Stroking Profile

Prepared By Manu Melwin JoyResearch Scholar

School of Management StudiesCUSAT, Kerala, India.Phone – 9744551114

Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com

Kindly restrict the use of slides for personal purpose. Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public

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Stroking Profile

• The “stroking profile” concept was

introduced for the first time by Jim

McKenna in the Transactional

Analysis Journal (October 1974).

• It analyzes stroking patterns in

rather the same way as Dusay’s ego

gram analyzes the use of functional

ego states, by use of bar charts.

Why it is useful?

• Most of us carry around a series of

repetitive unconscious patterns that we

use quite often.

• Since strokes are fundamentally

involved (directly or indirectly) in

everything we do, it can be of great help

to become aware of our stroking profile

and think about what (if anything) we’d

like to change about it and in what

direction.

Why it is useful?

• Maybe some people complete the table

and realize that they have difficulties in

giving strokes, yet they feel the

desire to stroke other people often and

to be more in contact with those

around.

• By becoming aware of this, they can

make a small conscious effort to

gradually offer more strokes, thus being

more in contact.

Why it is useful?• Some people might not understand why

they receive so many negative strokes and

realize that they’ve been constantly asking

for them on an unconscious level.

• That may be because this kind of strokes

are familiar to them and they know how to

react, whereas receiving positive strokes

makes them feel extremely uncomfortable.

• It could also be for a number of other

reasons.

Stroking Profile

• To make out a stroking profile,

you begin with a blank diagram

given in the previous slide.

• You draw bars in each of the four

columns to represent your

intuitive estimate of how

frequently you : give strokes, take

them when they are offered, ask

for strokes and refuse to give

strokes.

Stroking Profile

• You make separate estimates

under each heading for

positive and negative strokes.

• The frequency for positives is

shown by drawing a bar

upward from the central axis of

the diagram.

• For negatives, draw bar

downwards.

Stroking Profile

• This diagram shows one possible example of a completed stroking profile.

• This person doesn’t give many positive strokes but is liberal with negatives.

• She is keen to take positive strokes from others and often ask for them.

Reference : Transactional Analysis Journal, October 1974, Jim McKenna

Example

• She perceives herself as seldom taking or asking for negatives.

• Frequently, she refuses to give positive strokes that other people expect, but she is not so ready to refuse giving negatives.

• How would you feel about relating to the person who drew this stroking profile.

Example

• Jim McKenna suggests that the

negative and positive scales under

each heading show an inverse

relationship.

• For instance, if a person is low in

taking positive strokes, he will

likely be high is taking negatives.

• Discover any pattern in your stroke

profile.

• Try to increase the bar you want

more.

Inverse Relationship

• Discover if there is anything about your stroking profile that you want to change.

• If so, the way to proceed is to increase the bars you want more of.

• This, says McKenna, is more likely to work than aiming to reduce the bars you think you have too much of.

• In Child, you are likely to be unwilling to give up old stroking patterns until you have something better to replace them.

Activity

Activity• Draw you own stroking profile. • Work rapidly and intuitively. • Under asking for strokes, in the

negative column, include times when you set up in some indirect way to get attention from others and was painful or uncomfortable for you.

• In the negative column under refuse to give, include occasions when you refused to give others negatives which they were setting up indirectly to get from you.

Home work• Write down five behavior designed

to increase any bar you want more of.

• Carry out these behavior in the coming month.

• For instance, if you decide you want to give more positive strokes to others, you might note down one compliment you could genuinely give to each of five of your friends, but have never given.

• Go ahead and give those compliments during the month.

Food for thought

Is McKenna right in

suggesting that as you

increase the bar you

want more of, the bar

you want less of in the

same column decreases

automatically?

Implications

• In a way, needing strokes is the same

with needing people to acknowledge

that we exist.

• From this point of view, the

philosophical question about the tree

falling in the forest with nobody around

to hear the noise fits well.

• If nobody hears the noise, did it really

ever exist?

• If a person is not being stroked, is that

person’s existence real?

Thank You

Other TA topics available on slideshare1. Strokes - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/strokes-24081607.

2. Games People Play - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/psychological-games-people-play.

3. Structural Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/the-ego-state-model.4. What is TA? - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/what-ta-is5. Cycles of Development -

http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/cycles-of-developement-pamela-levin-transactional-analysis.

6. Stages of Cure - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stages-of-cure.7. Transactions - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/transactions-33677298.8. Time Structuring - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/time-structuring.9. Life Position - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/life-position.10. Autonomy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/autonomy-33690557. 11. Structural Pathology - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/structural-pathology.12. Game Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/game-analysis-33725636.13. Integrated Adult - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/integrated-adult.14. Stroke Economy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stroke-economy-33826702.