In order to understand a person’s behaviour we need to be aware of what is happening inter-personally (i. e. between people) and intra-psychically (i.e. within the mind). To accomplish this understanding the school of Transactional Analysis utilises Eric Berne’s model of personality analysis. This model consists of separating out all of the different ways that each of us behave, thinks and feels into three ego states: the Parent ego state, Adult ego state, and the Child ego state.
The Parent ego-state consists of a collection of ‘tapes’ – a record of attitudes, thoughts, behaviours and feelings absorbed from parents or parent figures or significant others who had some kind of power relationship with the person as an infant. For example, information on how to do things is recorded from grandparents, teachers, carers, older siblings, peers. Cultural and ethnic messages are also stored here.
The Adult ego state is the real self- expression of the here and now. Here we organise information, estimate probabilities and make logical statements, in response to present-day wants and impulses in relationship with others, the world and ourselves
The healthy adult ego state represents a fully developed intellectual capacity, emotional responsivity and a considered set of ethical values all of which moderate a person’s needs in response to our environment.
The Child ego state represents the entire early history of a person. It is a collection of the multitude of the child’s responses (behaviours, thoughts and feelings) to all the parents/caretakers behaviours, thoughts and feelings. We may replay these PAST, psychological units today
Parent and Child ego states are archaic and Adult is in the here and now. All the ‘messages’ we receive as we are developing are stored within the different ego states. They can be triggered at any time and experienced as a current reality with the same vividness that attended the original experience. Such a reliving of the past can be to the detriment or enhancement of accurate Adult here and now reality-testing.
