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and Transactional Analysis or TA) for understanding ourselves and
others. An impressive and delightful bibliography of Transactional
Analysis is available at TA in Ireland. The purpose of these personality
theories is to help you find your way around inside--to explore your
psyche and gain awareness of the many forces and views fighting for
expression inside us. I can only whet your appetite.
The id or the "child"
The id contains the primitive biological urges assumed (by Freud)
to strive for expression in all of us. These drives include the needs to
be loved and cuddled, the desires to have all kinds of sexual
stimulation, and the tendencies to be aggressive and destructive in
general and hostile in particular towards anything that interferes with
our gaining the pleasures we seek. The id is not rational or realistic; it
has no morals. It seeks immediate gratification. Some of its urges may
be conscious, like wanting to look at your mother's breasts; some are
unconscious, perhaps homosexual urges or murderous impulses. The
id's motto is "If it feels good, do it."
Eric Berne's "child" ego state is similar to Freud's id (or "it" in
German) except he divided this part of our personality into three sub-
parts:
1.
The natural child is the fun-loving, carefree, impulsive,
creative, pleasure-seeking, impatient part of us that provides
much of our motivation, excitement, and energy. The natural
child part also provides some of our important emotions, such
as joy and curiosity when we are happy and anger and
vengeance when we are frustrated. Without this part, life would
not be nearly so much fun or as mean.
2.
The adaptive child is the compliant, orderly, neat part of us
that encourages us to act "grown up," attempts to please
others, hides our anger and greed, and generally seeks the
rewards of doing what we are supposed to do. It is the need to
be a "good boy" or "good girl." As we learned in chapter 8,
however, the needs to be "good" and conform are often
opposed by the needs to rebel; dependency is followed by
resentment. Thus, the adaptive child also contains urges to
subtly resist orders and tradition. It may procrastinate rather
than openly rebel; it may get sick to get attention; it may
devise a "script" (a life plan) to please a parent's "child" which
wants the son or daughter to fail or to be "bad;" it may play
"games" to hurt itself or others; it may become neurotic or
psychotic or just unhappy and grouchy if such an adaptation
has a payoff (see Sooty Sarah in chapter 6).
3.
The Little Professor is the intuitive, clever, observant,
conniving, manipulative part of us which figures out how to
relate to others to get what we want. Examples: it may say, "if
I'm nice to my brother and sister" or "if I'm cute and smile a
lot" or "if I say 'I love you' frequently" or "if I throw a temper
