” Psychoanalysis recognizes old acquaintances in these doors — defenses already described by Anna Freud: projection, when blame is moved outside; turning aggression against the self; regression into helplessness; and withdrawal. What all four have in common is that they spare you the need to act.
Once you know your habitual door, it is easier to catch yourself at the moment you slam it shut: everyone has a favorite, and it is usually inherited. The Loser, as the course describes him, has all four escape doors wide open. Ways of avoiding problem-solving are explored in more detail as the three kinds of passivity (module 8).
External defense against manipulation (“Fire — Water — Earth — Air”)
The course’s own model: the structure of a response to a hook, where each element corresponds to its own move. Fire is the other person’s hook, an attempt to stir up your emotions (anger, fear, shame) in order to make you comply. Water is cushioning: “okay,” “got it,” “I hear you.” Earth is the answer of substance: “as far as I understand…,” “in line with what we agreed,” “yes” or “no” — specifics based on facts, something solid. Air is taking the lead: an open question to explore the other person’s picture of the world (“what exactly?”, “how did you come to that conclusion?”), which gives room for discussion. According to Berne, a game holds as long as move and response complement each other — from Parent to Child and back; an answer of substance and a question from the Adult cross that line, and the game has nothing left to run on.
An example from the course: “This definitely won’t work for us” — “Okay. According to our data, the tool solves exactly these kinds of problems. Shall I show you some examples of how it’s been put into practice? Here’s why I’m offering: it could save you time.” The last line strengthens taking the lead with warmth and a constructive note: countering hooks is not a game of “I’m better than you,” but turning resistance into cooperation. It is the external counterpart of the internal defense ABC → DEF: one tunes your head, the other your speech.
Filters of perception (3)
The first of the basic models: a person lives not in the real world but in a world of their own ideas about it. Three filters: the sensory one (the sense organs), the cultural and historical one (era, environment, upbringing) and the individual one (personal experience and beliefs). The idea goes back to Alfred Korzybski’s formula “the map is not the territory,” and the trio of filters itself is close to the description in neuro-linguistic programming, where the model of the world is distorted by neurological, social and individual constraints; Freud arrived at the same thing from the other side when he realized that psychical reality governs a person no less than material reality. Two people walk out of the same meeting with opposite impressions because they filtered different things.
Becoming aware of your filters is the first step toward telling a fact from your own interpretation — that very B in the ABC model; the practical question is “What did I actually see and hear, and what did I fill in?” A saying of the course: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The skill continues in mental hygiene (module 6) and in the shell (module 8) — a filter that has become a protective capsule.
Free Child
A resourceful state: the creative, lively, experimenting part of the personality. “What if I try? What will happen if I take the risk?” The Free Child isn’t afraid of making a mistake and knows how to enjoy simple things — to get ice cream all over yourself and take it as a game. In Berne it is the Natural, or Free, Child; Winnicott showed why we can’t do without it: only in play is a person truly creative, and only there do they find their true self, while an adult who has forgotten how to play lives correctly and joylessly.
In this state we allow ourselves spontaneity and sincere joy; the more deeply we accept this part, the easier it is to try new things and to learn without fear of failure. Under pressure from the Critical Parent or in an unsafe environment it shrinks into the Cornered Child, which is why spontaneity comes back together with safety, not on command. Giving it back its space is part of self-care (module 9) and of the needs for spontaneity and play (modules 3 and 9).
Hook
A provocation: a small action or remark that catches the other person and creates an entry into a game — a sarcastic comment, a meaningful pause, discounting, flattery, an appeal to pity, touching a sore spot. In the external defense model the hook is Fire; in Berne it is the lure designed for a weak spot, and a hook always aims at a hunger — at the need you will predictably respond to. The mechanics of how it works were described by Melanie Klein under the name of projective identification: the provocateur doesn’t just say something barbed, they place their irritation or guilt in you, and a second later you feel it as your own.
Once you recognize the hook (“right now I’m being caught by my sense of guilt”), you can avoid biting and stay in the Adult: the named feeling stops being yours and goes back to the sender. A list of hooks for practice is collected at qcic.ru/q. A detailed map of exactly what people get hooked on: vulnerability buttons (module 6); the most disguised hooks are rescuer hooks (module 8).
Hungers (three kinds)
The need that pushes a person into games: the longer it goes unmet, the smaller the excuse needed to start a game. The course distinguishes three hungers, going back to Berne: sensory hunger — the need for attention and recognition, for “strokes”; structure hunger — the need to fill time with something; position hunger — the need to confirm familiar beliefs about oneself, others and the world. Berne drew on René Spitz’s observations of infants in orphanages: fed and clean but deprived of touch and attention, they wasted away; recognition is not a luxury but a condition of life, and an adult needs it no less, only they get it in more complicated ways.
Hunger in itself is normal; the question is how it is satisfied — through healthy contact or through a game, because a scene also brings attention, only with a minus sign. Games are needed to satisfy sensory hunger with familiar acts of recognition, to confirm beliefs (so the world stays predictable), to protect oneself from the thought that things could be otherwise, to shut oneself off from people who call one’s picture of the world into question, and to fill the vacuum of time. The same hunger is later explored as emotional needs (module 3) and core emotional needs (module 9).
Implied and expressed
Unspoken mutual expectations that each side considers obvious are a time bomb: “I thought it went without saying that…”. The course principle: turn the implied into the expressed, even when you don’t feel like doing it. Berne distinguished in any communication a social level — what is said — and a psychological level — what is implied — and showed that games are played out precisely on the second; moving an expectation from the psychological level to the social one means taking the ground out from under the game. French analysts call this the unsaid, le non-dit, and know that it governs a family more strongly than any rule spoken aloud. The formula of the Structuring Parent: “To bring some clarity, I invite you to turn the implied into the expressed. Do I understand correctly that X?”
The key skill is to talk things through before something has been broken; the awkwardness of asking “do I understand correctly” is always smaller than the hurt of an unfulfilled “it goes without saying.” On the scale of a family, the same idea sounds like spoken and unspoken rules (module 6); in money — like the transparency square (module 4); in business — like the partnership conversation (module 7); in pre-empting transference — like the contract (module 3).
Internal defense against manipulation (ABC → DEF)
Manipulation is influencing a person’s picture of the world in order to make them obedient to commands. The defense rests on a principle of the course: words are sound waves, and they are given meaning not by the one who speaks but by the one who listens. Noticing pressure, you become aware of which thought (A), which feeling (B) and which action (C) are being imposed on you, and you remind yourself that you are free to choose what to think (D), what to feel (E) and how to act (F). The scheme grew out of Ellis’s ABC, and at its core is Viktor Frankl’s idea of the last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude to the circumstances. Psychoanalysis describes the mechanics of manipulation as projective identification: someone else’s feeling is placed in you, and you are expected to take it for your own; DEF is a way of returning that feeling to its sender.
The technique sounds like this: “I hear a manipulation that is trying to make me think A, feel B, do C. I am a free person, and I choose to think D, feel E and do F.” Hearing “you’re a grown-up, you should understand,” you don’t swallow the thought “I’m obliged to,” but choose your own: “this is pressure on my sense of duty; I’ll decide for myself.” It works against “today only” advertising and against “if you loved me” alike. The external counterpart of this system is “Fire — Water — Earth — Air.”
Karpman Drama Triangle
The drama triangle: the Victim (“I’m helpless, save me”), the Persecutor (“it’s all your fault”) and the Rescuer (“let me do it all for you”). The model was proposed in 1968 by Stephen Karpman, a student of Berne, while analyzing fairy tales: Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf and the Hunter switch roles faster than it seems — and in life it is the same. The essence is in the switches: the Rescuer, worn out, becomes the Persecutor, the Victim becomes the accuser, and the circle keeps turning on its own; all three roles rest on the same life position, “someone here is not OK,” only the Victim assigns it to themselves, while the Persecutor and the Rescuer assign it to the other. In the game formula this is the “interaction” step; in the “8 states” model the Critical Parent easily becomes the Persecutor, the Placating Parent the Rescuer, the Cornered Child the Victim.
Once you recognize the triangle, you can avoid entering any of the roles: instead of rescuing, support independence; instead of blaming, talk about yourself and the facts; instead of helplessness, ask for something specific. The way out is the Adult position, and its sign is simple: questions and facts appear in the conversation instead of judgments. The model comes back in codependency (module 2), in the sixteen tools for exiting the triangle (module 3), in the three kinds of “IF” and the family myth “we are a family of rescuers” (module 6), and in rescuer hooks (module 8).
Ladder of mastery (6 rungs)
The stages of mastering a skill: I don’t know that I don’t know — I know that I don’t know — I know that I know — I don’t know that I know — I can teach someone else — I have mastery. The first four rungs are known as the four stages of competence model, described in the seventies by Noel Burch; the course adds two upper ones — the ability to break your craft down into its parts and lead a beginner through them, and free movement along the whole ladder: doing things on autopilot and, when you wish, unfolding the automatism back into steps. The first rung explains why beginners are so sure of themselves: to see your own incompetence you need competence — the very effect that Dunning and Kruger later described.
The main benefit is supporting yourself on the second rung, the most unpleasant one: when you already see your mistakes but can’t yet do it, and you are tempted to quit. This is a natural stage, not a sign of inability, and most abandoned undertakings are abandoned right here. Remembering the ladder means not confusing “hard” with “not for me.” One of the course’s principles of effective learning, alongside the spiral nature of learning: topics come back, deeper each time.
Nurturing Parent
A resourceful state. Real care means creating conditions in which a person can show independence and grow: the Nurturing Parent offers help but doesn’t do everything for the other person, says “if you need support, I’m here,” and doesn’t take away the right to make mistakes. In Berne it is the Nurturing Parent too, and Winnicott described it most precisely of all: the good-enough mother holds the child and then gradually stops guessing its wishes — and it is these measured “failures” that let the child grow up. Care that does everything itself breeds helplessness; care that stays close by breeds strength.
The formulas of this state are questions: how would you like it to be; why does this matter to you; how will you know you’ve done it; what does the plan look like to you; what will be the first step. This is how the other person’s resourceful state is activated and the Adult emerges in each of you. Turned toward yourself, the Nurturing Parent is the basis of resilience: a failure doesn’t turn into self-torment; the difference from the Placating Parent is that the Nurturing Parent can say “no” for the person’s own sake. Later it unfolds as the maternal aspect of self-care (module 9).
Open questions (5 working principles)
Questions that can’t be answered with “yes” or “no”: “what,” “how,” “in what way,” “why is it important.” A closed “Shall I help you?” is shut down by a short “no”; an open “How can I be of use?” opens up a conversation. The method is as old as Socrates, who used questions to help the other person give birth to their own thought, and that is its strength: a person believes a conclusion they have reached themselves. Five working principles: an interested voice that makes the other person want to follow; smooth bridges between questions; whoever asks the questions keeps track of the time; the process is smooth and inevitable; form comes first, content second — the question is the form, the answer is the content, and the right form creates trust.
The main tool of dialogue throughout the course: you use them to clarify, to engage, to take back the initiative (taking the lead), to hold a motivating conversation and a difficult conversation. The course’s principle of cooperation — advice provokes resistance, questions don’t — coincides with the rule Freud set for analysts: not to give advice, but to help a person hear themselves. A separate analysis is devoted to the typical mistakes with this tool (module 4).
Placating Parent
An unresourceful state in which the Parent supposedly “means well” but acts from the position of the Rescuer and from passive aggression: “I’m doing it all for you.” Outwardly it looks caring, but in fact it deprives the other person of the chance to make their own decisions and take responsibility for them — this is stealing responsibility under the guise of help, and it makes the other person dependent. In transactional analysis this is the negative pole of the Nurturing Parent, care that envelops you like marshmallow; Winnicott noted that a mother who anticipates every wish of her child doesn’t let the child discover what it wants, and Racamier described families where care serves not the child but the adult’s need to be indispensable.
A simple test: after such “help,” does the person become stronger — or more indebted? The difference from the Nurturing Parent is in the result: the Nurturing Parent grows independence, the Placating Parent suppresses it with over-protection. Becoming aware of this state means not sliding into rescuing and moving on to constructive care, where support doesn’t crush initiative. Closely connected to codependency (module 2) and rescuer hooks (module 8).
Pleasure and mastery journal
A daily practice of two questions: how did I take care of myself today, and what did I succeed at today; in the evening or during the day, write down what brought joy and which actions went well. Both words come from Aaron Beck’s cognitive therapy, where patients were asked to rate each activity on scales of pleasure and mastery — and discovered with surprise that the day had not been as empty as it seemed. The point is not self-praise but training self-observation and learning to rely on your own strengths: the psyche clings to the negative, and consciously noticing what went well corrects the imbalance.
After a few weeks of entries, a person has something no praise from outside can give — their own evidence that they can take care of themselves and cope. It echoes the “Strengthen the strong” skill (module 5), turned toward yourself, and the evening reflection from the rules of effectiveness (module 8).
Psychological game (formula)
A game is a sequence of hidden interactions aimed at getting a desired emotion and confirming familiar beliefs. The formula: growing hunger + hook (provocation) + bite + interaction (switching between the roles of the triangle) = satiation (the familiar emotion, confirmation of beliefs). The concept was introduced by Eric Berne in Games People Play, and he later wrote it down as a formula of his own: the lure catches a weak spot, a response follows, then a switch of roles and the payoff; the course formula is a Russian and more practical version of it. In Russian a single word covers two different phenomena: play in Winnicott’s sense — a free space of creativity and the true self — and a game in Berne’s sense — a hidden script with a predictable ending; the course uses the word in the second sense. A game lets you satisfy the hunger far more vividly and sweetly than openly agreeing that taking offense now and then is an accepted part of the relationship.
Once the formula is understood, “accidental” quarrels stop being accidental: each has a hunger, a hook and a familiar ending, and they repeat with a precision that Freud called the repetition compulsion. The control point is the moment of the bite: if you catch it, you can consciously choose not to enter the game. Getting out of games is both inner work (“What do I gain by not playing? What kind of relationships do I choose to create?”) and outer work: “There is situation A, it creates risks B, I feel C, I invite you to discuss D, because E. What do you think?” It continues in the anti-bite (module 2) and exiting the triangle (module 3).
Rebellious Child
An unresourceful state of the Child: “I won’t wear my hat, just to spite Mom.” The person goes against the rules not out of meaningful protest but out of stubbornness and a wish to assert themselves through conflict; you recognize it by “well, I won’t” where it would be wiser to come to an agreement, and by irritation at any rule simply because it is a rule. In Eric Berne’s transactional analysis this is the negative form of the Adapted Child, and the name hides a paradox: the rebel is just as attached to someone else’s demand as the obedient one, only with a minus sign — the rule is still in command, it just makes you do the opposite.
There is energy here, but it goes into fighting rather than into the task, and it often comes with destructive actions and unjustified risk: resisting the system in this state is not freedom but self-sabotage. The question that brings you back to the Adult: “Am I protecting what’s mine right now — or proving that no one can make me?” A meaningful choice of your own path instead of “in defiance” is already the Free Child. One of the four Child states in the “8 states” model.
Self-confirming beliefs
One of the four basic models: a person tends to shape relationships and events so as to confirm familiar emotions and familiar beliefs about themselves, others and life. Someone convinced that “nobody respects me” keeps their distance and is prickly — and gets coldness, which they read as proof. The sociologist Robert Merton called this the self-fulfilling prophecy, cognitive psychology calls it confirmation bias, and Freud, long before them, the repetition compulsion: a person doesn’t remember an old scene but acts it out again with new people, each time becoming convinced that “that’s just how it is.”
The mechanism explains how negative attitudes become self-fulfilling, and why you need to work with the belief itself (B in the ABC model) rather than with “bad luck”; a useful question is “What am I doing to make this keep being confirmed?” A saying of the course: a pig will find mud anywhere. Related phenomena are active expectations (module 3), position hunger and family myths (module 6).
States (the “8 states” model)
All the troubles and all the joys of human life are the result of which states a person is in, in quantity and in quality. The Parent is divided into four: Nurturing and Structuring (plus states), Critical and Placating (minus states). The Child is also divided into four: Well-Adapted and Free (plus states), Rebellious and Cornered (minus states). The Adult stands in the center as the point of control. The term “ego states” was introduced by Paul Federn, a student of Freud; Eric Berne made a three-state model out of it, and later transactional analysis divided the Parent and the Child into positive and negative modes. The course takes this logic all the way to eight states with the star of the Adult in the center — and gets not a theory but a map that shows where you are right now.
The practical value is noticing in the moment which state I am speaking from: the Critical Parent produces a reprimand, the Nurturing Parent — support; the Rebellious Child — “out of spite,” the Free Child — an idea. Once you’ve recognized it, you can choose a more fitting one; a state is recognized by small things — intonation, posture, the first word. For the people around me to change, I need to change myself. The course’s systems principle: mind, body and environment are one system, and acting on one element means acting on the whole system; hence the power of small steps (module 10).
Structuring Parent
A resourceful state: the mature, ordering part of the personality that strives for clarity, agreements and respect for boundaries. It is responsible for organization, stability and predictability; it doesn’t so much criticize as help build a clear structure. In transactional analysis this is the positive side of the Controlling Parent, which the modern model calls exactly that — structuring; psychoanalysis adds that a predictable frame heals in itself: Winnicott saw reliable boundaries as a form of care, not its opposite — a child who knows the rules is safer than one who is allowed everything.
Formulas of the state: “Allow me to agree with you on the sequence of my actions, so that you clearly understand what you can expect from me and when”; “I’ll show you something (curiosity) + we look at it together (care) + you decide for yourself (permission) + taking the lead”; “I’m asking you for X; if this sits well with you — good; if not — just say so, and I’ll support whatever you decide.” The difference from the Critical Parent is in the aim: the Structuring Parent organizes, the Critical Parent blames; the first says “here are the rules,” the second — “you broke them again.” The “Control spider” (module 7) and RBT (module 5) are built on this state.
Taking the lead
An open question with which, after an answer of substance, you take back the leading role in the conversation: now it is the other person who answers. For example: “…and how do you yourself see the solution?” In the external defense model this is Air — exploring the other person’s picture of the world. The technique’s lineage is the Socratic question, which leads the other person to their own conclusion; in Berne’s language, taking the lead is a transaction addressed to the partner’s Adult, and so it crosses a game set up from Parent to Child. Taking the lead can be strengthened with warmth: “Here’s why I’m asking: to avoid risk A and gain benefit B.”
The difference between an interrogation and taking the lead is in the intention: an interrogation looks for where to catch someone out; taking the lead looks for what the person really sees. It is the final element of the structure “cushioning + an answer of substance + taking the lead” — the framework of the five speech techniques (module 3), the techniques of professional communication and all eight techniques for utilizing hooks (module 7). A rule of the course: whoever asks the questions keeps track of the time and the course of the conversation.
Tool-use journal
A course practice: write down the date, the tool, what went well, what I choose to add, comments. Writing turns “I listened and understood” into “I know it and will use it”: the hand fixes in place what would otherwise slip past. Cognitive therapy has long used this kind of self-monitoring, and Bion distinguished knowledge gained from books from knowledge that has become experience; the journal is a bridge between them, because a written-down case of using a tool has already been lived through, not just heard.
It is especially helpful on a long course with its wave-like adoption: setbacks and “old ruts” are normal, and it is handy to come back to your notes when the technique you needed flew out of your head in a real situation. It sits alongside the daily “best result for the day”: in the morning, put into words what I want to achieve and how; in the evening, take stock.
Vision of the future (principle)
One of the four basic models of the course: the fact of the present is predetermined by the vision of the future; the vision of the future is the cause, the fact of the present is the effect. The first in psychology to insist on this was Alfred Adler: a person is driven not only by what happened to them but also by the goal they are moving toward, even if they are not aware of it. Psychoanalysis knows the same force under the name of the Ego Ideal: Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel showed that the distance between who I am and who I want to become is not only a source of shame but also an engine of development. What you do today follows from how you see yourself ahead; without such an image, decisions are made reactively, “from whatever is right under your nose,” and quietly lead you into someone else’s script.
A check for every day: “Does what I’m doing right now bring me closer to who I want to be?” Here, too, is the trap: the image of the future must be your own, not inherited, otherwise it turns into a demand that is impossible to live up to. Later the principle becomes a tool: goal setting (module 2), the career map (module 3), “Hello, My New Year!” (module 5) and the full session on four horizons (module 10).
Well-Adapted Child
A resourceful state of the Child: the ability to respect boundaries and rules, to ask “how do you usually do things here?”, “what are your rules?” — and still not lose your autonomy; a healthy adaptability in which I get in sync with my surroundings without suppressing myself. In transactional analysis this is the positive side of the Adapted Child, and Winnicott explained how it differs from the unhealthy one: healthy adaptation is politeness that doesn’t betray the true self; unhealthy adaptation is compliance that eats up spontaneity. The difference from the Cornered Child, who also “obeys”: the Well-Adapted Child keeps their dignity and is able to say “no.”
A refusal from the “I’m OK — You’re OK” position takes four steps: a clear “no”; “this is because…” — the reasons; “I understand that it matters to you that…” — support; “what I can offer is…” — an alternative. If the pressure continues: “Do I understand correctly that you didn’t hear my refusal?” The skill is developed further in keeping the positional advantage (module 2) and in the defense formulas for boundaries (module 4).