The Rebellious Child Dance That Destroys Connections

I was reminded the other day of one of the interesting dynamics that we can understand through the transactional analysis, or TA, model.

And this is about the, the pulling effect of different modes or ego states.

So if you're familiar with T- TA, you'll be familiar with the, with the labels parent, adult, and child.

And in fact, you may even be familiar with those and not even realize that that is in fact TA, or transaction analysis.

So the idea here is that we all have within us three, broadly speaking, three ego states: the parent ego state, the adult ego state, and the child ego state.

The adult ego state is the one that is most representative of who we actually are as an adult.

The parent ego state i- tends to be more populated with, um, parental behaviors and modes that we've picked up from our parents or from other parental figures in our lives.

And the child ego state [clears throat] tends to be representative of, um, more what we were like as a child, broadly.

You know, the, the childlike aspects of us as a child.

And, uh, whatever age we are, we have all three.

Although, of course, when we're very, very young, the adult mode is, is, is very unformed.

And for some of us, the adult mode doesn't really get very well formed.

Some of us spend our whole lives in parent or child - either all in child or all in parent, or all in parent and/or child - and some of us are...

Very few of us are always in adult mode, 'cause adult mode is the one where we're completely present, where we're connected with what's actually happening now, what we're experiencing now, and what we experience going on outside of us.

So the adult mode is, in many ways, the most autonomous and, in many ways, the most productive in any kind of tangible, observable way.

Um, so what's the purpose of the parent and child mode in an adult? Well, the purpose of the parent mode is that's the mode that will, um, take care of other people, that will bring compassion, understanding, um, support, containing.

The parent mode is, is really, really important, um, whether, whether as an actual parent of our own children or if we need to parent somebody else, someone else who, who needs that kind of support or containment or guidance.

And the child aspect is vital for an adult person because the child aspect is the aspect that, that can play, that can be creative, that can be, um, free, that can be, uh, ridiculous, that can be imaginative.

All of that, or most of it, is in the child mode.

So we need all three modes.

And when we're in a really good, balanced state, we actually move between these modes in a way that's harmonious for us and that feels good.

So we've got enough free-spiritedness and playfulness and mischievousness.

We've got enough balanced, pragmatic, [clears throat] thoughtful, autonomous, responsible mode.

And we've got enough caring, compassion, guidance for others.

And in fact, people talk about parenting themselves.