But, in fact, over these last few weeks, there has been a flood of transactions with individuals and groups with viewpoints different from mine.
This led to a simple-minded, intuitive imagining of two then three then four types of minds and of being in the world.
The two types:
ONE: the serious and responsible leaders and shepherds; the good and the great; the elders and betters; the shakers and movers; the productive entrepreneurs; the priests and emperors with divine rights. Their casual chat revolves around sex, politics and religion – except when such topics are taboo. The rich and ruling elite read quality newspapers and drive expensive cars.
TWO: the frivolous and irresponsible sheep; the poor and vulnerable who will be with us always; the salt of the earth; the cannon fodder; the dedicated followers of fashion; the wage slaves. Their casual chat revolves around wine women and song (aka sex and drugs and rock and roll). The workers read tabloid newspapers and drive cheap cars or use public transport.
Thus had it always been. The metaphor is of society as a family where a few parent types (God Kings) make decisions on behalf of the teeming throngs of children who do what they are told. Myth and magic flourished during the ancestral foraging stages and into the settled agriculture and monument building city states that followed.
The three types:
And then came the 1960s. The two category model (parent, child) became three category (parent, adult, child) and the notion of Transactional Analysis (TA) was born. Two best selling paperbacks by renegade psychiatrists set out the main line of thought.
- Eric Berne (1964) Games People Play – the psychology of human relationships
- Thomas Harris (1967) I’m OK – You’re OK – the Transactional Analysis Breakthrough that’s changing the consciousness and behaviour of people who never before felt OK about themselves
Broadly speaking our behaviour is either reactionary and instinctive or consciously chosen. When we instinctively react, we are in one of two ego states – Parent or Child. The third ego state is Adult, in which we recognise our options and decide how to behave. Games are the patterns of transaction played out by people in the different ego states. (see box).
In parent mode we mimic the behaviours and sentiments we saw in our parent figures. Parents can be Critical or Nurturing. In child mode we think and behave as we learnt to as children. Children can be Free or Adapted.
In adult mode we consciously choose how to respond to events and we understand what the consequences may be. This is empowering because it opens doors to many possibilities and lets us recognise our part in our life’s events. It means that we can learn from the past to build a better future, rather than blaming the past. As Holden (2013) notes, “Being Adult doesn’t mean being sensible and boring all the time, it means being aware. Sometimes an adult will choose to follow the promptings of their Parent or Child, because their instinctive response is good, if not superior, to other options.”
A lot has changed in the last 50 years. Two main lines of thought come to mind.
In the field of behavioural psychology (and economics) Daniel Kahneman in 2011 wrote about “Thinking Fast and Slow”. He recognises System 1 and System 2. System 1 is fast, intuitive and can be seen as linked to the parent and child modes of TA. System 2 is slow and rational and appears linked to the adult mode of TA.
The four types:
There is a key feature of the Adult mode of those two lines of thought. It involves a deeper, wider and more accurate ‘awareness’ of what is going on in your external and internal (physical and psychological) environments. It might be argued that we are at a turning point and moving to a widespread, mature awareness of what is going on. Details of our “Big History” are now freely available on the internet.
BUT – what is not so well appreciated is the paradigm shift in ‘agency’ about what and how to think and feel. The rallying call for the new way is ‘mindfulness’. And the new practice is to transcend the heady intellectualism of fast and slow and to ‘be still’. The workings of the unconscious can then help us realise the no-self (the non-egoic state) and thus to transform our way of ‘being’ in the world. This suggests a progression from two types of intuition through rational to mindful
CHILD PARENT ADULT SAGE
References:
Holden, Catherine (2013-01-09). The Ego States (Transactional Analysis in Bite Sized Chunks)
http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/
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