All transactions have a social (conscious) level and a psychological (unconscious or out of conscious awareness) level. We have known that ulterior transactions have these levels, but it had been thought that complementary and crossed transactions can be shown to be congruent. That is, the two levels of stimuli agree. In ulterior transactions, the two levels are incongruent or disagree. An example of the clinical use of this principle is the hypnotherapist's use of multi-level transactions, such as the Bull's eye, that reach each ego state simultaneously.
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References
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BerneE.Intuition and ego states: The origins of transactional analysis. San Francisco: TA Press, 1972.
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