Drop a feeling

Some people report experiencing feelings that they don’t want. In such circumstances the psychological process of dropping the feeling is required.


For small feelings



1. Child ego state experiences the feeling
2. Adult becomes aware of the feeling
3. Adult decision to drop feeling


For large feelings



1. Child ego state experiences the feeling
2. Adult becomes aware of the feeling
3. Child expresses feeling the number of times needed
4. Adult decision to drop feeling (May need two chair)

Barriers to dropping feeling



The racket value of the feeling
The strength of its connection to a script decision
Secondary gains associated with it.

Graffiti

Strengthening the Adult ego state

Today is Saturday and that means laundry washing day for me. Hey I am a regular kind of guy! As I embarked on this most OCD of all OCD tasks I discovered that my laundry powder had run out so I went to the supermarket to buy a new box of clothes washing laundry powder.

When I got there I was confronted with this wall of different types of laundry powder boxes all different shapes and sizes and colours all claiming different sorts of things. I thought

“S**t, all I want is a box of washing powder and I am going to have to make 30 decisions to end up with the one I want”.

Now I know what home work exercises to give my clients who are tormented with indecisiveness. To hone their decision making skills just go and buy some laundry powder.



So I started the process and decided on the size I want and the kind of money I want to spend. The rule of thumb with this kind of product in the supermarket is never buy the cheapest as the quality is crap. Also never buy the most expensive as they use the psychology that people will assume it is the best quality when it is no better than the average priced brand.

On a side note sometimes people ask me about how to pick a therapist, to which there is no easy answer but there is one thing I tell them not to do. Never pick the one with the biggest and most expensive advertisement. Now if one is choosing a plumber or an accountant it may be OK to pick the most expensive advert. But in choosing a therapist there is something not just right about the one with the most expensive advert. I can’t articulate why it’s just an intuitive conclusion. Having been in the counselling industry for 30 years, to me there is just something wrong with a therapist who presents self in the biggest advert.

However back to the topic at hand. I finally reached the point where I had decided on two possible items to buy. One was called Bam and the other was called Blast. That was my choice - Bam or Blast. Who thinks up these names? Some psychologist would have done a PHD on this. Someone would have received a doctorate for a study on the marketing psychology of laundry powder and concluded that names like Bam and Blast are the ones that would sell. Hey it worked on me!


OCD



Also as I pondered this decision one is confronted with a paradox. There are questions one muses over such as what does my life mean and who am I? And then I realise I am in a supermarket pondering on which product to buy - Bam or Blast!

So I made my decision and Blast it was. However there was still one decision to go. What scent do I want - lemon or frangipani? Do I want to smell like a lemon or smell like a flower when I wear my clothes? Last time I chose lemon because it seemed more manly to smell like a lemon as compared to a flower. But this time I chose frangipani because of late I have been developing my feminine side.



Today I have been walking around smelling like a flower. And after all that decision making I feel like I have to have a valium and have a lie down.

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Using drugs dangerously - part 2

In the previous post I talked about people using drugs dangerously and gave an example.



KYLady made some good comments on the possible defence mechanisms used by the case example below. I find that I got similar ones to her and a few different which I have listed below







Below is a statement by a 37 year old doctor who shared needles on this occasion.



“Never in wildest dreams did I EVER IMAGINE that I would share needles. Some of the details around these circumstances I can’t recall. I spose it was so traumatic, having a medical background and a deep moral code around sharing fits it still seems unbelievable.



I would ask the people who had used the fit before me if they had HIV or hepatitis and I chose to believe their response of no. Truth has no place in this world, if it shows up then is gets distorted, ignored or disproven because truth and drugs cannot be in the same room. The thought of not being able to get the drugs into me as quickly as possible especially when watching the others getting relief from their angst was something I could not take. This anxiety/fear far outweighs the fear for my own health and life. It was like trying to resist the sound of a newborn baby crying when you’re breast feeding.



I would disassociate from reality, time and space changed. I would wash the fit out with alcohol or bleech the whole time repeating a mantra of please God please God. I would think who cares anyway, you’re fucked and life is fucked and you’re all fucked. Self loathing and the fear of not getting that rush would fuel me on.



Then the ritual of mixing up would begin and my mind would start bargaining “you’re not really going to do it” “you’ll stop before you whack it” but there is no stopping by this stage you’re like a robot and this thing has you in its grasp. I would cry as I found a vein, wishing I could stop, jacking it back, holding in the sobs so I didn’t shake too much, then pushing it down the relief flooding over like a lover holding you in their arms no more aghhh and once again I’m cleaver and funny, all worries dissolve, I am a sex goddess and philosopher, brave and complete, all fears drift away.” (end quote)









1. Firstly she describes how she would ask others if they were carrying the HIV or hepatitis C virus. She knew the answer of ‘no’ could be considered quite unreliable. To proceed she must have used some mechanism like repression or denial to push the knowledge of unreliability out of her conscious.



2. Next she describes how she could dissociate which would allow her to decommission her Adult ego state temporarily which would allow her to proceed. This may have also assisted her discounting the unreliability of her peers reporting they were virus free.



3. Then she talks about repeating the mantra, “please God please God”. This could be the defence mechanism of magical thinking where the Child ego state can feel safer because she has ‘prayed’ and this will some how magically make her safe.



4. Next she moves to an angry position with her comment, “I would think who cares anyway, you’re fucked and life is fucked and you’re all fucked.” This may be the defence of minimisation. If she can convince herself that everything is bad then one little bit more of badness is not going to make any difference. It would allow her to minimise the importance of sharing needles.



5. Finally she talks about how her mind would start bargaining which may be a kind of rationalisation. Convincing herself that her preparations for drug taking were not wrong because she will pull out at the last minute.





Humans are very good at lying to themselves







If she had not been able to employ these defence mechanisms then she would not have been able to trick her Adult ego state and then she probably would have not engaged in sharing needles on that occasion. So you can begin to see the importance of what I am presenting here.



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Using drugs dangerously

In order to use drugs dangerously such as with injecting drug use one has decommission their Adult ego state whilst doing so. This can be done by using what are called defence mechanisms. Humans are very good at lying to themselves and defence mechanisms are one way they can do that.



If a person has the Adult ego state information that sharing injecting equipment is a most unwise thing to do then in order to do it that, the Adult needs to be tricked some how. The Child ego state in some way needs to temporarily trick the Adult. If it can not do this then the person will not share injecting equipment on that occassion.







Below is a statement by a 37 year old doctor who shared needles on this occasion.



“Never in wildest dreams did I EVER IMAGINE that I would share needles. Some of the details around these circumstances I can’t recall. I spose it was so traumatic, having a medical background and a deep moral code around sharing fits it still seems unbelievable.



I would ask the people who had used the fit before me if they had HIV or hepatitis and I chose to believe their response of no. Truth has no place in this world, if it shows up then is gets distorted, ignored or disproven because truth and drugs cannot be in the same room. The thought of not being able to get the drugs into me as quickly as possible especially when watching the others getting relief from their angst was something I could not take. This anxiety/fear far outweighs the fear for my own health and life. It was like trying to resist the sound of a newborn baby crying when you’re breast feeding.



I would disassociate from reality, time and space changed. I would wash the fit out with alcohol or bleech the whole time repeating a mantra of please God please God. I would think who cares anyway, you’re fucked and life is fucked and you’re all fucked. Self loathing and the fear of not getting that rush would fuel me on.



Then the ritual of mixing up would begin and my mind would start bargaining “you’re not really going to do it” “you’ll stop before you whack it” but there is no stopping by this stage you’re like a robot and this thing has you in its grasp. I would cry as I found a vein, wishing I could stop, jacking it back, holding in the sobs so I didn’t shake too much, then pushing it down the relief flooding over like a lover holding you in their arms no more aghhh and once again I’m cleaver and funny, all worries dissolve, I am a sex goddess and philosopher, brave and complete, all fears drift away.” (end quote)







Can you spot the defence mechanisms?

Or the ways her Child ego state temporarily tricks her Adult ego state.

I can count 4, possibly 5.



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The contextual diagnosis of ego states

Introduction
Eric Berne (1961) in his book Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy outlines the four ways by which the diagnosis of ego states can occur

Behavioural diagnosis - This is the most common method used and involves the observation of a person behaviour, body language, voice, demeanours and so forth.

Social diagnosis - This involves observing the types of communications or transactions the person has with others. How others respond to him give some indication of the ego state in which he may be.

Historical diagnosis - This involves enquiring into the persons history. How they acted and responded in their past will give insight into how they are responding in the here and now.

Phenomenological diagnosis - This is the diagnosis of ego states by self examination. An awareness of ones feelings and current experience can be used to assist in the correct diagnosis of ego states.



The need for a contextual diagnosis
For many years psychologists have examined the role of context in human psychology. It is now a widely held belief that humans examined in the context in which they exist will give a much more comprehensive understanding of them.

Indeed context is integral to how we perceive the world, even down to the perception of simple basic objects. This is no better illustrated than with the Rubin vase. When presented with an ambiguous object (ie with no context) humans can fluctuate in what they are actually perceiving. See the Rubin vase below. Some people see a vase, others see two profiles and yet others fluctuate between the two.


Rubin vase


Add in some context and the perception of the figure becomes far more consistent. In the picture below some context has been added such as depth perception and other markings on the object. The vast majority of people will now see a vase rather than two profiles.



The Rubin vase illusion is important because it shows that perception is not solely determined by the image formed on the retina. Thus the very way we see the world is determined by the context of what we are looking at. This of course highlights the integral importance of context in how humans interact with the world.

At the macro end of the scale we have the discipline of social psychology. This whole approach to psychology is based on the assumption that to understand people one has to examine the context in which they live and operate. To view a person in their wider context allows one to gain a fuller comprehension of why they do what they do and indeed who they even are in the psychological sense.

The point at hand here is to demonstrate that from the micro to the marco of human functioning we see the importance and value of context. Thus it is proposed that to diagnose ego states accurately one needs to do a contextual diagnosis. Examples of how this diagnosis works are plentiful and easy to demonstrate.

Contextual diagnosis
A man says, “On July 5th, 2007 the alignment of the planets will create a magnetic field so large that there will be the biggest tides in half a century”. What ego state would be diagnosed?

If that man was of a dishevelled appearance, not shaven for 2 days and was
sitting on a park bench drinking out of a bottle in a brown paper bag what ego
state would be diagnosed?. Probably some kind of regressed Child ego state. If
that man was in an observatory wearing a white coat and carrying a clip board
what ego state would be diagnosed? Probably Adult ego state. The different
contexts for the same statement would tend to result in a different diagnosis.
The context in which the statement is made is central to the diagnosis of ego
states.

Thus one has the fifth way by which ego states can be diagnosed - The contextual diagnosis.


Ego state diagnosis on basis of body
language with very little context?

Possibly perplexed Adult ego state or maybe Adapted Child ego state in some slight discomfort or pain after playing a game.



Ego state diagnosis on basis of body language
within the context of his immediate milieu?


Eye strain with probable Free Child ego state sexual arousal.



References
Berne, E. 1961.
Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy. Ballantine: New York

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Ego states in the counselling process

Three new articles have been uploaded. I would have done it here but Blogger cannot take Pdfs.


Number 1
The Child ego state in counselling

Paper 1 – Looking for the Child ego state in counselling
How Child is brought into the counselling session
1. Feelings
2. Contracts for taking the client out of their comfort zone.
3. Polarities.
Conclusion
Paper 2 – Psychological polarities
Paper 3 – Relational contact with the AC




Number 2
Parent ego state

The Parent ego state

Sameness in relationships

How modelling occurs

Group think




Number 3
Working with the Conforming Child, Rebellious Child and Free Child ego states

The highly conforming client

The highly rebellious client

Dealing with the difficult client – Free Child, Conforming Child & Rebellious Child

Pdf here.


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The two ego state model

Tony White
Transactional Analyst
June 21st, 2011.

Introduction
Ernst (1971) believes Eric Berne's most significant contribution to psychotherapy was the delineation he made between the Parent and Adult ego states. This, he says, allowed us to distinguish opinions from objectivity. This view is consistent with the general view that science has held up to date. However sat present, the social sciences are experiencing much confusion in certain areas. (Strauss and Hafez [1981], Morgan [1983], John [1984], Eysenk [1983]). It is this distinction between the Parent and Adult ego states that illustrates why the confusion exists.

Steiner (1971) defines the Adult ego state as essentially a computer, an impassionate organ of the personality, which gathers and processes data for the purpose of making predictions. The Adult gathers data through the senses, processes them according to a logical program, and makes predictions where necessary. The Parent ego state is essentially made up of behaviour copied from parents, or authority figures. It is taken as a whole, as perceived at an early age, without modification. A person in his Parent ego state, is merely playing back a tape of of early internalized parent figures. It is a repository of traditions and values.

The above definition of ego states implies that the Adult is not a collection of tapes, that it is not comprised of the incorporation of parent figure information. this paper contends that the above proposal, simply stated, is incorrect. When a child attends school he acquires information, this involves the incorporation of the teacher's instructions. Later on in high school, when the child has more knowledge, he may critically evaluate what he is being taught, yet he can only do this if he has previously incorporated, or learnt how to critically evaluate.

The acquisition of language and basic mathematical principles also involves the incorporation of tapes. The most obvious example is the rote learning of multiplication tables and the alphabet. Brunner (1964) agrees with this, stating that all the techniques of data processing are passed down from generation to generation, in each culture. Each child incorporates data processing methodology from his parents.

The Adult and the Adult in the Parent.
It now becomes apparent that the Adult ego state and the Adult in the Parent ego state are the same. Thus the two ego state model may be represented geometrically as in Figure 1b


Figure 1

For further elaboration, it is necessary to examine Stuntz's (1972) paper on the second order structure of the Parent ego state. He states that the Adult in the Parent (AP) "is an external program of how to use the computer (Adult)" (p. 60). It is the contention of this paper that the Adult in the Parent (AP) is the Adult, and that any division is unnecessary and leads only to confusion. Stuntz suggests that each time Adult processing is required that ego state must consult the Adult in the Parent. See Figure 2a and Figure 2b illustrates that the Adult ego state outside the Parent is redundant, doing only what it is told by the AP. Thus it is an unnecessary middelman that creates four process instead of two.


Figure 2

In Figures 1b and 2b, it is seen that the two ego state model places the Adult ego state inside the Parent ego state. This is meant to indicate that those internalized tapes, specifically referring to data processing and manipulation, are encompassed with in the A2. Those tapes not referring to data processing are encompassed within the P2 but outside the A2. Processing which is not based on taping, falls within the realm of the 'Little Professor' or A1.

The Adult as a computer
The Adult ego state is often described as being a computer, this metaphor illustrates the notion presented in Figure 2. Computers are programmed by computer programmers. A computer's computational ability is entirely dependent on the computer programmer's logic. (In this case the 'computer' is defined as that part of the whole system which the computer user communicates with - most commonly the keyboard and visual display unit. The computer will only process data according to the instructions from the 'tapes' or 'disks', to which it is connected. It is these tapes that contain the computer programmer's logic (that is, his opinions, assumptions and beliefs on correct data processing).

As an obvious example assume the computer user asks the computer, "What is 1 + 1?". As indicated in Figure 2a, the computer now asks the tapes, "How do I respond to the stimulus, 'What is 1 + 1?'". If the computer programmer believed the answer or response should be '3', then the computer will respond with '3'. It will see nothing wrong with this. The computer blindly and unquestioningly accepts anything that it is told from the tapes held in its head as does the Adult outside the Parent. The only function the computer (i.e. the keyboard and visual display unit) serves is to convert computer language into human language. If humans could 'talk' computer language, then they could talk directly to the magnetic tapes. Parent ego state tapes are stored in human language, which allows us to talk directly to them. We do not need a conversion process, therefore the Adult ego state outside the Parent serves no purpose.


Tony presenting the two ego state model in his TSTA examination in Hawaii, 1989


Assumptions of this presentation
Logically, this paper is written from the Adult in the Parent. It is based on beliefs, programming and information, that is different to those used by Berne, when he outlined the three ego state model. There does appear to be a definite informational difference. When Eric Berne first published his paper outlining three ego state theory, it was the mid 1950s, (Berne [1957]), at that time, there was little evidence to suggest that the great promise of science, was not true. Scientists and theoreticians generally believed that reality could be viewed free from parental programming. However, with the knowledge explosion over the past one and a half decades, it has become obviously apparent that the promise has not, and will not ever be fulfilled.

It is the assumption, belief and opinion of this writer that an Adult external of the Parent illustrates the great promise of science, and the Adult internal of the Parent illustrates why this promise has not been fulfilled. The basis of this belief is presented in the preceding pages.

The second assumption of this presentation is that it believes it is necessary to propose an ego state theory which considers the problems of contemporary social science. This is based on the belief that it offers something to the scientific community, both theoretically and therapeutically, that is not already offered by the three ego state model. The reasons for this assumption will become evident over the next four or five presentations. There are undoubtedly many more assumptions of this presentation, these will become more obvious as the concept of the two ego state is further discussed.


Originally presented in:
Tony White. 1984.
New Ways in Transactional Analysis. TA Books: Perth.

References
Berne, E. "Ego states in psychotherapy". The American Journal of Psychotherapy. 1957, 11, 293 - 309.

Brunner, J.S. "The course of cognitive growth". The American Psychologist. 1964, 24, 1 - 15.

Ernst, F.H. "The diagrammed Parent. Eric Berne's most significant contribution". Transactional Analysis Journal. 1971, 1, 49 - 58.

Eysenk, H.J. "Personality as a fundamental concept in scientific psychology". Australian Journal of Psychology. 1983, 35, 289 - 304.

John, I.D. "Science as a justification for psychology as a social institution". Australian Psychologist. 1984, 19, 29 - 37.

Morgan, A.H. "Editorial". Australian Psychologist. 1983, 18, 7 - 8.

Steiner, C. 1971. Games Alcoholics Play. Grove Press: New York.

Strauss, J.S. & Hafez, H. "Clinical questions and "Real' research". American Journal of Psychiatry. 1981, 138, 1592 - 1597.

Stuntz, E.C. "Second order structure of the Parent". Transactional Analysis Journal. 1972, 2, 59 - 61.

The trust transaction

She reports consistent tension in the neck and shoulders. At times it is painful and is very persistent. A history of regular headaches and at times migraines.

Has a considerable anxiety about letting self feel vulnerable with others. In her mind being vulnerable means one will be exploited. Trust issues.

This can manifest as never trusting anyone or at times trusting others who let her down or exploit her so as to reinforce the script belief of Trust = exploitation.

Some people are trustworthy and others are not
Identify associates who are trustworthy and those who are not. More correctly identify the ways and areas in which various associates are trustworthy and where they are not.



Identification is done using
Adult ego state
Little Professor ego state
Consultation

Identify Bad day at black rock scene where the trust issues evolved.

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Using FaceBook in the therapeutic process

I now regularly use FaceBook and Google Earth with clients usually as a home work exercise. When ever I hear an angry client say they are going to cut up and burn all the photographs of their ex-partner, I usually counsel them to save at least a couple. Such photographs can be used in a therapeutic way later on.

As I have said before I have always used photographs in therapy with clients. They can be most helpful therapeutically. With the proliferation of the internet I now use FaceBook and Google Earth (along with blogs, websites, linkedin, YouTube, TrueLocal and all the other networking sites) almost on a daily basis.

For homework I may suggest a client does a search on FaceBook for a person they have been discussing or suggest they search on Google Earth for a particular place or location. This can form the same therapeutic function as suggesting the client to get some photographs they may have of a person or a place that is psychologically important for them.



These can serve a number of therapeutic functions. Whenever a client says, “I am never going to see him again”, the first thing they need to do is see the person again. One way to do that is through a FaceBook search. Even if the search comes up with nothing, therapeutic gain has been achieved. The person has actively set out to find the feared or disliked other by the very act of doing the search and thus there is psychological impact on their Child ego state.

Why is there a psychological gain? In Gestalt terms it brings the issue to the foreground of the psyche. It makes the person or place front and centre in the persons psychology. Over time people will unconsciously neatly pack away the painful person, event or relationship into a safe place in the psyche. By searching for them and maybe finding them on FaceBook or seeing the place on Google Earth that painful person, event or relationship is unpacked from the psyche and comes to the fore front of the mind.



When this is done the personality is destabilised and the person is primed for psychological change. They are placed into a frame of mind where psychological change is more likely to occur. I have discussed this on YouTube before.



By searching for the person, maybe seeing their picture and even talking to them the Child ego state is destabilised and thus ready for change. By seeing the place (house) where the abuse occurred the Child ego state is destabilised and ready for change.

Secondly, when an event occurs, over time the Adult ego state memory of it fades. When that happens the Child ego state will start to fill in the gaps, but the person will perceive these as Adult facts not Child ego states ‘fill ins’. As the Child ego state fills in the gaps it will structure the memory of the person or event such that it fits the life script and thus problems are solidified by a past memory that isn't even true at least to some degree. FaceBook and Google Earth can allow for an Adult ego state update.

Say the person was bullied by someone at high school. That bully may be remembered 20 years later as a big and overpowering person. To be seen years later on FaceBook the new Adult facts obtained can significantly reduce the Child ego state memory of the over powering person they were.

A person involved in a car accident at a particular intersection. Since then they avoid that intersection by driving other ways to get home. Google Earth is a good way to go and see that intersection again. Thus FaceBook and Google Earth have direct therapeutic uses in the trauma debriefing process.



Related to this it can help in doing goodbye work. In working with a recent client it became apparent that she still had a significant attachment (and love) to the first real love of her life. A teenage 3 year relationship that was semi abusive, where she fell deeply in love with him. In the past I would normally suggest she does a ‘drive by’. That is go and drive by the house where he now lives. However in this instance she did a FaceBook search, found him and became his FaceBook friend.

She saw some old photos that he had on his FaceBook and saw him as he is now. The Child ego state fill ins of her memory were dissolved. After a number of discussions with him she came back to therapy and said, “How did I ever fall in love with him!”. Combining this with 2 chair regressive goodbye work in therapy and that chapter in her life was quickly closed. The attachment was dissolved and she was this more able to attach with her current partner.

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Adult ego state strengthening - Part 4 **

The final part of this composition on strengthening the Adult ego state seeks a different path.

The previous three parts are examining behavioural strategies to assist a person to increase their Adult ego state functioning when under stress. This section will look at some of the underlying causes that may lead to poor Adult ego state function.

Modelling. All children model on their parents. If the parents display defective Adult then children will model that to varying degrees. If the child has a particularly strong attachment to a parent who has poor Adult then the modelling can be quite strong and the child will pick up the same traits. This on its own is usually not that hard to treat as it involves simply adding to their Parent ego state tapes.

As this diagram shows the Parent ego state is merely a collection of tapes that have been modelled from various parent type figures. In adulthood it is continually being added to and one can seek out those who seem to have strong Adult function and model off them. Thus creating a new tape that has modelling for a well functioning Adult ego state.

Exercises can be done where the counsellor assists the person to identify their main Parent ego state tapes and draws them as in the diagram above. This allows the person to be aware and then start to make choices about which ones to listen to and which ones to turn the volume down. Which one to practice and so forth. The more they are practised the more robust that tape will become.

Injunctions. Sometimes parents for their own unconscious reasons will send a “Don’t think” message to a child. This type of message to the child can be particularly powerful if combined with consistent modelling.

Historically this has occurred in the sex role scripting of children. Boys were told they were practical problem solvers who would think problems through. Girls were told. “Not to worry their little heads about such things” and they didn’t really need an education because they were going to become just mothers and home makers. They did not need strong logical problem solving skills when the men could do it for them. Hence the woman ended up not being able to change the tire on a car or drill a hole into the wall to hang a picture.

Thus we ended up with a way of influencing the dynamics of the relationship between men and women particularly in relation to the power structure. This is why in the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, women becoming more educated became a central aspect of that societal change. Those with strong Adult functioning are going to be the ones who are in charge in relationships and politically powerful.

If mother or father have such power issues of their own then they can script a child to be a certain way in relation to their Adult ego state strength. If mother thinks that women should be dependent on men then she may deliver such a “Don’t think” message to her daughter and the girl’s Adult ego state functioning will suffer.

In other cases a father may be insecure in himself and thus becomes competitive with his son. The father’s own Child ego state may be scared that his son will become more successful than he is and thus he can also unconsciously tell the son, “Don’t think” in a whole variety of ways.

An example of this is stroking patterns. One can ask the question, “Did my parents give me positive strokes for good thinking and problem solving? Did they give me negative strokes for thinking or did they give no strokes at all?” This is illustrated in two main ways.

How highly did the parents value education? Was it important for their children to get a good education and go as far as they can or was education derided or simply ignored.

Second, when the child showed mother and father their report card how did the parents respond? If the child got a high mark what was the attitude and comments - were there positive strokes, negative strokes or no strokes at all? Similarly what was the stroking pattern the child received when he got a low mark on his report card.

Positive strokes for good thinking?

Finally some parents in their parenting style will put down the child or vent their anger at the child by denigrating it. This can occur in many areas such as the child's physical appearance, its sporting prowess, its social skills, musical ability and so forth. It can also be at its academic ability or thinking ability. Some parents will directly tell a child that it is stupid or a moron. A boy who is trying to repair his push bike may be simply pushed aside by father who indicates that he is obviously too stupid to be able to make such repairs and does it himself.

Another way the Adult ego state can underdeveloped is due to what has historically been called maternal over protection. In Transactional Analysis terms the mother (or father) does not allow the child develop out of the symbiosis it formed at a very young age with mother. A new born has no Parent or Adult ego states and thus it has to form a symbiosis with mother and ‘use’ hers until it develops its own.

In some cases the mother or father will not permit the youngster to develop their own Parent and Adult ego states. They can do this in a variety of ways.

1. Restriction of the child’s social world. The child is encouraged not to develop friends and out of family contacts. The child may be kept from going to school because he often gets ‘sick’. Indeed when a child develops a school phobia (and refuses to go to school) often that is due to emotional manoeuvring by the mother in the back ground who does not want the child to go.

2. Excessive contact. This can be continuous companionship of mother and child, prolonged nursing care, excessive fondling, prolonged breast feeding, sleeping with mother long past infancy. Highlighting of a special connection or relationship between child and parent. This can even be mildly romanticised and thus one has the development of the oedipus complex and the electra complex.

3. Infantilization. The parent treats the child in the same manner it would a much younger child. This can be in feeding, dressing, bathing, washing, punishing. The mother may dress a 13 year old son or punish him by putting him to bed in the afternoon.

4. Maternal control. This can manifest as either overdomination or overindulgence of the child by mother.

All of these pressure the child to stay childlike and not develop a competent Adult ego state. If a child cannot think for itself then it has to continue to rely on mother to think for it. Thus we have another reason why as an adult a person may find it difficult to stay in their Adult ego state and require Adult ego state strengthening exercises.

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Adult ego state strengthening - Part 2 **

As mentioned in the previous post the Adult ego state is in the here and now whereas the Parent and Child ego states are living in the past. This diagram shows how one can avoid the here and now (H&N).

One way to strengthen the Adult ego state is to practice being in the H&N. The more one gets used to it and the more one does it the more habitual it will become and thus easier to access.

First one does a H&N diary. One gets a note pad and then goes about their day to day business. One can feel bad (angry, scared, depressed, despairing, shame and so forth) because they are reacting to something in the H&N. These are healthy Free Child feelings. One can also feel bad by doing what the diagram shows. They remove self from the H&N by thinking about the future, thinking about the past or thinking about another place. These are considered neurotic feelings because they are not relevant to the H&N. They are self manufactured angst.

Now that is what you call H&N Free Child anxiety!

Every time one feels bad during the day they are to see if they are in the H&N or they have moved out of the here and now in time or place. This is then diarized such that patterns can be identified after a few days or a week of doing this.

When one realises they have moved out of the H&N they then practice moving back into the H&N and thus into their Adult ego state again. This can be done one of two ways.

1. Acknowledging Adult facts. One simply continues to do what they are doing and brings it into the conscious mind.

“I am sitting in my blue chair at work. It is 1.33pm and I had a pie for lunch. I am looking at my computer and it is asking me if I want to buy porn. My co-worker Jimbo is sitting in the next cubicle and is in the process of buying internet porn. I am writing a report on my last client who tried to sell me a years subscription to Readers Digest magazine. ....”

One simply moves into their Adult ego state and observes what is in their current environment and makes note of it in their conscious mind. Some will find this easy to do and can do it for long periods of time. Others will have considerable difficulty maintaining this and will continually slip back into a different time or place and then usually back into some feeling and out of their Adult ego state.

The more one gets used to being in Adult in this way the the more familiar and habitual it will become and thus it is strengthening the Adult ego state. Once done the person diarizes their success or failure at the task and feelings that happened. These are then reported back to the counsellor where patterns are identified.

2. Acknowledging Adult facts about their own Child ego state. In this case the person observes from their own Adult ego state their own Child ego state. For some this will be quite hard to do as it requires the person to get into their Child ego state and their Adult ego state at the same time. In the exercise above the person was only required to be in their Adult ego state and the Child ego state was being ignored.

Instructions for this can be, “Observe and diarize the current state of your body in terms of sensations, soreness, temperature, etc starting from your toes up to your head”.

Or, “Look at the feelings chart and what are you feeling now, what have you felt in the last week and in reaction to what?.

Or, “What makes you feel sad, happy, scared, sexual, angry and so forth?”

In each of these the person is required to firstly get into their Child ego state and then make Adult ego state observations of it and bring those observations into the conscious mind and diarize them. Those with a weak Adult may find this hard but the skill of being able to think (Adult) and feel (Child) at the same time is a most important one to learn and is one of the key factors of a strong Adult ego state.

One would only tend to use this exercise of acknowledging Adult facts about their own Child ego state (exercise 2) when they have shown that they can successfully acknowledge just the Adult facts (exercise 1).

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Adult ego state strengthening **

This post is on the Adult ego state for my Serbian friend Mirko.

This will be a work in progress. I will write some now and then add to it as the days go by and I think of things to say.

The Adult ego state is suggested in many psychological theories as the state of psychological health. In the Adult ego state the person sees the world as it is in the here and now and the person is not reacting to the world as they did when they were a child. (i.e. not in the here and now but reacting in an archaic fashion).

Living in the here and now

As a result many psychotherapies are designed to give the person more access to their Adult ego state. They aim to assist the person to get into their Adult ego state and to stay there. In these approaches awareness is seen as facilitating cure. The assumption is awareness is cure, and thus some fall down a bit on this assumption.

The first and most obvious example is Freud and psychoanalysis. One of the main goals in psychoanalysis is to make unconscious material conscious. For instance through dream interpretation one can access the client’s unconscious. Once done the client can become aware of it (i.e. make it conscious ) and then they will be cured because they will understand the unconscious and can act in a conscious way (the Adult ego state).

CBT is the same. You seek the irrational thoughts or thinking errors and once discovered the person then can think about them and then use certain strategies to nullify them so as to remain in a rational state of mind. With feelings in CBT one thinks about them. What lead up to me feeling this? What irrational thought is underlying the feeling? And so forth. Once discovered one can be in the Adult ego state and fix things and avoid such situations in the future.

Classical TA is all about Adult awareness as well. One analyses games and scripts. Once understood one is more aware of them and thus can choose to stay out of games and so forth.

Whilst there are some significant difficulties with the idea that Adult equals health or cure without a doubt the more one has access to their Adult ego state and can stay in their Adult ego state when under stress the more they are going to deal with difficult situations in a productive way.

People can move out of their Adult ego state in two ways because there are only two other ego states. The Parent and the Child. If the person stops thinking in Adult and moves into the Child ego state that is called regression. The person regresses to an earlier state of being. They start to think and feel like they did when they were 7 years old. They will adopt their old problem solving styles from those early years which most often are not effective and lack logical problem solving.

Regression

The person may also move out of their Adult ego state by moving into their Parent ego state. This is sometimes known as crystallisation, because the persons thinking and problem solving becomes crystalline and thus lacks any flexibility which the Adult ego state think has.

For example, the person may say we drive this way to work because we always drive this way to work on a Monday. This is a Parent ego state solution to the problem of which way to drive to work. It has no flexibility. The Adult ego state solution is, “We drive this way to work today because the man on the radio said the other way has a traffic jam.” It is flexible depending on the current environmental conditions.

In older age when one starts to loose the Adult ego state functions with a bit of dementia people will go either into regression or crystallisation. With crystallisation they can be quite infuriating to debate with because they will not be willing to see any new information or other ways of thinking.

Which ego state?

Of course some people will move out of Adult thinking much earlier in life and start problem solving with regressive or crystalline thinking. This can occur for many reasons and what is required is Adult ego state strengthening exercises. That is ways and means of strengthening the Adult ego state such that the person can maintain it better under stress.

I will outline various ways of doing these over the next few days as I add to this post. But for starters one would usually begin with awareness of the ego states and that can be done with the “Parts Party” exercise.

One gets three pieces of paper and writes Child, Adult, Parent on one of them each. They are placed on the floor. The therapist gets the client to stand on the piece of paper with Adult written on it. They are given something to talk about such as a person, a relationship, a difficulty they are currently having at work. Usually it is related to the reason why they came to therapy in the first place.

I think they are fairly sure to get their wish

When standing on the Adult ego state paper they can only say things from their Adult. If they start talking from their Parent or Child ego states the therapist brings this to their attention and they move to that bit of paper and speak from that ego state that they moved into. They move to the various bits of paper as the exercise goes on and are allowed to only speak from that ego state.

This lets the client get some idea of what the various ego states are like and is allowed to begin to differentiate the three. They start to experience what it is like being in Adult, then Child and then Parent. They get a first hand experience of each ego state.

In addition they may have thought they were being in Adult when in fact they were in Child or Parent. So this can be an ego state decontaminating exercise as well. It will also show the client and the therapist what ego states they are most comfortable with and know the best. If they move onto the Parent piece of paper and find it very difficult to say anything one knows they spend little of their time in that ego state. If they move to the Child ego state and speak freely they are comfortable in that ego state.

After time as the client gets used to this exercise they can begin to correct self. If they are talking in Adult and feel self slip into Child then they can self correct which is the whole idea of Adult ego state strengthening. They begin to get an understanding of what it feels like to move out of Adult into the Parent or the Child and thus they can then self correct. Thus if they are in discussion with someone they can do the same and thus avoid communication difficulties.

One can do this exercise with other ego states like, NP, CP, FC, RC, CC & A.

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