Thread: traversing multiple jTabbedPane?

I have 3 jTabbedPane in my application which visibility switches based on other selections in the app. what I want to do is have a single set of navigation buttons (back) (next) that will traverse the visible jTabbedPane. I can do it with 3 sets of essentially the same code but am trying to keep this app as small as possible. how can i reference the visible jTabbedPane in my traversal code without writing the same code for each jTabbedPane?

Here is the code that traverses the tabs

    public void switchTabs(String action) {
        Integer tabCount = tabContainer.getTabCount() - 1;
        Integer currentTab = tabContainer.getSelectedIndex();
        if (action.equals("back")) {
            if (currentTab > 0) {
                nextButton.setEnabled(true);
                currentTab -= 1;
                while (!tabContainer.isEnabledAt(currentTab) && currentTab > 0){
                    currentTab -= 1;
                }
                tabContainer.setSelectedIndex(currentTab);
            }
        } else if (action.equals("next")) {
            if (currentTab < tabCount) {
                backButton.setEnabled(true);
                currentTab += 1;
                while (!tabContainer.isEnabledAt(currentTab) && currentTab < tabCount){
                    currentTab += 1;
                }
                tabContainer.setSelectedIndex(currentTab);
            }
        } else if (action.equals("reset")) {
            tabContainer.setSelectedIndex(0);
            currentTab = 0;
        }
        if (currentTab == tabCount){
            nextButton.setEnabled(false);
            backButton.setEnabled(true);
        } else if (currentTab == 0){
            nextButton.setEnabled(true);
            backButton.setEnabled(false);
        } else {
            nextButton.setEnabled(true);
            backButton.setEnabled(true);
        }
        //calculate();
    }

If I could pass the jTabbedPane I want to work with into switchTabs(), it would be perfect but I do not know how to do that and haven't been able to find any information through searching. Any ideas would be helpful. Thank you.