According to Eric Berne, whenever people get together in pairs or groups, there are six different ways in which they can spend their time and it is known as time structuring.

1. Time structuring

2. Prepared By
Manu Melwin Joy
Research Scholar
School of Management Studies
CUSAT, Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com
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Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public
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3. Content
• Introduction.
• Withdrawal.
• Rituals.
• Pastimes.
• Activity.
• Games.
• Intimacy.

4. Time structuring
Whenever people get together in pairs or groups,
there are six different ways in which they can spend
their time. Eric Berne listed these six modes of time
structuring as
• Withdrawal.
• Rituals.
• Pastimes.
• Activities.
• Games.
• Intimacy

5. Time structuring
• These Berne suggested, are
all ways of satisfying
structure hunger.
• When people get into
situations where no time
structure is placed upon
them, the first thing they are
likely to do is to provide
their own structure.
• Example – Robinson Crusoe
arriving on his desert island,
structured his time by
exploring and setting up
living quarters.

6. Time structuring
• Intensity of strokes
increases as we move
down the list from
withdrawal to intimacy.
• Degree of psychological
risk increases as we
move down the list from
withdrawal to intimacy.
• Unpredictability of
stroking does tend to
increase.

7. Withdrawal
• When a person
withdraws, she may
stay with the group
physically, but does not
transact with other
group members.
• During withdrawal, the
only stroke I can get or
give are self strokes.
• They try to avoid
psychological risk of
rejection.

8. Withdrawal
• Withdrawing is sometimes
a rational adult decision.
• People need time to be
alone, to relax, to think
their own thoughts, to
take stock of themselves
and to be rejuvenated in
their individual
humanness.

9. Withdrawal
• Withdrawing is sometimes
based on copying parents.
In this case, person imitates
parental behaviors.
• For example, a man
threatened by conflict with
his wife may withdraw as
his father did when his
mother got mad.

10. Withdrawal
• Withdrawing patterns
also come from child ego
state.
• These are often replays
of a person’s childhood
adaptations out of the
necessity for self
protection from pain or
conflict.
• They may also be the
result of training.

11. Withdrawal
• When a person withdraws
psychologically, it is often
into a fantasy world.
• These fantasies are likely to
be of uncensored pleasure
or violence, creative
imaginings or of learned
fears and catastrophic
expectations.
• Everyone withdraws into
fantasy world from time to
time.

12. Rituals
• Ritual transactions are simple
and stereotyped,
complementary transactions,
like everyday hellos and good
byes.
• All children learn the ritual
appropriate tin their family
culture.
• Rituals vary from a simple “Hi”
to complicated religious rituals.

13. Rituals
• Structurally, the program for rituals belong in the
parent ego states.
• Functionally, rituals are usually performed in
Adapted child.
• Rituals are perceived from
child as involving more
psychological risk than
withdrawal.

14. Rituals
• For some people, rituals
becomes a way of life.
• After the ceremony is
long past, the marriage
may be only a series of
ritualistic transactions
consisting mainly of role
playing, of actions devoid
of real meaning and
intimacy, yet keep the
people alive with
minimum strokes.

15. Pastimes
• A pastime, like a ritual,
proceeds in a way that is
familiar.
• The content of pastime is
not programmed so
strictly as that of a ritual.
• The pastimers have more
leeway to make their own
embellishments.

16. Pastimes
• In pastime, the participants
talk about something but
engage in no action
concerning it.
• A frequent clue to pastime
is “Pastime = Past time.”
• Most often pastimers will
discuss on what happened
in the past.

17. Pastimes
• Berne gave witty names to
some familiar pastimes.
• Men may pastime around
General Motors while women
may prefer Kitchen or
Wardrobe.
• When parents get together,
there is usually a session of
P.T.A.
• For Britishers, the best known
pastime is The weather.

18. Pastimes
• Pastimes are usually
conducted from parent or
child ego states.
• In a parental pastime,
people voice sets of pre-
judged opinions about the
world.
• Child pastimers go back
and replay thoughts and
feelings from when they
were children.

19. Pastimes
• Pastiming yields mainly
positive strokes, with some
negatives.
• Compared to rituals, pastime
strokes are more intense and
predictable.
• Pastime is a way in which
people sound each other out
as possible partners for the
more intense stroke
exchanges which take place in
games or intimacy.

20. Activities
• In activity, the
communication between
the group members is
directed at achieving a goal,
not just talking about it.
• In activity, people are
directing their energy
towards some material
outcomes.
• We are likely to be in
activity for much of the
time at our workplace.

21. Activities
• Adult is the predominant
ego state in activity.
• This follows from the fact
that activities are
concerned with achieving
here and now goals.
• In an activity, when we
follow appropriate rules,
we switch into positive
adapted child or positive
parent.

22. Activities
• Strokes from activity can
be conditional positive
and conditional negative.
• They are usually delayed
strokes, given at the end
of the activity for a job
well or poorly done.
• The degree of
psychological risk
perceived in activity can
be greater or less than in
pasturing depending on
nature of each.

23. Games
• We all play games from
time to time.
• In games, group members
exchange sequence of
transactions and at the end
of it, they both feel bad.
• All games are replays of
childhood strategies that
are no longer appropriate
to us as grown ups.

24. Games
• By definition, games are
played from any negative
ego state parts – negative
adapted child, negative
controlling parent or
negative nurturing parent.
• Games cannot be played
from adult.
• Games always entails a
exchange of psychological
discounts.

25. Games
• One advantage of playing
psychological games is to
structure time.
• Some games like Blemish
takes a few minutes to
point out that the boss
always forgets to put the s
on the third person
singular verb.
• Other games such as
Debtor can structure a
lifetime.

26. Intimacy
• In intimacy, there are no
secret messages.
• The social level and
psychological levels are
congruent.
• This is an important
difference between
intimacy and games.

27. Intimacy
• In intimacy, feelings
expressed are appropriate
to finish the situation.
• By contrast, feelings
experienced at the end of
a game do nothing to
resolve the situation of
the players.
• This is why games are
played over and over
again.

28. Intimacy
• Berne’s choice of the
word intimacy should be
understood as a
specialized technical
usage.
• Intimacy in time
structuring may or may
not have much to do
with intimacy in the
usual dictionary sense.

29. Intimacy
• When people are being
sexually or personally
intimate, they may perhaps
also be sharing their feelings
and wants openly with each
other.
• In that case, they are
structuring their time in
intimacy.
• But, it is common also for
intense emotional
relationships to be founded
mainly in game playing.

30. Intimacy
• Games are sometimes used
as substitute for intimacy.
• They involve a similar
intensity of stroking but
without the same degree of
perceived risk.
• In a game, each person
shifts the responsibility for
the outcome to the other.
• In intimacy, each accepts
his own responsibility.

31. Intimacy
“Intimacy is a candid Child to Child relationship
with no games and no mutual exploitation. It is
set up by the Adult ego states of the parties
concerned, so that they understand very well
their contracts and commitments with each
other. “
Eric Berne

32. Intimacy
• To relate in intimacy, we first
need to establish the
relationship with our full
adult powers of thinking,
behaving and feeling.
• Within this protective
framework, we can go back
into child if we want to,
sharing and satisfying some
of the unmet needs we
carry from our early years.

33. Intimacy
• Intimacy entails mutual
caring and protection from
parent.
• The message from this ego
state is : “ I won’t discount
you and I won’t allow you
to discount me.”
• Stroking in intimacy is more
intense that in any other
form of time structuring.

34. Intimacy
• Since intimacy is not pre
programmed, it is the
most unpredictable of all
the ways of time
structuring.
• Thus from child, intimacy
is perceived as the most
risky way to relate to
another person.

35. Activity
• Make a time structuring
pie chart.
• To do this, draw a circle.
• Divide the circle into slices
representing the amounts
of your typical waking day
that you spend in the six
different form of time
structuring.

37. Activity
• Find out whether you want to
change the look of your time
structuring pie.
• If so, draw the version you
want to achieve.
• Write down at least five ways in
which you will increase the
amount of time structure you
most want to increase.
• IN the coming week, carry out
these behaviors.
• Then redraw your time
structuring pie.

38. Activity
• Be alert each day to how
you and others structure
time.
• Analyze time structuring
during meetings, at work in
conversations with
neighbors, at parties, or
whatever.
• Do not tell others what you
are doing unless you are
sure they want to know.

39. Activity
• Make up groups of six.
• Choose any topic of
conversation.
• Talk about it three
minutes, with each person
role-playing one of the six
ways of time structuring.
• At the end of time, discuss
your experience.
• Repeat by shifting the
roles.

40. Thank You

41. Other TA topics available on slideshare
1. 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-is
5. 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.