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Adult - Ego Structure, Channeling I

"Joan always seems to know just what to do in a crisis. She never seems rattled. I wish I knew her secret!" Perhaps at some point Joan got tire of hearing people tell her to, "Grow up", and did it. The reason her attitude and behavior seem so appealing and calming to others is she achieved what Transactional Analysis calls the Adult Ego Structure.

The Parent Ego Structure typically mimics and copies the behaviors, attitudes, and thinking of parents and other caregivers. This ego state thinks, feels, and behaves as the parent or caregiver would have. The Child Ego Structure replays and relives the emotions, messages, and dramas of childhood in a "Life Script" constructed from introjections, injunctions, and drivers learned as a child. The child ego state feels and behaves in present transactions and situations as if they were a child.

In contrast to these two more wooden and deterministic ego structures, the Adult Ego Structure spontaneously integrates learning and experiences from the present, and lives freely and maturely in the present moment. They live with an openness and awareness to the "here and now". It has been said the Parent Ego state comes from what is taught, the Child Ego from what is felt, and the Adult Ego state from what is rationally thought and integrated into present experience.

The Adult Ego structure is seen as the desired goal of personal development. It is seen as free from the interference of negative injunctions of past significant parental figures, or the irrational and unproductive emotional responses of the Child Ego state. The Adult Ego structure is able to respond as an autonomous and healthy individual, and negotiate productively the current reality. Dressed in a business suit or blue jeans and shirt, it may appear "calm, cool, and collected", while all about them others are "losing their heads".

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