Transactional Analysis Theory and Practice: TA Theory of Personality Overview

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Personality Theory Overview

TA Theory of Personality uses the PAC model of personality. PAC stands for Parent, Adult Child. They are names for three types or sets of ego states. Ego states are psychic entities. They represent behaviourally distinguishable ways in which we manifest as persons psychologically. Parent, Adult and Child are 'sets' of ego states. Therefore, circles are used to represent them. A diagram of three stacked circles is used to model personality.  It is called 'the structural model of personality' to distinguish it from other models of personality. A sheath around the three ego states represents personality. This is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1.

TA practitioners are at pains to ensure that the circles are neither overlapping nor separated from each other. If they do, they represent personality anomalies.

Parent, Adult and Child are collective nouns like crowd and flock. They are singular nouns representing many ego states of their class. They are therefore first letter capitalised when referring to ego states.

Three sets of criteria are used to distinguish each type of ego states from the other two. They are:

1. Method of perception, evaluation, assessment and response.

2. Patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour, and attitude.

3. From whom sourced and its historical epoch.

Descriptions of Parent, Adult and Child ego states based on these three criteria are given here:

Parent ego states: Parent ego states are sourced from one's parents and parent figures. Their contents date back to the age when they were incorporated into the personality structure. They resemble the perceptions, evaluations, assessments and responses displayed by parents and parent figures vis-a-vis people and reality situations. They represent parent like thinking, feeling, and behaviour patterns and attitudes.

Adult ego states: Adult ego states are contemporary ego states. They represent autonomous data processing based on past experience. They represent age appropriate, mature, well thought perceptions, evaluations, assessment of persons, situations and reality and responses thereto. They represent thinking, feeling, attitude and behaviour of a person who dispassionately views reality and show up as attributes matching person of a given age, education and upbringing.

Child ego states: Child ego states are historical ego states. They are childhood relics from one's own past that have survived into adulthood. They represent childlike, usually emotionally loaded perceptions, evaluations, assessments of people, situations and reality and responses thereto. They represent thinking, feeling, attitude and behaviour from one's own childhood. They are archaic relics. They are therefore ineffective  in dealing with adulthood situations. 

The manifesting features of Parent, Adult and Child are given here to distinguish each of them from the other two:

Parent ego states resemble patterns of thinking, feeling, attitude and behaviour resembling our parents and parent figures. These show up when we are controlling, helping or guiding others.

Adult ego states resemble patterns of thinking, feeling, attitude and behaviour that is thought occupied, mature, objective and practical.

Child ego states resemble patterns of thinking, feeling, attitude and behaviour that is childlike, loaded with feelings, characterised by being extreme (good-bad, acceptable-denied) and lacking shades of grey.

Pearl Drego says that "Berne's discovery of ego states was the beginning of a new paradigm of personality". Eric Berne has not only used it to map personality in a new way, he has also used it to demonstrate that most human problems - those of 'mental afflictions', of human behaviour, ability of people to manage themselves and others, ability to end situations, solve problems, overcome difficulties and cope with challenges - originate in dysfunctional personality structures, and not in the mind. It helps us to realise that though our expression, demeanour and behaviour may not be acceptable, we as persons are fit to be loved, accepted and regarded as worthy of esteem, value, worth, dignity and respect.

In Berne's time  energy theory was in vogue. Ego states were therefore treated as psychic entities in the classical theory.  New views have developed since then. In recent times operations of the psyche are explained in terms of memory systems, and on the basis of neurological networks and pathways. Scientists at the 'Blue Brain Project' claim that the brain generates neural structures of upto eleven dimensions to perceive. These and similar other modern findings add to our understanding about how our mind and brain works, and the role of personality in that regard.

A Historical Perspective: Ego states are states of the Freudian ego. This ego is a higher organ of the mind much the same way as the brain is a higher organ of the body. When ego is affected mind is affected. As a result the mind's capacity to understand, interpret and respond to reality is affected. Sigmund Freud examined how the ego worked. Paul Federn a pupil of Freud added a new dimension to this enquiry. He enquired how the ego felt. Thus was born ego psychology. It examined the states of the mind, the states of the ego or the ego states. Eric Berne was an analysand of Federn. He trained in psychoanalysis under him. He found that three types of ego states can be distinguished by self examination. 'Child' represents ways in which an individual now feels and responds matching those of a certain period of his childhood. 'Adult' represents responses made after careful appraisal of reality as opposed to a childlike response. 'Parent' represents ways a person feels and reacts resembling one of his parents in similar conditions or situations.

An Example: A grown up secretary of our housing society severely reprimanded a watchman at the gate one day for not being around when a stranger sneaked into the society premises. (This was from the secretary's Parent, much the way his father did). He reported this to his close friends the next day as fact. (This was from his Adult). He said I was not my usual self when I scolded him. He is also mortally afraid of his 60 year old mother. He has grown in age, but the fear of his mother is the same as it was when he was ten years old. (This is his Child showing up).

Events leading to the discovery of three ego states: Two eminent figures, Wilder Penfield a neurosurgeon, and Paul Federn a psychiatrist had come to the conclusion that psychological reality is based on complete and discrete ego states. Eduardo Weiss an associate of Paul Federn built upon Federn's ego psychology. He described an ego state as "the actually experienced reality of one's mental and bodily ego with the contents of the lived-through period". Ego States constitute an unit of a person's experience that are 'recorded whole'. They are preserved in a latent state. They get activated under suitable conditions such as in hypnosis. Weiss had identified that an individual's response may be determined in one of these ways, either by the infantile ego state(s) or by current ego state(s) or by a psychic presence. What Eric Berne did was to generate a model of personality based on observability and phenomenology. He also provided names to these entities. This was a major shift from the then prevailing understanding of ego states in purely conceptual terms.

Dr. Wilder Penfield (b1891-d1976) was an American-Canadian Neurosurgeon. Penfield used conscious human subjects to prove that on touching a part of the brain's temporal cortex with a weak electrical probe, the brain could be caused to 'play back' certain past experiences, along with feelings associated with them. The patients 'replayed' these events and their feelings despite not normally being able to recall them using conventional memories. Detailed findings of Penfield are mentioned in 01.11 see here.

Many clinical cases helped Eric Berne to conclude that there are three ego states. A lawyer client of Berne, bearing pseudonym Segundo, told him that many times he felt that he was not a lawyer. He felt that he was a little boy. He related to Berne a childhood story about his visit to a ranch. He told Berne that he helped a stable assistant to unsaddle a horse. The assistant said to the young eight year Segundo "Thanks Cowpoke". To which Segundo replied "I'm not really a cowpoke, I'm just a little boy." This patient also related to Berne many other incidents. They got Berne to conclude that one part of him handled reality rationally, like when he was in the court vigorously arguing cases of his clients. There was this other part that surfaced in a childlike way  (archaic) when he gambled at the casino and explained away his losses in a convincing way. Later in therapy Berne found that certain of Segundo's attitudes did not belong to either the Child or Adult. They belonged to a third ego state which reflected parental prejudices which he called the Parent. This lawyer was at times stingy and adopted miserly ways to achieve penny-wise prosperity. At other times he handled money with a banker's shrewdness, foresight and success. At still other times he had fantasies to give it away for the good of the community, much the way his father did.

All three ego states are valuable to make a meaningful appraisal of reality. A healthy personality displays a robust Adult, supported by an acquiscient Free Child and a permissive Parent. Such a person has Adult consciousness, and is able to deal with reality using age appropriate Adult capacities after conducting Adult Reality Testing.

TA Theory of Personality tells us about human personality in many ways. The contents of TA Theory of Personality have been organised under eight topical heads. They are:

1. Structural Models of Personality: Three models of personality structure - the first, second and third order models - help to understand personality in depth.

2. Functional Model of Personality: The functional model puts forth our personality based on the descriptive aspects of personality components - functional ego states. They tell us know how ego states manifest in terms of our behaviour.

3. Diagnosis of Ego States: Ego State Diagnosis helps  practitioners  to identify which ego state is active in the moment prevailing.

4. Egograms: Egograms are bar diagrams which help to map the inter-se distribution of psychic energy across five functional ego states.

5. Constancy Hypothesis: This tells us how we can organise and prioritise change.

6. Psycho-pathology: Psycho-pathology explains the types of mind related afflictions in terms of structural and functional pathology.

7. TA Energy Theory: The Energy Theory provides insightful understanding related to activation of ego states and how the executive power shifts in response to stimuli.

8. Structural Analysis: Structural Analysis is the first stage in treatment. It concerns the segregation and separation of ego states and strengthening Adult ego states to support social control.

An understanding of human personality in general and of our own personality in particular certainly helps to understand ourselves better. It helps us to become aware of why we think, feel and express, act and behave in the way we do.  It also helps us to understand how we happen to perceive, evaluate and assess reality with shift in place, time, event, role, condition and circumstances with regard to the same person. It is because of taming. Berne calls human beings tamed animals. In tamed animals the controls operate from within, as opposed to trained animals, in whom controls operate from outside. Thus, most controlling mechanisms affecting our thinking, feeling, and interpretations of reality are triggered from within us as a result of taming.

Note -1

Berne explains the manifestations of personality components on the basis of phenomena, organisers and determinants. The three ego states extero-psychic (Parent), neo-psychic (Adult) and archeo-psychic (Child) are phenomena; and their corresponding psychic organs - extero-psyche, neo-psyche and archeo-psyche are organisers; the determinants organise programming that influence both organisers and phenomena. Archeo-psyche is the organiser of indigenous biological forces; Neo-psyche is the organiser of data processing and experience based probability programming. Extero-psyche is the organiser of incorporated external canons - body of rules and principles.  The organisers (psychic organs) on their part perform two functions - one to organise determinants into effective influences and the other to organise the phenomena. Determinants establish programming. They influence the organisers and thereby the phenomena. Indigenous biological forces cause internal programming. Autonomous data processing based on past experiences cause probability programming. Incorporated external canons cause external programming. Thus eighteen combinations are possible. Each of the three ego states can and do influence the manner in which the activation of the other two ego states happen.

Note -2

Freudian concepts of Id, Ego and Superego are presented here as put forth by Berne.

Id: It contains everything that is inherited. It is present at birth in a person's constitution. Id expresses as instincts, urges, drives and impulses that originate in the somatic organisation.

Ego: It aids being aware of external stimuli, storing their experiences, avoiding excessive stimuli, dealing with moderate stimuli, and performing the task of self preservation. It also controls Id impulses by postponing satisfaction to more favourable times and circumstances in the external world or by suppressing the excitation completely.

Superego: This is a special agency within the ego formed during the long years of dependence on parents. In it are deposited the precipitates of parent influences together with racial, national and family traditions handed down to children through them. 

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