In our article last week, we started to get to know the concepts of TA closely. We talked about what contact messages are, their types, and ways to gain positive contact messages. This week, I would like to explain the Parent Ego State, which we briefly mentioned earlier, to you a little more. Have a nice read..
According to Eric Bern, the creator of the TA concept, there are three lower selves in every person without exception. These lower selves, called ego states, can be defined as the manifestation of a series of emotions, thoughts and behavior patterns in the personality of the individual as a result of certain events. In other words, we can say that there are three separate parts of our personality that have different emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Understanding these concepts allows us to gain insight into the structure of thought and emotion behind our own and others' behavior. We think and act according to these three self-structures; therefore, we meet the transactions we make during the day from our three lower selves to that moment and with our ego state, which we think is most suitable for communication. Precisely for this reason, Ego States are one of the most basic concepts of TA. Eric Berne has named these three sides in us Parent, Adult, and Child. The formation and behavior patterns of each are different from each other.
Parental Ego state is the result of our parents or caring parent figures in our early life (roughly the first 5 years) It consists of patterns of emotion, thought and behavior that we observe and record in our minds. We call these patterns parent records. Parental records are taken and internalized without being edited or questioned by the individual. This is because we believe that these records come from a reliable source rather than being judged as good or bad. At the same time, since they are the first records of our lives, we copy and involuntarily imitate them. Over time, we adopt these behavioral patterns and realize that we react to certain events and situations like our parents, or that we sometimes approach others the way our parents treated us. In other words, how to talk about our parents, laugh, get angry, how to react to which situations in the first years of our life. We learn to move forward, to be kind, calm, cold-blooded, energetic or hopeless, to be a wife, to be a parent. In short, we learn to live and become an individual by internalizing our parents' feelings, thoughts and behaviors. By recognizing the Parent in our own selves, we can find the reasons for our automatic reactions and internalized behaviors to certain events, and by increasing our control over our behaviors, we can enter into a healthier communication with ourselves and our environment. I wish you healthy and happy days.
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