This document discusses the concept of "rubber banding" in Transactional Analysis (TA). It explains that people sometimes respond to present situations as if they have been "catapulted back" to stressful childhood scenes, due to similarities between the present situation and past experiences. This is called a "rubber band" stretching through time. The document provides examples and suggests that resolving original childhood trauma can help people disconnect these "rubber bands" and respond to present situations more effectively with their adult resources.

1. Rubber band

2. Prepared By
Manu Melwin Joy
Research Scholar
School of Management Studies
CUSAT, 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
forms and presentations.

3. Rubber band
• When I went into script in my argument with the
Director, It wasn’t just because the situation was
stressful. It was also that the here and now scene
resembled a painful scene from my childhood.
• In TA language, we say that the present situation is a
rubber band back to the early situation.

4. Rubber band
• This expresses graphically how we respond at times as
though we had been catapulted back to early childhood
scenes.
• Imagine a giant rubber band stretching through time. It
hooks on to some feature of the present that recalls
childhood pain, and twang – off we go into the past.

5. Rubber band
• Because Mother and Father
are such important figures
in our early life, they are
often to be found at the far
end of rubber bands.
• Talking to anyone with
whom we relate
significantly, we identify
them some of the time with
figures from the past.
• This phenomenon that
Freudians call Transference.

6. Rubber band
• In TA, we refer to it
colloquially as “putting a
face on someone”.
• When I went into script in
my argument with the boss,
I was putting my father’s
face on him.

7. Rubber band
Rubber bands do not always
stretch back to people. We
can also hook back to
sounds, smells, particular
surroundings or anything
else that reminds us
unawarely of stressful
situations in childhood.

8. Rubber band
• One of the goals of change in TA is to disconnect the
rubber bands.
• Through script understanding and personal therapy, I
can resolve the original trauma and free myself to
tackle here and now situation with all the grown up
resources at my command.

9. Activity
• Think of a recent situation
in which you were under
stress and which ended
unpleasantly or
unsuccessfully for you.
• Think what bad feeling you
experienced during that
situation.
• Now recollect such an
incident happened in the
past year, then five years
back, your teenage, your
childhood and go as far as
possible.

10. Activity
• The aim of this exercise is to
trace the far end of the
rubber band.
• What was the similarity
between the recent
experience and your
childhood experience.
• If another person was
involved in the recent
experience, what ‘face’ from
the past were you putting
on him or her?

11. Activity
• Once you are aware what post
situation you are replaying,
you can begin disconnecting
the rubber band.
• Use Adult awareness to
remind yourself that people in
the here and now are in fact
different from Father and
others.

12. Activity
• If you begin experiencing the
bad feeling, be aware that the
present situation is different
from that in the past.
• You now have the resources
and options of a grown up
person, as well as those of the
child you were in the early
scene.

13. Thank You

14. 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.