Ego States

Eric Berne was a Canadian Psychiatrist that created  transactional analysis. While based on Freud's work if differed vastly.

He believed that by studying the social interactions of clients and looking at their upbringing he could help us discover the unconscious life script we all tend to follow.

We do not play zero sum games with complete winners and losers. Berne suggested that we all get a payout. Even those that would be considered losers get the payout of living in their damaging social roles where they keep themselves trapped.

We have all had some kind of experience of parenting. We might have had a loving set of parents, a single parent, mean abusive parents, absent parents, being raised in the system or raised by wolves. It all goes towards our life experience.

There are mature and immature parents. We can see the word mature with a meaning related to age but as you probably know, wisdom (and maturity) does not always come with age. 

Being mature means that you are willing to accept responsibility for your own life. It doesn't mean that you have to be uber serious and dull.

Berne set out three ego states:

The Parent:  we model ourselves on our parents.

The Child:  we resort back to or regress to a child like state.

The Adult:  our behavior is based on logic and learning from past experience.

Immature parents who are bossy and controlling may very well raise kids that go on to be your horrible boss. They learned that from their parents. Everyone sees their childhood as being their "normal" until they know better and even when they do know better they may still see other childhoods as being wrong.

Parents look after other people and have the 'I'm above you' and know best way of thinking to their kids and even to other adults. This is what the horrible boss or stubborn control freak will grow up to do. 

Some people raised in the system or by unloving parents often want for others what they have never had and go on to work for child charities or adopt or foster children. Their own emptiness motivates them rather than what their parents did or how they behaved.

I myself raised my children with what my own parents did not do as a model.

One given is: Our patterns of behavior are learned. They aren't set in stone. Remember Neuroplasticity? 

The child ego state has adults regressing to childlike behavior. You can see this in temper tantrums when they don't get their way, like not getting a promotion or their sports team or political candidate losing.  Even angry violence is quite childlike. 

I just watched a video of a Bernie Sanders supporter so full of butthurt that they actually voted for Trump out of spite against Hillary for being the democratic nominee. Sulking is something many children excel at. 

My ex "Tanya" would wear me down by repeatedly asking me the same question even after I had said "no!" Very much like a child that wants a toy in a shop. Eventually you just give in to shut them up. If they know it works then will just keep doing it. 

When someone that leans towards the child state gets talked down to they remember those times from their childhood and can often go into the nervous, fidgety deer in the headlights mode. 

The adult state is probably the best state to be in. It's a growth mindset of learning from 'evidence' or your experiences from past events. You use logic and commonsense. This ego state is the most mature.

It's out past that informs our present.

When you are tired and stressed, or in fight or flight mode, think about which state you tend to gravitate towards.