Historians may well describe Eric Berne, M.D.
(1910-1970) as the most outstanding contributor to psychodynamic psychotherapy
and psychiatry since Freud. Berne's
contributions were legion. He is best
known for his book "Games People Play" (1964).
Berne developed a set of
teachable principles for conducting psychotherapy. He defined THE UNIT of social action, i.e.,
THE SOCIAL TRANSACTION as being one conversational stimulus and the related
(conversational) response of another person to it. Social relationships were shown as developing
within an extended series of transactions over intervals of time. He described the sequencing of and complexity
of time-structuring (time filling) social activities between people in their
relationships.
With Berne, contractual psychotherapy became an
objective in treatment, i.e. a person would come to a psychotherapist to
get-well of a symptom and the psychotherapist would agree to treat the patient
in order for the patient to get well of that "problem"; this might
include treating the underlying psychopathology which was productive of the
particular symptom. Berne
brought the practice of psychotherapy from being an art to being
scientific. This means that psychotherapy
and its results became measurable, could be accomplished by specific
procedures; AND could be taught by the students of the original teacher to
subsequent second generation students, who could then obtain the same
treatment results as those gained by the original teacher.
In 1955, the cornerstone
paper of Transactional Analysis was first read.
Published in the “American Journal of Psychiatry”, April 1957 it was
entitled "Ego States in Psychotherapy"., Berne, for the first time, differentiated
between the ALIVE SMALL PERSON (set of ego states) in the personality structure
and the ALIVE GROWN-UP person (See Diagram No. 2). AND THEN he went on to
differentiate between the TWO GROWN-UPS (two sets of ego states) inside this
same person. By using this diagrammatic
representation in his treating and teaching Dr. Berne encouraged his patients
and his students to personally apply these diagrams to their own lives. In so
doing he placed the three stacked circle diagram into the public domain. This diagram enabled people
to sort and organize for themselves large amounts of incoming and outgoing
(people) information. This “basic
diagram” (Diagram No. 1) is the familiar Parent Adult Child set of stacked
circles.
The 3-stacked circle diagram is very likely
the single most used, useful and useable tool developed to date in the entire
history of psychotherapy. This diagram
pictured for teachers AND students, for therapists and patient alike, the
(internal) super-eminence of opinionated thinking in each person. It pictured the over-riding nature of (two,
three, and even four) generations-old qualities of thinking and
behaviors. AND it differentially
distinguished this particular, this Parent aspect of the grown up aspect of the
person from that other grown-up quality in the individual, namely the
ADULT. The Adult is the other grown up
who is a continuously updating, computer-programmer, probability
estimator.
Berne's most significant contribution was in
differentiating between the two categories of "Grown-up" inside the
person (Diagram No. 2). Previous to
Berne, there had been no tool available by which to picture and reliably tell
apart: (a) the nurturing-disciplining qualities that make for hominess (also
sometimes called "rigidity-of-character") and (b) the objective,
straightforward, on-the-level, computed thoughtfulness in the same person,
including the acts of reasoning out, reasonableness in behavior and in
personally selecting the best times for the Child in this same person to come
out and “play.” By showing that there is
an aliveness (this is the essence of an ego state) in being objective (Adult)
and an aliveness in the nurturing-disciplining (Parent) functions
within a person, Berne distinctly identified
these two unique major classes of ego states in the person. The Parent
and the Adult were separate entities, differently organized,
separatable personality structures living inside the skin of the same person,
each serving a uniquely different set of functions. Then and only then did it become possible to
validate the authenticity of the childhood manifestations (Natural Child and
Adapted Child) that continue throughout life to show up in each one of us. Then
and only then, after this Parent structure had been differentiated from the
Adult ego state, did it become possible to identify and verify that it is
healthy to keep and nurture and take care of the Child-self within the
person. Then it was possible to see that
efforts to squash out, eradicate, “get-rid-of” childhood traits is not in the
best interest of the person. For example the desirability that fingernail
biting “be gotten rid” of is unsupported by verifiable clinical
information. By sorting the Adult
thinking from the Parent thinking it became possible to define with a very
considerable precision what “social control” means, i.e., personal behavior
controlled by one’s own reasoning Adult.
After Berne had
differentiated the Parent from the Adult, it then became possible to describe
the reasoned desirability for the first order of psychotherapeutic business
to be that of gaining a more objective Adult (vs. prejudiced) control of “The
When and The Where” that the Child inside the person would get his chance, his
turn to “express himself.”
Once the Parent and
the Adult had been separated, then it became clearer how to define when the
Adult of the person would be in the executive, when the Parent would be in
charge, and when the Child self inside the person would have his chance to come
out and show off.
When the Parent was differentiated from the Adult,
then the internal Parent prejudices, which often restrict playfulness, could be
more readily regulated on the basis of reality.
When objectivity was separated from the disciplining
(e.g. “you shouldn't act so childish”) and the nurturing (“Here this is good
for you.”) functions inside, then it became discernible that
at times showing-off is appropriate and that there are times when “giving-yourself-away”
is a good thing (to practice). By the act of evaluating the reality (the
"now-and-here") of the circumstances of a situation, a realistic
decision could be made whether to restrict or expand a show of playfulness for
maximum mileage (S. Freud, Psychic Economy).
When the Parent was separated from the Adult
ego state, then the psychotherapist was enabled to define and identify, for
himself, when he was exercising objectivity in his professional work and when
his preconceived, ready-mix (Parent) thinking was attempting to influence his
work.
When Dr. Berne separated the Parent from the Adult ego
state then, pontifications of the schools of psychotherapy, the dogmas and
indoctrinations of the castles of psychopathology could be recognized for what
they were, fixed opinions.
When these two classes of inside
grown-up persons were separated, then the professional psychotherapist was
enabled (protected) to figure for himself with (his Adult) that the objective
in his work was to get the patient as well as possible, as fast as possible. With this accomplished, then, if "teaching"
were a part of that set of get-well procedures then he might well decide to be
teaching his patient. If the
therapeutic process was enhanced by chalkboards, chalk talks, and (short)
“lectures on theory”, then these would be parts of the treatment process. If
some “weird therapist discovered” how he could prescribe the use of
wall-graffiti in his own office as a procedure for accomplishing treatment
goals, then by sorting his own Parent from his own professional Adult (if he
survived his own internal Parental injunctions against it) then among his
patients he would be able to logically and predictably bring about more
"get wells."
When the Adult was separated from the Parent, certain
stultifying prefatory phrases such as "Well-It-Seems-To-Me,"
"I-Was-Wondering-If," "Had-You-Ever-Thought-That,"
"I-Have-Just-One-Little-Thing-I-Want-To-Say-Before," "Basically
(then)," "To-My-Mind," "I- Don't Consider That," etc.,
were seen as devices, as maneuvers used by the Parent ego state who (knowingly
or not) was seeking to gain compliance or provoke defiant rebelliousness in
the other person. If either of these
latter two (compliance or defiance) resulted, it would reduce the amount of
available thoughtfulness, the amount of spontaneity and the amount of
creativity which that other person would have for the next NOW moment. With the discovery that the alive real
person, the Adult computer-like ego state was a separate entity from the alive
Parent real person, the (protecting) ego state inside the person, then the
"nutty Child" in the individual could become "licensed to stay
alive" along with both "Grown-ups" inside himself, especially if
the Child became "housebroken" (achieved a reality-based control of
self) about when and where he would exercise his unique vivacity and wittiness.
The
Transactional Diagram (Diagram No. 3) was the next step in differentiating
between Adult and Parent.
From this transactional
diagram arose the possibility (not only in therapy but even more so in daily
life, away from the therapy situation) for the particular person to
"get-a-handle-on-his-own-behavior," so that he could be better in
charge of his own life, so that he could proceed on his own, within his
lifetime. This became true not only in psychotherapy sessions, but even more so
in the rest of his own daily life. The
following has been attributed to Dr. Berne : "I think every girl going out
for the evening should take her diagram with her."
When the Parent was
differentiated from the Adult, then it became possible to handle the psychological
invectives of "dependent, aggressive, mature, immature, childish”, etc.
Then the words were seen as being used most frequently by persons who at the
particular moment of using them, had an "angle-in-mind." Concerning
the perennial users of these words, Berne told
us:
"Immature
(that's you): You have more Child
showing than I do.”
"Mature
(that's me): I have less Child showing than you do.”
"Aggressive
(that's you): You have more initiative
than I do.”
"Dependent
(that's you): You have less initiative
than I have.”
"Psychopath
(that's you): You have more courage than
I do.”
"Rigid
(that's you): You have more Parent
showing than I do,” etc.
To
these the author would add:
"Normal (that's me): Hiding my own uniqueness.”
Honor Thy Parent
Parent is a separate and unique set of ego
states in the personality structure of the individual entity. Identifying this
Parent aspect of personality has had a very real and practical set of results
for many people and also allows leeway for the Child’s ego state to come out
and play at times. It allows the Child in the person to have his own legitimate
place within his own living personality structure (See Diagram No. 4).
Prior to differentiating the Parent
(grown-up) from the Adult (grown-up), the childhood qualities (of vibrancy,
buoyancy, creativeness, imaginativeness, and spontaneity) could at almost any
moment in group treatment settings trigger an opinionated (Parental) element
from another person.
That other person may have been tempted to
squash the Child; not recognizing there is a difference between being
objective and of being opinionated about another person’s behavior.
Accounting for such an attempt to squash a Child may not have been evident
prior to differentiating between Adult and Parent.
In “TA” (transactional analysis)
groups, attendees sometimes became so "cocky" and
"self-assured" as to reason they "have the right" to ask
(or tell) the group leader something about himself.
One proof of the validity of the Parent (Third) Circle
becomes evident when a student (or patient) of transactional analysis can matter-of-factly
give his teacher (or therapist) key information in six words: "Sir, I
think that's your Parent.” The information could be operationally useful and
usable by the teacher (or therapist) within less than thirty seconds. (See
Diagram No. 5). A lecturer (or therapist)
may after a moment of thought decide to change himself. He might decide he
wants to change his physical attitude, voice tone, or method of presentation
away from being a “Daddy.” He could then
become objectively more efficient and effective in accomplishing his own task
at hand. Or he could continue, acknowledge the comment and go ahead if he has a
program to use his Parent.
Dr. Berne gave credit in his
writings about the Parent ego state to the earlier works of
Trigant Burrow’s "internalized social images"(1925), Paul Federn’s
"ego states", and Eduardo Weiss’s "psychic presence." It did, however, remain for Dr. Berne
(himself) to grasp the full significance of what was only hinted at by those
earlier three writers. It took the
genius of Dr. Berne to grasp the very large, almost incomprehensibly
significant importance of this third category of ego states represented by the Third
Circle and then to invent his pictorial representation THE
PARENT-ADULT-CHILD DIAGRAM which he gave to the world. This diagram and the phrase “transactional
analysis” became a part of the social lexicon and public domain during his
lifetime. His books “Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy” and “Games People
Play” received world wide acclaim in many foreign languages (100). Eric Berne
M.D. never intended the words “transactional analysis” to be locked up. He
intended them to be used in a generic sense, freely available to all. He was a
generous man.
In this third (Parental) category of ego states are
found the exact replications of the ways of nurturing and disciplining, the
prejudices and opinions of the preceding biological parent, expressed exactly
as they were by the person’s predecessor and felt exactly as they had been by that predecessor who had these
self same "attitudes."
By extension when a person is behaving identical to
his immediate antecedent (Parent) his set of internal feelings will be the same
as those of his biologic parent.
Behaving is a template for emotional feelings. Several professionals have found that by
discerning the Parent in a person it becomes much easier to deduce the plight
of the troubled Child of that same person.
On the other side of events, by seeing the Child of a person in action
it becomes easier to make an educated estimate of what the Parent of the person
is like, what his "Daddy" (Parent self) is doing with his wife and
children at home. The particular person may also come to see that his own Child
self is kept continuingly distraught and/or deprived by his internal Parent
being restrictive. In fact this can be handled by enabling the Adult of the
same person to get stronger. This is to say that when the person’s
intermittently restrictive Parent is a problem along with intervals of Adult
behavior, then the professional may decide to encourage that particular
person’s Adult to come out more by saying “That’s your Adult” during periods of
the particular person’s Adult behavior. No comments need be made about his
restrictive Parent when it is witnessed. When his Adult is identified to him he
will also understand on his own that he is being told that that particular
behavior is desirable.
The principle of reciprocal activation between the
Parent and the Child of the same person is described in Karen Horney’s writings
as "Vicious Circles." (See Diagram No. 6)
One goal
of a professional can be to get the Parent and Child inside a particular person
to decrease “bugging” each other, “egging ” each other on. Having an objective non-partisan person (eg
the professional) in the (mix of events) evens the odds numerically. Before
therapy starts the patient’s Adult has trouble managing his Child and
Parent that are struggling with each other. See Diagram No 6.
The
odds are more even with the professional close by: Adult + Adult vs. Parent +
Child.
The job
is to get the person’s Adult strong enough to “handle” his own Child. Diagram No. 7 shows the therapist’s emphasis
on getting the patient’s/person’s Adult to slow down his Child bugging his own
Parent and the Parents of other people. This is done by energizing / activating the Adult in the
patient/student and securing the participation of the person’s own Adult to
bring about a reduction on one side or the other (or both) of the mutual
(Parent-Child) bugging the particular person carries on within himself AND with
others, especially family members.
Getting well may be accomplished
sooner by asking the identified person what his Adult thinks about his
Parent-Child internal dialogue (circling arrows) transactions. For example by
interrupting a person once every twenty to fifty Parent-Child transactions will
get-on-with the patient/person’s own internal Adult to notice his own internal
Child bugging his own Parent. In
catching one in twenty or fifty, the Adult of the person will be attending much
more to the totality of his own behavior.
Adult “reinforcement” by the
therapist is done by commenting occasionally “that’s your Adult” while
listening to a troubled person.
When a
person is better able to differentiate his own Adult from his Child he will
begin to notice social events he participates in go smoother. His Adult can
count on the reasonableness of the other person coming back to him. But there
will be times when the other person’s “Grown-up” provokes his own defiance.
Then too, there will be times when his own “Grown-up” (Parent) will stir up
defiance or unrealistic compliance in the other person. At this point the
Parent circle of the other person can be identified. See Diagrams 8, 9A, 9B.
Thus a person gets “hooked” on
using his/her own Adult more regularly. He/she gets a better handle on managing
himself/herself by strengthening his/her Adult. With a stronger Adult the
particular person begins to learn some of the “tricks” of his own adapted Child
(being rebellious and/or being a “good compliant Child,” for the moment, in
order to take control of social situations away from his own Adult).
The advantages of having an
inside Parent become clearer, too. The
three stacked circle diagram shows the (continuing) presence of the Parent
inside the person. The Parent offers
protection.
Eric Berne advised newcomers to
transactional analysis: “In respect to the Parent, leave the Parent alone,” this
during his seminars “Introduction to Transactional Analysis” in San Francisco.
A therapist will do better to
leave the Parent of the particular person alone. Often a person feels different when his
Parent is identified. When the Parent is
identified to the person he/she often feels like he’s being scolded for showing
his Parent. Remember this. The Parent-Child dialogue is on-going. By getting
the Child to respect the Parent, the Parent will reduce his own internal
bugging of his own Child. Therefore he
will be taking better care of his Childself.
This does not mean that a person will admit feeling deprived. Identifying a person’s Parent to him may
cause him to break off treatment or to experience feeling like an
orphaned Child. Often identifying a person’s Parent to him is like encouraging
the Child of the person in question to (socially) rebel against his own Parent
(i.e. to act out). Some individuals have been known to go through a panic and
break off treatment when their “Parent” is temporarily “decommissioned” as a
result. Properly timed, however, some people welcome the clarification and new
information.
An individual’s Parent for
practical purposes does not change. As a person gets older he does modify
how he handles situations requiring “social orderliness (discipline).” But this
is to say as experiences multiply, an individual is able to temper his
judgments with more Adult. This is different from “self-reparenting.” This writer has never seen anyone “re-Parent”
himself.
The Parental ego state gives a
person his personal sense of being at home with himself and provides a home for
his/her family.
If “self-reparenting” were a
valid form of parenting, that person would provide a different sense of
hominess for himself and for others around him.
Parent thinking is sometimes
called parametric thinking, i.e., right
or wrong, yes or no, good or bad,
should or should not, black or white, always or never, etc. It is thinking which excludes shadings of
meaning. It is a pre-set style of
“thinking” which provides an (almost) instantly available responsiveness to a
situation of danger or temptation. This
latter (Parent thinking) is quite different “thinking” from "what is the
best solution for this situation that I can come up with, given a moment to
think" (Adult). This Parent
“thinking” is contrasted to (Adult) evaluating of a multi-factored event and
making a decision on the basis of gradations of time, physical properties, continued
unfolding of emotions (in the other and/or the self), which is how his Adult
thinks.
After the person is able
to differentiate his Parent from his Adult, then he is better able to identify
the effect which his own or another person’s Child ego state has previously
been evoking or provoking in his Parent or the other person's Parent. This awareness of becoming provoked is
contrasted to being unaware of having been provoked.
A provocative Child may stimulate the other
person's "concerned" or "righteous" Parent to take the
executive. (See Diagram No.10)
Diagram No. 11 shows how a person can be led
to shut-off or shutdown his objectively assessing Adult and (also) become a setup
to exclude his Child from coming out.
This offers, for example, an explanation
of how, with couples, one member may have caused the other 
person's Parent to become a locked-on Parent and
thus look so very mean in its disciplining Parent state after that same
person’s Child had first been provoked.
This is also the situation of the housebound mother with small children
who has had to lock-up her own Child-self (within herself) all day long while
she is being a real mommy to her own biological children. The Child inside herself may be able to postpone
for twelve hours her own coming out for fun (or to be bitchy or coy) but her
Child self “ain't gonna stay locked up forever.” She can be expected to eventually become
progressively more frantic (or other) if her Childself is not otherwise
entertained.
The
following was heard in group from Tom who was coming to get well of "I
feel awful and you better do something quick." In fact, Tom diagrammed the key transactions
(below) (Diagrams No. 12, 13, 14) of himself for his group to see. Exuberant as a new father: “I’m more of an expert than Lynn (his wife)
in feeding the baby applesauce. The
important thing for me is to have Tina (baby) eat the applesauce. The
important thing for Lynn
is to have Tina stay clean. So Tina eats
for me but won't eat for her mother. I
went home the other night from group and I made a booboo (mistake). I crossed a transaction. Lynn
came-on all shook up, saying: ‘I don't know what I am going to do. She (Tina) just won't eat for me. She wouldn't eat a thing for me
tonight.’ Lynn sounded as if she wanted
me to help her but she didn't ask for help; so I told Lynn ‘Well, now, dear,
the reason she won't eat is because …’ and I gave her the whole story about the
difference between her wanting
to keep the baby clean and me getting a kick out of getting the food in, even
though our baby had applesauce all over herself. I gave Lynn
all the correct information but that wasn't what she wanted. I saw Lynn's
face fall and she went ‘ohhhhhhhhh’.”
“But in a
little while she gave me a second chance. Like she hadn't heard what I'd said
before. She told it all over to me again
just the same as the first time, and then I told her different. I told her, ‘Oh, Wow, that's too bad. Here let me feed her,’ and I started to feed
Tina.”
“My wife felt good, Tina got fed and we were all
happy. I knew better than to cross a
transaction by giving her my Adult so when I saw her face fall, I figured
‘Oh-oh, I better not again.’ That was
her Child all shook-up and what she wanted was an ‘Oh Wow!’ helping Daddy and
so I gave it to her and the baby got fed.
Then I thought, hey, she knew what I was doing both times, her (Lynn's) Adult did.”
The therapist added his
own Adult programmed Parental "WOW!"
to complement and compliment Tom’s exuberant Child; for participating in
his-job-well-done at home with his wife and also exuberantly reporting himself
to his group as being a winner with his wife (“I-Am-OK AND You-Are-OK, too,
Lynn”).
The act of
calling the Parent ego state by name (“that’s your Parent”) is often
(reasonable or not) misunderstood as equating the Parent to being “BAD!” It’s sometimes taken as telling the person to
get-rid-of, shut off showing his Parent.
Very often in transactional analysis groups one of the favorite
recriminations of a "cute Kid" in a therapy group is to tell somebody
else “that's your Parent” as if it was bad to have this third ego state.
If Parental institutions are (prematurely)
lifted, (taken away) in the treatment of a person. His Child may feel left to
his own devices, left with an inadequately prepared Adult, and the Child may
well go “crazy” for an interval of time, i.e. “act out.”
It is good practice to leave the
Parent alone during treatment. Instead strengthen the person’s Adult and get
the Child separated from the Adult. Identifying the Parent to a person is often
not needed at all to get a “cure.” A skilled therapist will introduce the
patient to his Parent only very slowly and then in a manner so as to keep it
available for making for home in the future.
Similarly, the defiant Child of the adolescent
person can often be seen provoking his biologic parent at home into restricting
him (her). This is often in order to provoke the biologic parent to control the
adolescent when the adolescent is not confident of his (her) own ability to
control himself (herself). The Child is checking to determine the strength of
the Parent being able to continue to provide (as with institutions) a home for
this Child, with his newly emerging, bigger, stronger, physical apparatus which
he (the Child and the Adult of the adolescent together) do not yet have skill
at managing. The provoking of the
biological parent by the adolescent very often is done to strengthen his (the
adolescent's) own internal Parent, to define it better, to locate it, to polish
it, and to fill in the lacunae of his own internal Parent from the external
parent person at home who does provide the home. It is a combination of the external
(biological parent) person and the internal Parent ego state of the adolescent
who aids the adolescent's Child in handling the central problem of the adolescent time of life.
When a person with a strong
disciplining Parent can access his other behavior options, he can for example,
ask a rebel student or an acquaintance: “which part of you is trying to
stimulate which part of me?”
The person asking the
question can draw a diagram for everyone to see showing the sequence of
transactions of the two involved. For
example (by using the definition of and the diagram for the Parent ego state)
those persons with "authority problems" who object to
"authoritarian people" can be classified more readily and are seen
more clearly as hooked by and becoming more easily involved in provoking the
disciplining Parent of other people. (Diagram No. 15)
“An authority problem”
is now more simply and clearly classified
(for group purposes) as a disciplining Parent
and a rebel Child hunting for each other in order to
transact with each other (play complementary games with each other).
Once provoked, such a
Parent becomes enmeshed in the childhood (games) organized around the
advantages of the Child’s rebelliousness.
Now however, the group leader
has a new alternative (separation of his Parent and his Adult circles) with the
invention of the diagrammed Parent.
Although angry verbal “confrontations” may continue in groups, a group
leader/teacher now has options whereby he can handle occasional attempts of a
rebellious group member engaging in verbal strong arming, verbal hijacking,
verbal rat-packing, loud mouthing, and fast-tonguing. The rebel Child of a
patient (or student) who intends to provoke the disciplining Parent of the
teacher, group leader, or therapist now has to deal with a person able to
manage himself.
The second circle
(Adult ego-state) enables a teacher or therapist to decide more easily which
path he will take to get his job done, instead of grandstanding and playing "Court Room."
A group therapist of a prison group for example had a new set of
options with the invention of the diagrammed Parent. For example when dealing
with an angry outburst by a group member (who “doesn’t like authoritarian
people”) tried to engage the group leader in a verbal strong arming or
conversational hijacking, the leader could instead of grandstanding, playing
“Court Room”, could now sidestep the use of his own disciplining Parent by
going to a blackboard in the room, draw a picture of three stacked circles and
ask “which part of you (Parent, Adult, or Child) is trying to invite me to be
an ‘authoritarian’ person with you?” With his fellow group members
participating there would be little problem in showing the rebel Child’s
invitations and his pushing on the disciplining Parent of the therapist to
(please) come out and “exercise” with him.
After the actions were diagrammed as Child to Parent, stories of
previous fights with father, teachers, policemen, etc. often tumbled out from
the particular person.
These kinds of (Adult) actions by therapist-teacher have had the effect
of increasing the efficiency of the treatment and/or teaching process and use
of that particular time. Therefore more patients got well faster.
True! And these events became
less entertaining to the group therapist.
CONCLUSION:
To have a defined and diagrammed Parent ego state is to keep it and to use it for the
advantages to self and others. And
getting-well involves having a Parent. What
quality of responses would be the most suitable, most appropriate when
you see a two-year-old child reaching up toward the top of the stove and the
handle of a hot-steaming-boiling kettle (in which hot food is cooking) to see what is making all the bubbling
noises and steam? Similarly, what
would be the most appropriate quality of response when a four-year-old
starts to run across the street darting from between two parked cars into the
lanes of traffic towards an ice cream truck?
Children who live through childhood have experienced an instant
screaming piercing "NO!" which has had the effect on the child's
muscular apparatus of causing a freezing of movement. This (traumatic?) “freezing” might very well
have saved the two or four-year-old's life.
Should
and shouldn't, good and bad, right and wrong; these yes-no, instantly
available, hi-speed responses are the quality of responses, are a part of what
make home for a person; home being a place where protection is provided as
increasing permission is secured or wrested in order to engage in an
ever-widening scope of social activities.
Author has not dwelled here at all
on the other aspect of a person’s Parent. Nurturing and the nurturing
Parent have received more than adequate
attention both in writing and in other media. Saying this here is to
assure the reader that nurturing, both feeding and caring for the Child ego
states are also critically important to a person growing to adulthood AND
afterward, too!
This paper
“Third Circle
– The Diagramed Parent: Eric Berne’s Most Significant Contribution” expands on
the subject first introduced in an article titled “The Diagramed Parent: Eric
Berne’s Most Significant Contribution,” both written by Franklin H. Ernst Jr., M.D. The original paper appeared in the “Eric
Berne Memorial Issue” of the “Transactional Analysis Journal”, Volume 1, Issue
1, January 1971, editor was Warren Cheney.
A copy of the article was also included in “The Fourth Millennium
of the Alphabet”, by F.H. Ernst Jr., M.D., Addresso’Set Publications, Vallejo, California,
1972.
“Ego
States in Psychotherapy” by Eric Berne, M.D., American
Journal of Psychotherapy, April 1957.
“Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy”, Eric Berne M.D., Grove Press, 1961.
Public domain: The generic use of the three-stacked-circle
drawings associated with the words “transactional analysis.”
The three stacked circle diagram helped show,
graphically, a simple idea in 1957 and has been published since in 50 million
copies of “Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy,” in 100 million copies of
“Games People Play,” and other book titles, and 100 million copies of “I’m OK You’re OK” by Thomas A. Harris M.D.,
“Games Students Play” by Ken Ernst, and in the “Handbook of Listening,
Transactional Analysis of the Listening Activity” by Franklin H. Ernst Jr.,
M.D. These drawings have been drawn on millions
of chalk boards all around the world at seminars, treatment rooms, classrooms,
and lecture halls. Berne wrote many other books
never once claiming any proprietary rights over these generic educational
tools. The “International Transactional Analysis Association” published its own
journal for public use for a couple of decades prior to proprietary claims to
the words “transactional analysis.”
The phrase “transactional analysis” was
placed in the public domain, world wide in 1955 and that public domain grew and
grew. There is now a “common language and same meanings of words”; people do
talk to each other. Efforts to discourage the use of the ideas and educational
tools , the educational symbols and drawings of transactional analysis by
monopolistic forces within Transactional Analysis became apparent in the early
1970s.
“self-reparenting”, Muriel James, Ed.D, Transactional Analysis Journal 4:3,
July 1974, page 32.
The central
problem for the adolescent is the almost invariable, intermittent appearance of
transient feelings of un-realness, de-realization, depersonalization, body
image distortions, etc. This central
aspect of adolescence has received almost no attention in the literature to
date. These episodes of adolescent unreality
are caused by two sets of facts:
a. A time lag of
the adolescent's ego state boundaries (and internalized views) in catching up
with his own changing physical body size, height (eg., growing 15" in one
or two years), physical strength and sexual characteristics.
b. The rapidly and
drastically changing quality of stroking coming to him/her from others; i.e.,
father's stop tickling and wrestling with pubescent daughters. A continuation of this topic leads to a
discussion of ego state (boundary) changes and a more extensive treatment of
the subject of biologically-physiologically determined significant time
intervals, i.e., thirty seconds, six weeks, seven years, etc. in a person’s life experiences.
Since Berne discovered the “Third Circle” two more diagrams using
the Parent circle have been created that represent behavior. These two
diagrams are:
a. The Trilog
Diagram as developed by Art Rissman. 
This latter
diagram shows aspects of behavior with their functions (the three circles) more
precisely defined; Adult “think”, Child “play-invent”, and Parent “protect.” It
further defines the different results coming from the internal dialogs and then
resulting in decisions between (1) Parent and Adult (judgment behavior), (2)
Parent and Child (compromising behavior), (3) Adult and Child (alternatives
behavior).
b. The second
major diagram developed after the Parent circle discovery was “the
holes-in-the-head” Parent circle shown here. (See writings by Franklin H.
Ernst Jr., M.D.) In the colloquial this diagram is called the “Termite
Diagram.” It represents the person who has no conscience, has no personal
loyalties that can be counted on, the person without personal values. As
someone once commented “this diagram looks like and shows how a Communist is
put together.” Writer does not know what a Communist is, but did not forget
what the precocious Child of a friend told him.
A “Termite” person has become adept at
keeping his Parent turned off. The holes in the Parent circle show that the ego
state boundary of the Parent has been ruptured, the person “got a lobotomy” on
his Parent.
