You might have heard about the Inner Child, but Eric Berne’s Theory reveals the other 2 internal ego states, which make the picture whole.
When I first learned about Eric Berne’s Theory it didn’t spark any kind of joy nor too much interest. Mainly, because the Term “Transactional Analysis” reminded me a lot of my previous economic education from which I was trying to further away. Down the road, I started hearing more about a type of spiritual work involving the “Inner Child”. This idea won me over, as if a part of me desperately wanted to be heard and understood. Researching on the subject, I came across Berne’s Theory again. This time it all made sense, adding the missing puzzle to the human psyche.
Since then, I have been using this Method in my work as an Emotional Growth and Integrative Coach. I’ve been helping clients gain a better view of their own internal world and bring about the clarity and coherence needed to understand their impulses and emotions.
Without further ado, allow me to walk you through the brilliant discovery of the American psychologist, Eric Berne, as I came to comprehend it.
Sneak peek into the theoretical background of that time
Freud’s contributions
Many theories have tried to explain the human behavior before Eric Berne, but none outclasses that portrayed by Sigmund Freud. In the early 20th century, Freud came up with a new perspective on personality. He saw it as being multifaceted, or simply put, having more than one faces or parts. The interactions and clashes between the internal divisions externalize as the emotions, thoughts and actions of each individual.
Freud identified 3 different aspects of the personality working together to manifest the complex human demeanor. The three components were Id, seen by Freud as the irrational or emotional part of the mind, the Ego perceived as the rational aspect and Superego, the moral component of the mind, that encompasses the parental and societal values. Freud thought that mental wellbeing manifested when the 3 states were aligned, balanced, and working together harmoniously.
Eric Berne took up Freud’s view of the 3 distinctive factions and further honed it. In Berne’s Model the 3 components are no longer abstract concepts and theoretical states, but realities that can be observed and measured through specific behaviors (like words, body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc.).[1]
The Neurobiology of Memory
Another remarkable scientist that inspired Berne’s work is Dr. Wilder Penfield, a neurosurgeon from McGill University in Montreal. During many years, Dr. Penfield carried out experiments focused on the study of the human brain. He noticed an interesting reaction when stimulating temporal lobes of conscious patients.
As a side note, the temporal lobes sit behind the ears, and they are processing sensory inputs – specifically auditory and visual information. They are also responsible for memory encoding and it’s assumed they play an important role in processing emotions and language. In other words, the temporal lobes receive the visual and auditory stimuli from the exterior. They store data internally, together with the emotion felt in that moment, thus making the memorization process very efficient.
Dr. Penfield significant additions
Along these lines came Dr. Penfield discoveries, after many years of research. He noticed that by stimulating the temporal lobe of the brain with electric current, patients would replay meaningful memories from their past. Memories which otherwise wouldn’t have been able to recollect on their own. Moreover, when remembering events from their past, patients would feel the same way as they did in those specific moments.
Some of the pivotal results reveled in his research, that have deeply influenced Berne’s development of Transactional Analysis Theory, were the following:
- The human brain is accurately recording events, just like a video camera. The recordings exist in the brain, even though the patients might not be able to retrieve them consciously.
- Both the recollections of the event and the feelings experienced during that event are stored in the brain. The two elements act as if they are locked together and can only be brought to mind as a whole.
- People can be in two states at once. Individuals replaying certain events from the past are able to relive the emotions associated with those events. At the same time they can objectively observe themselves and talk about the events and feelings recalled.
These contributions helped Eric Berne lay the solid groundwork of his methodology.
At the core of his Theory was a transaction, the fundamental unit of social interaction. Transactional Analysis is the method for studying interactions between individuals.
The Beginnings
In the early 1950s, the Canadian-born Psychiatrist, Eric Berne, was practicing his profession in the small and picturesque village of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. Treating hundreds of people, he noticed how his patients could and would change over the course of a conversation. The changes would be verbal, but could also involve facial expressions, body language, body temperature, and other non-spoken cues.
These changes would not be random, nor illogical. Most importantly would have common elements among different people. In one of his counseling sessions, Berne treated a 35-year-old lawyer who was referring to himself as a “little boy”. He would often ask his therapist if he was talking with “the lawyer or the little boy”. That made a lasting impression on Berne, who was captivated by the fact that a person can be in “two states of being” at once, one of which acted as an inner child. He named the two States Adult and Child. He later identified the third state, the Parent, that seemed to represent what the patient had observed in his parents when he was a kid.
Focusing on his other patients, he realized that it applied to each one of them. What Freud predicted years ahead confirmed, though Berne was about to unveil a way to practically distinguish the 3 ego states.
The 3 States of the Ego
Usually, we present ourselves to the world as a unite and singular identity using, for example, our names. We resort to these kinds of conventions for the sake of simplicity. But, the truth is we are way more complex than that. Especially when we find ourselves at a loss, totally confused and stuck, we might feel as if parts of us are totally distinct and pulling in different directions. We are not wrong at all. There are at least 3 distinct parts, meaning we experience at least 3 states of being.
Our Child State (the Inner Child)
Turns on when we feel vulnerable, we are learning new things, when we are nervous or scared. Basically, when we sense we don’t have what it takes to handle a situation on our own and we need some guidance and/or protection. It is also present when we feel free, when we are full of joy, creativity, and love for life. Being so raw and pure, the inner child state is the symbol of our Emotional Self. It forms during our first 5 years of our lives, by recording the internal happenings, namely the feelings and emotions which accompanied the external events of that time.
Bear in mind that the rational thinking of an individual is formed after the language acquisition. Stated another way, a person gains the capacity “to think” after they learn how to speak, as the thought process is based on words (internal discourse). What that means is that a child’s brain absorbs the information as a sponge, without much filter or control. The data is stored in the brain and becomes an automatism.
The Parent State (the Inner Parent)
Appears simultaneously with the Child Self. When we are triggered and feel exactly as we did in childhood, we automatically try to tend to and soothe our inner child. And we do it the same way we saw our parents (or Parental figures) had done when we were little.
Thus, the Inner Parent represents an extensive compilation of recordings in the brain of external events. Meaning acts of the parents or individuals responsible for the child, experienced and perceived in the first 5 years of life. The same time range as the Child registrations. Just like in the Child Mode, the recording of data happens without question or analysis.
The Adult State (the Inner Adult)
Is present when we stop and think before we talk. When we observe ourselves and our urge of having a reaction. Yet we choose to take a deep breath and refrain from action, until the emotional intensity fades away. Then we contemplate our different options and take a decision. This is not an easy state to reach. Nor is it the one we can access most of the time, as I will explain in a bit.
Inner Adult is the most complex of the 3 ego states. It forms in early childhood and evolves continually during adulthood. Around the first year of age, the child shows basic motor activity and learns to control small objects, like the cup from which they drink, their toys. They learn to interact with others, by playing, for example, peek-a-boo. These basic signs of autonomy are the beginning of the Adult in the small child.
Inner Adult’s role
Adult data grows out of the child’s ability to see what is different than what he or she observed (Parent) or felt (Child). In other words, the Adult allows the young person to evaluate and validate Child and Parental data.[2] Berne describes the Adult as being “principally concerned with transforming stimuli into pieces of information, and processing and filing that information on the basis of previous experience”[3] Explained another way, Harris describes the Adult as “a data-processing computer, which grinds out decisions after computing the information from three sources: the Parent, the Child, and the data which the adult has gathered and is gathering”[4]
The main role of the Adult is to validate the data in the Parent State, based on the emotions observed in the Inner Child. The validation process consists in becoming aware of the automatic responses (reactions to our feelings) in the Parent Mode; testing to see if they still hold true in the present; reaffirming them if they still do or changing with an updated and efficient version in case they don’t.
Our mind is a brilliant Operating System and we are the programmers
The human psyche is extremely efficient. What we usually consider as bad or annoying – the patterns we employ subconsciously – are, in fact, a brilliant part of a performant operating system.
Imagine a person learning how to drive a stick shift. At first, she needs to be attentive and aware of all her actions: turning the ignition key, pressing the brake, positioning the gear shifter in the first gear, removing her foot from the brake pedal, and placing less pressure on the clutch with other foot, releasing the clutch, and finally pressing the accelerator. Not to mention she has to focus on the road, other cars, traffic lights, etc. She will most likely drive slowly and won’t be able to focus on many other things. Nevertheless, in time, all these repetitive elements will become her second nature. She won’t think as much at the driving itself, though she will become better driver by the day.
Being in the Adult State for long periods of time is consuming and literally impossible. The automatization saves us precious energy and time. What the Adult mode brings to the table is the capacity to revise the line codes of our internal programs (the Parent). And the chance to rewrite them in line with present reality. In a way that secures and calms our Inner Child.
Sounds like becoming the Authors of our lives, doesn’t it🤔 ?
References:
[1] Eric Berne affirmed this best in his book Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy: “It will be demonstrated that Parent, Adult, and Child are not concepts, like Superego, Ego, and Id, or the Jungian constructs, but phenomenological realities.” Freud would study the 3 states by asking the patient to describe them, while Berne would observe the behaviors.
[3] Berne, Eric. Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy. Page 15.
[4] Harris, Thomas A. I’m OK – You’re OK. Page 32.
