ARE YOU A PARENT, ADULT OR CHILD ??? KNOW YOUR EGO STATE.......

Recently I have been reading about transactional analysis , a psychotherapy by Eric Berne. The building block of his therapy is the concept of ego states; these involve a pattern of thinking, feeling and behaviour. We exhibit three kinds of ego states: Parent, Adult and Child. In any social grouping we will predominantly exhibit one or another of these states. But there is one ego state which overall dominates your personality.

PARENT:  In this ego state, our thoughts, attitudes, feelings and behaviour resemble those of parental figures. At times you would have noticed yourself repeating your Mom’s or Dad’s statements or reacted the way they would have. It is the way we relate to others. You can be a controlling parent having rigid rules for everything and usually prohibitive, judgemental and having too many do’s and don’ts. Or you could be a nurturing parent having sympathy and care for other person as well as yourself. At times parent ego state controls and inhibits other ego states and takes decisions.

ADULT: In this ego state the person autonomously and objectively appraises reality and makes judgements. Person is like a self programming computer his focus is on present or current situation. Collecting data/information, solving problem, analysing, decision making etc are what an adult ego state do. Show no or little emotion and use flat tone of voice. Who? What? When? Where? How? Are typical words of an adult ego state.

CHILD: This ego state is a set of feelings, thoughts, attitudes and behaviour patterns which are relics of your childhood. We always carry within ourselves a little boy or girl who feels thinks and behaves in a way we did when we were kids. Child ego state is a predominance of feeling, competence, expresses happiness when demands are fulfilled and unhappiness when demands are unfulfilled.  The child ego state is exhibited behaviourally in two major forms. The adapted child has feelings and behaviour that are under parental influence such as compliance, rebelliousness, withdrawal, inhibition etc. The natural child is spontaneous, creative, shows too much emotion and activity.

We are always operating from any of these ego states. But there is one ego state that dominates your personality. Problems and difference among people occur when they send a message from one ego state but the response comes from an ego state different from the one addressed. Well that is a different segment about transactions among these ego states.

Have a good and insightful day J