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| Ego States (Co-creative personality) The notion of an integrated Adult ego state was first suggested by Berne (1961/71a): ?anyone functioning as an Adult should ideally exhibit three kinds of tendencies: personal attractiveness and responsiveness [pathos], objective data-processing [logos], and ethical responsibility [ethos]; representing respectively archaeopsyche, neopsyche, and exteropsyche elements "integrated" into the neopsyche ego state, perhaps as ?influences?? (p.195). This idea is developed in the structural model of ego states based on Erskine's (1988) interpretation of Berne. This model serves as a useful basis for a co-creative approach because of its clear distinction between Adult integration and fixated archaic responses. Integrated Adult is distinguished from introjected Parent states and fixated archaic Child ego states. Parent and Child ego states are patterns of relating employed in and out of awareness as defences against Adult integration. We therefore consider Parent and Child ego states to represent fixated creative adjustments that have been developed earlier in life and are pathological in so far as they are compulsively used in the here-and-now at the expense of excluding other choices. We agree with Erskine's (1988) view that ?the Adult ego state consists of current age related motor behaviours: emotional, cognitive and moral development; the ability to be creative: and the ability for full contactful engagement in meaningful relationship? (p.16). Having adopted this model as the basis for a co-creative approach we suggest several modifications in order to support the transition from a modernist to postmodern basis for a co-creative TA. Firstly we question the notion that the Adult ego state is the basis for objective processing and suggest that we use the ego state model as a way of describing different kinds of subjective experience. Moving away from modernist conceptions of a definable, objective reality we embrace the perspective of intersubjectivity and the postmodern notion of co-existing alternative realities. We believe that this perspective helps to highlight the cultural context of embedded assumptions that could otherwise be dangerously and blindly defined as 'objective'. Matze (1991) argues that the distinction between transferential and non transferential transactions is itself ?grounded in a myth of objectivity? (p.142) and that therapists should treat all transactions as transferential so that the therapist ?minimizes the possibility of a major error in empathic attunement? (p.142). We consider this to be throwing the Adult out with the bathwater. In contrast, we believe it is possible to disregard the myth of objectivity and maintain the transference-non transference distinction through a framework of systematic, intersubjective phenomenology. This view is based on Berne's (1975a) conceptualisation of structural analysis as a systemic phenomenology. This perspective suggests that different kinds of reality can be experienced by an individual, that some are based on past experience of self (Child), others are based on past experience of others (Parent), and still others are present-centered (Adult). We believe it is Berne's articulation of the phenomenological experience of shifts in patterns of perception, thought, feeling and behaviour that makes intuitive sense to so many people. Like Matze (1991), many psychodynamic writers argue that therapy is solely about the transference relationship. However we believe that the systematic phenomenology of TA supports the notion of non transferential Adult?Adult relating. Of course this does not mean that therapist and client are 'objectively' free from influences of past experience. We remain embedded in matrices of our culture (see Script). We continually co-influence each other and negotiate the unknown, partly based on previous experience. However we can experience ourselves as present-centred or past-centred, and progressive or regressive in relation to the world. These shifts in experience of self remain discernible and usable within an intersubjective and postmodern frame of reference. The second alteration we make to the ego state model is to move away from the structural metaphor in which it has been cast. The mechanical metaphor of 'personality structure' has been popular throughout this century. It has invited questions such as 'What is the structure?', 'What is wrong with it?', 'How can it be fixed?' This mechanistic metaphor is based on modernist principles of objective reality and truth. Berne suggests that TA works most effectively when we behave as though this metaphor is reality and that we talk to the 'inner Child' or 'Parent' as though they actually exist: ?the trichotomy must be taken quite literally. It is just as if each patient were three different people. Until the therapist can perceive it this way, he is not ready to use this system effectively? (Berne, 1975a, p.235). This has led to many techniques developed in TA that suggest ways of working with the inner Parent (e.g. Schiff, 1969; McNeel, 1976; Dashiell, 1978; Mellor & Andrawatha, 1980) and/or the inner Child (e.g. Berne, 1966; Erskine, 1974; Clarkson & Fish, 1988). We suggest a move away from this structural metaphor and a movement towards the metaphor of possibility. Considering the ego state model as a system of relational possibilities (and probabilities) rather than structures invites different questions such as: 'Why this possibility at this point in time?', 'What other possibilities are there?', 'What needs to happen now to generate and support new possibilities?' This perspective shifts the therapeutic emphasis away from the treatment of ego state structures and towards an exploration of how relational possibilities are co-created on a moment-to-moment basis. We shift the therapeutic focus away from work with the metaphorical inner Child or Parent. Instead we explore the process through which Child or Parent ego states are co-created within the co-transference of the therapeutic relationship/relating. We learn how we co-create regressive experience/s by attending to the co-transference as it emerges and unfolds in our relationship. Clarification of our co-transference then supports our experimentation with the co-creation of progressive rather than regressive experience/s. The therapeutic focus is not to change prior ego-states but to recognise that we do not have to go on creating ego-states based on the old models. It is OK to do something different. It is OK to make meaning of our experience outside of the Parent-Child frame of reference. It is OK to invent and use imagination to co-create different realities and meanings that enhance our life experience. An excellent visual representation of this perspective is Escher's 'Drawing Hands' in which two hands are drawing each other: each are bringing the other into existence. The South African saying 'I am because we are' also depicts this approach. The postmodern perspective suggests that ego state structures do not pre-exist prior to transactions but are co-created within and elicited through our transactions. They only pre-exist as possible or probable ways of relating. The structural metaphor reifies these possibilities, creating the illusion of a structural entity (see Loria, 1991). We suggest that the structural perspective paradoxically reinforces archaic possibilities in an attempt to 'fix' them. In contrast we prefer to emphasise the inextricable link between ego states and transactions by viewing the ego state model as a way of describing 'co-created personality'. Finally, whilst we note that this shift can still incorporate Berne's (1961/75a) four criteria for the recognition/diagnosis of ego states (behavioural, social, historical and phenomenological), we incorporate a significant development. The intersubjective exploration and classification of ego states (or relational possibilities) can now be extended to include intuition of the possible and not just the probable (based on past experience). We find Schmid's (1991) ideas about intuition particularly useful in support of this approach. Schmid points out that Berne focused on using intuition to diagnose or analyse archaic ego states by intuiting the 'ego-image' of the client's presentation. Schmid suggests developing our capacity to intuit new, possible ways of relating. We believe Schmid counterbalances Berne's intuition for archaic possibilities with an emphasis on intuiting future possibilities. Perhaps we need to see ourselves as transactional designers as well as transactional analysts: what possibilities can we intuit for and with our clients and our relationship with them and how can we support the exploration and development of these possibilities? Next section: Games (Cocreative Confirmation) Conclusion and References |
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