When transactional analysts talk about a "discount", they are not talking about getting something cheaper. They are referring to something much more insidious. A discount in TA is a way of denying some part of another person and, unfortunately, discounts are quite common in most of our lives.
Discounts occur in many ways but there are three which are fairly common; discounting your intuitions, your emotions, or your thoughts. No matter what form the discounting takes, it really diminishes a person's confidence in themselves and rocks their self esteem. Discounts are at their least a denial of some part of a person and at their worst a form of mental abuse. Discounting is very common in domestic violence and other abusive relationships. Many people are discounted in their families of origin or their relationships. Some discounts are culturally or socially transmitted.
Discounts of Intuitions
Our intuitions developed to protect us. They instantly tell us when someone is lying to us, taking advantage of us, crossing a boundary or presenting some other danger. Our intuitions enable us to interact with someone and immediately know whether they are happy or sad, confident or scared, calm or nervous, open or defensive. If our intuitions are discounted by people around us we start to doubt our own instincts.
An 8 year old child walks into the room where his parents sit. They feel cold and hostile to him. He asks if something is wrong and is told, "nothing".
What happens to this child if this pattern of misinformation or denial continues? He starts to question his own senses. He detects the coldness between them. He senses the hostility between them. Yet he is told his intuitions are wrong. A child in this situation quickly learns one of three things: 1) that his intuitions cannot be trusted, 2) that his parents cannot be trusted or 3) that he must somehow tap dance between his intuitions and his parents' version of things.
None of these are healthy. If the discounters are his parents the child assumes there is something wrong with his intuitions. Surely the adults are not wrong. So it must be him. He grows up never trusting his own sense of things or his judgment. He often appears hesitant and unsure. He will often seek the opinions of others and rely heavily on their input since his own cannot be trusted. He learns not to listen to his intuitions and eventually stops perceiving them at all. A person who doesn't trust his own intuitions is walking through the world blind since information from his intuitive radar is being disregarded or has ceased to be sent.
If he goes the second route he learns that people in general cannot be trusted. He may appear paranoid and antisocial. He may turn inward and trust only his own intuitions and disregard all other input from any other person.
If he goes the third route he may look rather erratic. Having no internal compass he can truly trust, yet not being fully trusting the information from other people either he vacillates wildly back and forth without ever being able to land on either side. He will be confused and never entirely certain of what he "knows". He may appear "emotion" or unstable.
Discounts of Feelings
Just as we constantly have intuitions about the world around us, we also experience emotions. Our emotions provide us with a wealth of information about the world around us and make us feel truly at one with the universe and alive within it. This is how we experience our lives. We are happy when we are having fun. We cry when we are hurt. We laugh when we are amused and grieve when we experience a loss. We smile a warm "Hello" at a familiar face and feel compassion for the young or the helpless. We become angry when wronged.
If these emotions are discounted they often become quite warped, repressed or twisted. The discounting of one emotion can cause others to become twisted as well as we attempt to express an "unacceptable" emotion in the form of an "acceptable" one. This discounting can also be familial, societal or cultural. There is a strong gender bias in which emotions are discounted. Women are typically not allowed to express anger while males are typically not allowed to show fear or tears. Each gender learns to compensate for these repressions of normal emotions in interesting ways.
5 year old Sally is playing by herself when a little boy in the playground comes along and snatches away a toy Sally is playing with. Sally responds with anger, goes over to the little boy, yells at him for taking her toy and takes the toy back. Her mother quickly admonishes her for not being "nice", takes the toy and gives it back to the little boy. She makes Sally apologize for being "mean".
7 year old Joseph is playing on the monkey bars when he loses his grip and falls. He tears a pretty large gash in his knee and starts crying profusely in pain and fear at the sight of the blood. His father rushes over and quickly hushes him saying, "big boys don't cry". The father continues to hush his tears and encourages him to "be a big boy", "brush it off" and resume playing.
What have these two children learned?
The little girl has learned what most little girls are taught, that anger is "unbecoming" or "unladylike". We are taught to be nice and quiet. This discounting of anger is not cross cultural. In some cultures women are allowed to be angry, in fact, it is encouraged. We often see the discounting of anger in women in White and Asian cultures. What happens to this little girl when she becomes a woman? She is unable to experience or express anger honestly or directly. She may be unable to express it at all. This creates two problems. First, anger is for self defense. It is what you feel when you are threatened, your boundaries have been violated, you have been demeaned or abused. Anger is what makes you get up and defend yourself. Take this away and you have a victim. Second, take away the ability to express anger directly and it may come out as whining, nagging, guilting or passive aggressive behavior.
By contrast, the little boy has learned that he cannot show fear or pain. He must appear unflinching if he is going to be a "big boy". Conversely, in other situations he is allowed or encouraged to express anger. "Stand up." "Be a man." He is often taught how to fight back. So many men grow up expressing anger when the real emotion they are having is fear, sadness or emotional pain. When they get married and get into an argument with their wife, they may fear that they are losing her, but this will be expressed as anger. If enough sadness and fear are repressed long enough rage will develop and physical violence may result. We then punish the man for being "violent" and send him to anger management classes.
Both men and women experience double standards and mixed messages. Women are not allowed to be angry but are belittled for expressing anger in other inappropriate ways as well (whining, nagging, applying guilt, being passive aggressive). Men aren't allowed to express fear or distress so they enlist anger to fill the gap. They are then penalized for being "aggressive". It's always a no win situation to negate people's actual feelings.
Besides gender differences, each family can have their own "acceptable" and "unacceptable" feelings. In some situations the unacceptable emotion may be denied to everyone in the family system. In other situations only a certain person is allowed to express the unacceptable emotion. This person may be either held in a position above the other members and therefore allowed this exception, as an alcoholic father may rage in his home, but everyone else is denied their anger. Or a person may be allowed to express the unacceptable emotion, but then scapegoated for it, such as a child who expresses the anger for the rest of the family but then becomes the family scapegoat.
Which emotion is deemed unacceptable will vary from family to family. Some families don't allow displays of affection. Some don't allow crying. Some don't allow anger. Others don't allow fear. When someone in the family does express forbidden emotions they may be ignored, guilted, shamed, discounted, scapegoated, shunned or labeled "crazy". While some families deny some emotions, other families may specialize in a specific emotions. I have seen families who specialized in sadness, guilt, humor, anger, fear, or self-righteousness. This one "acceptable" emotion permeates everything they do and binds them together. But it does so at the expense of all other emotions. A family locked in sadness moves through life depressed. A family specializing in fear moves through life anxious. If members seek treatment they are often given a diagnosis and medicated for "Major Depression" or "Generalized Anxiety Disorder" because the clinician doesn't realize that all emotions have been traded in for this one and this is the family's primary method of communicating with each other and the outside world. Unexpressed emotions may be perverted and expressed as the desired emotion or the person may lose control after stuffing things down for so long and "blow up" or "have a nervous breakdown" or "lose it". The family may label the person "abnormal" and bring them in for treatment to have them "fixed" so they can once again resume expressing only the acceptable emotions of the family system.
Cultures can also prohibit certain emotions labeling them as "unacceptable" or reinforcing the expression of other emotions. In the United States there is a strong cultural bias towards expressing happiness. People who walk around sad for too long, even if they have suffered a terrible loss, are often admonished to "get over it", "get on with your life", "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" or to "keep your chin up". Even within the United States that are regional influences. In the Southern United States you may be considered rude or snobbish if you don't smile at everyone you meet regardless of how you actually feel.
As with other forms of discounts the person being discounted can handle it in three ways: 1) listen to the discounter and deny the emotions, 2) keep the emotions and not listen to the discounter or 3) try to keep both the emotions and opinions of the discounter.
Men often follow the cultural and familial pressures put on them to deny having the emotions. However, anyone can adopt this solution. Those who do are often seen as "cold", "distant" and "impersonal". However, since "being emotional" has negative connotations in this society being seen as "cold" doesn't have the entirely negative associations that being viewed as "emotional" may have. "Cold" and "aloof" may also be seen as "strong" in our culture. Women who deny their emotions in favor of cold aloofness may also be seen as strong, but tend to be heavily villified for it. If she combines intellect with coolness and strength she has a very good change of being labeled a "bitch".
Women typically embrace their emotions, but are often viewed as "weak" or "unstable" for doing so. A very common way of discounting emotions is to value intellect over emotions instead of in addition to them. Anyone who is being "emotional" is easily discounted as being the opposite of rational and intelligent. Women are often encouraged or "allowed" to be emotional, but then discounted for it. This is why the labels "hysterical" and "irrational" are often considered to be "female" or "weak" behavior. Men who insist on keeping their emotions may be "effeminate" for violating the gender norms.
The person who tries to both have their emotions and honor the discounter becomes truly confused, erratic and anxious, trying to honor their emotions, but skirt the criticisms if the discounter as well.
Discounts of Thoughts
Assaults on emotions and intuitions are the most common forms of discounting. But rational thought can also be discounted, especially if it is used to question norms or mores valued by the discounter. You often see this with college educated children who return home and question their uneducated parents. Their education and ideas may be attacked in order for the parents to maintain their superior role. You can also see this when children use intellect to question the religious beliefs of their parents or culture. Abused children or spouses who see the hypocrisy of the abuser may be discounted as "crazy". Children whose intellect provokes them to question prejudices held by their parents may also encounter strong discounting. When intelligence is discounted it is often portrayed because it is perceived as insolent behavior and therefore threatening. "How dare you question (fill in the blank)?" Employers may also prohibit rational thought if it causes employees to question company policies. An insecure boss may prohibit logical questions if they perceive questions or criticisms to be personal attacks on their supervisory skills.
When people are discredited for using intellect, logic and problem solving they learn to move through life mindless, passive and unable to figure their way out of problems. They may become heavily dependent on other people to think and problem solve for them.
Or they may rebel. We have seen people who have been attacked when they questioned authority and this attack only strengthened their conviction. Dr. Martin Luther King and his namesake Martin Luther are two good examples of this reaction.
A society may also attempt to discount the intelligence of an oppressed group in an effort to silence their protests against discrimination. In the American culture we have seen this technique applied to Blacks who asked for Civil Rights and to women who asked for Equal Rights. This discount attempts to reduce both groups to silly children and thereby deprive them of a valid voice to be considered.
Conclusions
The forms discounts can take are as endless as the individuals or groups upon whom they are perpetrated. Discounts can be initiated upon a child by a parent or by against an entire group by a religion, society, government or culture. No matter what form they take, they are an attempt to negate a piece of our humanity. And no matter who the discount is aimed at we all suffer. For removing the emotions, intuitions or ideas of any person or any group deprives not only that person or group of their full experience, but denies the rest of the chance to be exposed to their sharing of that experience with us.