Transactional Analysis - Constancy Hypothesis

This blog comes from Ajit Karve, a Transformational TA Coach
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Constancy Hypothesis

A tool and method for prioritising change

John Dusay suggested that the psychic energy distribution across the personality system of an individual is constant, because it is a closed system. As such if one aspect of personality is improved, it will as a consequence affect other parts of personality.  Therefore one should engage in activities that will improve a certain functional ego state. It will as a consequence change the relative strengths of other functional ego states. 

The amount of time spent in one functional ego state is a determinant of the energy allocation to that egostate*.

Example: My ego-gram showed that my CP and AC were high and NP and FC were low. I actively participated in yoga exercises, swimming and dance classes. I also ate my food slowly and deliberately spanned over half an hour. In three months time my profile underwent change. My FC increased, NP increased and CP and AC came down. I did nothing to bring down my CP. To the contrary I participated in activities to increase my FC, as a result the NP increased and CP and AC came down.

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Constancy hypothesis is also a useful tool when it comes to classifying, prioritising and actioning tasks and goals. It can be used in daily work planning. List the tasks. Give them marks 0-10 in terms of importance, urgency and time consumption. Total and average them. Now list them from low to high scores. Do the low score ones first. It will be noticed that the pendency list has dropped substantially and it has become easy to complete the difficult tasks. It can be used in self therapy and counselling as well.

*Note: Constancy Hypothesis in psychology refers to the contention that there is a strict one-to-one correspondence between physical stimuli and sensations. This means that the same stimulus will result in the same sensation regardless of the circumstances. Gestalt psychologists debate this contention. They say that the sensation that a stimulus elicits, depends on the activity of the brain in the moment prevailing.

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*Egograms by John Dusay pg. 145