TA. Chapters 4 and 5

Chapter Four: The Adult--The Thinking Me

The Parent, Adult and Child are called “states of the self” or “Ego states” by Dr. Eric Berne.

Ego means “self.”

The Adult is the thinker--the one who gets the facts, learns them, and makes sense. The Adult is like a computer--and the more you use your Adult, the better it functions.

You can learn anything you want to--but the Parent or Child can “mess up” your learning. When this happens, we say the Adult is “contaminated.”

Each person, no matter how old, has a good-sized, efficient Adult. The Adult helps us learn and grow.

Chapter Five: The Child--The Feeling Me

The Child is one of our most powerful parts. The Child feels, but is not strong on thinking or planning. The Child does what it wants without considering the consequences--and this may worry or disgust the Parent and puzzle the Adult.

The Child has three parts:

Adapted

Little Professor

Freechild (Natural Child)

The Natural Child is free--free to laugh, cry, giggle, sulk, be happy or afraid, to love and hate, to be impulsive, to play and have fun. The part of us that freely expresses its feelings like a baby is the Natural Child.

Your Natural Child feels and wants good things RIGHT NOW!! It is very demanding.

 

The Little Professor is the thinking part of your Child and often acts to get what the Child wants. The Little Professor is clever and original. The Little Professor sometimes just knows things without having learned them. The Little Professor’s ability to know things is called intuition.

The Adapted Child is that part of you that acts in response to other people. Part of the Adapted Child is a rebel--this is important for your development as a person--but too much rebellion isn’t good either.

Dr. Berne called people who always try to please others Jerks. They may go through their whole lives trying to please People In Charge and never get to do what they want to do.

The OK Adapted Child learns to get along normally with other people. The NOT Okay Adapted Child is always good or obedient without using his Adult to check things out to see if it is appropriate.

A person who is being mad on the inside and afraid to say it out loud is a Sulk. To stop sulking, you must take the risk and say what is bothering you.

Remember: Your Child is OK--every one of us has all these parts inside us. Our Adult can help us know what to do instead of always pleasing PICs, always rebelling, always being good, or always pouting or sulking.

Exercises

1. A person who always does what he is asked to do in an effort to please important people is called a Jerk.

2. The part of the Child which imagines, invents, is sometimes a smarty, but also gets its own way is called the Little Professor.

3. The Natural (or Free) Child laughs and cries, is angry or happy, has and expresses all kinds of feelings.

4. The Rebel Kid who says NO is part of the Adapted Child.