Because transactional analysis is a theory of personality and a theory of communication, it is very important to have a good understanding of various types of transactions. Transactions are the most basic units in the study of transactional analysis. Transactions are of four different types: complementary transaction, cross transactions, angular transactions, and duplex transactions.
Understanding and recognizing duplex transaction: there are two different levels in transaction. One of them is a surface level or social level and the second one is a hidden level or a psychological level. For instance, in a class room the teacher played some video clips to give a presentation on Marxist ideology.
Two of the students started discussing topics related to Marxist ideology which were not discussed in the class before. Now apparently, or on surface, the two students were having an adult-to-adult transaction. But covertly, that transaction was a child-to-child transaction as the two were trying to tell the rest of the class, ‘Look! We’ve more knowledge about the topic”.
Simple description of a duplex transaction might give you an impression that such a transaction can be done only in a single communication channel. But it is quite possible that a duplex transaction could occur in two separate channels. Generally, the overt level or surface level transaction is done in the verbal channel while the covert or psychological level transaction is done in the non-verbal channel.
To understand this concept, consider the example of a man and woman who fancy each other. The verbal channel may contain an adult-to-adult transaction about the move they watched together but the non-verbal, covert channel would contain a child-to-child transaction about their liking for each other.
With these types of transaction, two or more people can communicate in tens of different ways. According to Berne, three people can communication in more than 6,000 ways using various types of transactions.
