Personality executive, Jailer or Change Agent III

Suppose the man says he’s interviewing people for a higher level position and he moved the meeting to lunch to get a more honest and less scripted answers. A change agent would consider this admission against other information and decide whether or not he is honest.

A change agent doesn’t have to accept the information, but can factor it into a larger array of facts.

A jailer on contrast applies a filter of existing assumptions and opinions and uses the information to validate the opinion that he is cheating. The jailer could use this information as an admission that he knows the female from work, and thus is more likely to be cheating with her. The woman accuses her boyfriend of cheating and filters all defenses as “he protests too much, so he must be guilty”. The man leaves because he can never be trusted and thus loved. She is then alone and unloved, just as the jailer said she should be.

The individuals in both cases have chosen to believe what the jailer says. They could not evaluate any evidence as contrary. In the real world, living with a jailer as a personality executive can require incredible feats of mental gymnastics to make all the pieces fit to create the reality the person believes. Conspiracy theories of vast dark forces seeking to harm or hurt one person fit this model.

When someone believes in a shadowy and convoluted conspiracy about someone’s death or a government decision, it is common to assume that they are crazy. When someone filters all information against an assumption and refuses to see the innocent truth, it is a sign that a jailer is their personality executive, leaving them to live in a world that often resembles that which they assume because their actions make it so. Only by changing the personality through transactional analysis and personal awareness do they gain hope for a happier, healthier life.

(continued from part II)