Tony White

How much Child ego state is the right amount?

Most citizens in western society have too little Free Child and too much Conforming Child. There are exceptions to this with smaller sub groups. For instance in the prison population there are many who have too much FC.

With a lack of FC one can have a poor sense of: Who am I? What do I want and where am I going in life? Lack of enjoyment and feelings, sometimes these people are described as ‘Dead from the neck down’. Inhibited, lack spontaneity and creativity. These people need an ‘authority’ figure in their life who will direct them as to what to do. They will either then conform to those directives or rebel against them.



In counselling one needs to assess the degree of the lack of FC. If it is not too severe then treatment can proceed well as the client basically seeks out Free Child activities and relationships for themselves. Most people are quite motivated to do this because it feels good and life looks brighter as one does it.

If the lack of FC is more severe then counselling is far more difficult. This is where you can get some of the identity disorders in the sense that the person lacks a sense of identity. They have little idea of who they are and for humans that is a most uncomfortable state.



They can become quite dependent people because they solve their lack of identity by simply latching onto a partner's sense of identity. This results in a very strong attachment which can be used by the partner if they are so inclined. For the person with a lack of identity finds their primary attachment breaking down it feels catastrophic and like you are loosing your very core. This can lead to extreme behaviours such as enduring repeated beatings or murder-suicides and so forth.

Others who lack a sense of FC identity do not latch onto others but tend to become aimless and sort of ‘vacant’ types of people. They wander through life with little direction and have very little sense of purpose or meaning and can remain quite isolated. They are not really suicidal but may report things like they just want to fade away. Sometimes they can respond to transference based treatment styles. Through relational contact the individual can begin to gain a sense of who they are, unfortunately that takes time.

With a lack of CC one can find these people hard to get on with. This person will tend to say how it is and that gets them into trouble from time to time. They have little focus on the needs and wants of others and thus can be quite self centred. It can result in authority problems as they don’t follow the rules of society. If they fill the lack of CC with RC then they can get into silly fights that they do not need to fight. Children with conduct disorders, anger management problems and temper tantrums can reflect a lack of CC.



Alternatively these people can be quite a free spirit if they have more FC. That can lead into creative pursuits as well as substance abuse as they can be quite pleasure seeking individuals

With a lack of Rebellious Child one can be too accepting and will allow others to run over them with their needs and wants. This type of child has a poor ability to set boundaries, lacks anger and assertion. Tends to be shy and quiet and may be the victim of bullying relationships. The person who lacks RC can quite easily marry the person who lacks CC.


Conformity

The goal of course is to have a good amount of FC and be able to use the CC and RC when it is necessary. If you are picked up for speeding it is good to have CC then, if you go into RC then you may end up spending a night in the lockup. Children need to learn this like any skill, such as like riding a bike. Identifying situations where it is best to inhibit the FC and employ the CC or RC so as to get through difficult situations in life and thus have more time for FC expression.

Graffiti

Gezunda talks about the MI as a Parent contract? I think I agree with some of that.

It is usually the therapist who suggests the idea of MI to the client in the first place and that is always a hazardous pursuit, as we know, in that it can become a Parent contract. It initial motivation is not coming from the client it is coming from an outside source.

Also as Gezunda states MI is a therapeutic technique and thus is useful but also limited in its impact on the client. So perhaps we should look at MI in the relational. Unfortunately, to my mind, it is a very difficult thing to define.




One hears people be referred to as ‘good motivators’. Napoleon was considered one of these. The night before battle he would go down and be amongst the troops and this would motivate them to fight like they had not fought before.

It would seem safe to say that there are inspirational and charismatic leaders who can motivate others to get them to do things they would not normally do, both good and bad things. Another example could be Jesus Christ.

On a less grand scale one also sees this in the training of psychotherapists. Of course if a therapist has this ‘motivational’ quality in them then that could be a most positive thing as they would kind of automatically doing MI all the time.


A young child's thinking is psychopathic




Sometimes you can pick it. What ever “it” is. The “X” factor that some therapists have. Defining what that actually is is not an easy pursuit. I sometimes know when I see it and I can say to the trainee something like:

“You have an internal strength that people (clients) are going to respond to”

or at other times I may say to “X” factor therapists

“You think like an insect”. I am not exactly sure what I mean by that

Perhaps the thinking is
You go where there is food and water and you avoid people who are going to kill you and you kill when you have to to survive. It is a very base, bottom line thinking. That ability of being able to see what is and not have it clouded with values, morality or how you think it should be or how you want it to be.

In one sense it is anti-social or criminal personality type of thinking. In my time in prison, as I have said before, I observed an honesty with prisoner relationships that you rarely see on the outside.



I see many of them as thinking like insects. When they were not trying to scam you or manipulate you then you would see this type of relating and thinking. They were good at quickly identifying what your base agenda was. What your primary motivations were and then relate openly respond to that either in the negative or the positive. They weren’t distracted with the words, their own morality and ‘shoulds’ like many others are.

Perhaps the good motivator is one who can read the situation as it is and get an understanding of a persons basic motives and what they will and will not be prepared to do. The insect is a psychopathic thinker so maybe good motivators are as well which is a bit dangerous really.

As to the internal strength that you can see in some people (therapists). Maybe an inner strength and belief. A bit self centred really. I believe I know what and how it is. Again a bit of an anti social personality trait.


I know how it is and what needs to be done, trust me.

Graffiti

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a term that is usually associated with drug counselling but it really applies to all forms of counselling. The therapist finds himself sitting in front of a 15 year old who’s mum found him smoking cannabis. So he has been brought to counselling so he will stop taking the drug.

Upon several enquires the therapist quickly establishes that the errant teenager sees nothing wrong with smoking pot, all his friends do it and he enjoys it. He is thus seen as having no motivation to stop the drug use. At that point the therapist is meant to apply the motivational interview. The goal of this is so the youngster will then become motivated to stop smoking pot and then commence gving up the drug.



I have always found the concept of MI a bit of a contradiction. The therapist applies the motivational interview with the client. So in this sense the client is a passive recipient of it. A passive person is kind of the opposite to a motivated person. The motivated person is self driven to get out and act in a certain way. The passive person waits for others to get them going.

So there is an inherent flaw in the whole idea of the MI in that it is encouraging the client to be passive in the relational with the therapist which is the opposite to being motivated. Its like the therapist who says to an inhibited client, “Be spontaneous”. As soon as the therapist says that, then the client can’t be.



MI basically involves highlighting the negatives of the particular behaviour and then it is assumed that the person will naturally want to stop doing it. Unfortunately that is a very big assumption and one which many psychological theroies make. For instance Maslow states that we all have a natural drive towards self actualization. Then we have people talk about things like the libido or creative energy in us or physis which is that innate drive in all humans to get better and grow and develop.

This is where we get to that thorny issue of hope. Humans hate the idea of there being no hope, they really don’t like it. So when psychological theories state that everyone has a natural tendency towrds growth and health they are alos saying that there is always hope for everyone. Are the theroies saying this because they are accurate or are they saying it because they want (or hope) it to be true when in fact it may not be. Just because something is distastful does not make it unture. Maybe sometimes there is no hope for some people? Perhaps these psychological theories are just feel good theroies in this way.



In counseling one really is confronted by this day in and day out. Why do some clients change and others do not? An often asked question and one with many different answers. Why do some clients grow towards health and others do not? One answer is that the theories are wrong and not all people do have an innate drive towards health and thus there is no hope for them. With such people doing MI of course is a waste of time. The therapeutic goal really is the for the client to accpet that this is their lot in life, this really is as good as it gets for them.

So in relation to the topic, I suppose I am identifying another flaw in the MI process. It assumes that all people are capable of becoming motivated to grow towards health. Maybe that assumption is incorrect?

Graffiti

I always find this a very interesting topic. The ways and means people will use to get others in a society to behave a certain way. It can be as simple as the speed limit for driving a car, you get them to behave by taking their money away. I recall in Singapore many years ago they had a law where if a university educated man married and had a child to a university educated female then he got taxation benefits that non-university educated parents did not.

Haven’t governments tried that throughout history - apartheid and the aryan race just to name two - and fortunately it has never been successful. Imagine what we would be like now if governments could actually be successful in engineering who mated with who in a society.



I heard a most interesting talk on the radio the other day about China’s one child policy. The man stated that it is now estimated that there are 50 million children in China who are a second child. Yes, there are 50 million people in China who have no birth certificate, who can never get a passport and who officially do not exist. Imagine the impact of that. Firstly they will be ripe for exploitation - unless you do what I want then I will dob you in - and they are going to have to have a massive black economy to support them all as someone who does not exist can’t pay taxation. It seems that governments cannot engineer the human sex drive but I suppose that wont stop them trying.

Anyway closer to home they are bringing in a new law in the state where I live. They want to reduce teenage truancy which is closely related to crime in the community. Another piece of social engineering who’s goals are most meritorious in my view. How they plan to do it is by withholding welfare payments from parents who’s teenagers do not attend school. Well fancy that!


Now there is some good engineering!!



Firstly, its discriminatory in that it only effects poor parents and not the ones who have a job. And I can tell you that there are plenty of rich kids who are truants. I see them regularly in my work. A mother will bring her 14 year old highly rebellious daughter to see me, to get her repaired. This child’s sole goal in life is to defy authority and of course that includes not going to school. Indeed just getting the child inside the door of my office is a major logistical exercise as in the teenager’s eyes I am authority even before we have ever met. Often I ask the mother how she managed it and sometimes you get an answer like she paid her daughter $20 to get her to come to counselling!! Yes that is right. The parent pays the counsellor to counsel the child and pays the child to be a client!!

I tell you what, you earn your money when you counsel such very rebellious teenagers. They are not easy clients. It truly tests the counsellors skills. If you can just somehow manage to weave your way through all the rebellion and get underneath it and make some real contact with the child then you have made it and some good changes can occur. Sometimes you get there and sometimes you don’t.

Unfortunately this welfare withholding piece of social engineering is based on a faulty assumption. This is no better articulated than in the editorial of the “West Australian” newspaper where in discussing this program the editor states, “The aim is surely unobjectionable: to get children from such families to attend school regularly. Education is the means by which such children are given the opportunity to break the pattern of welfare dependency”

And the faulty assumption is? School = education. You can make a child go to school but you can’t make it learn. You can make a child sit in a classroom but you can’t make it get educated. Oh well!!


He looks rebellious. Apparently if he is made to go to school that means he will learn. According to the Australian government one causes the other to happen.




Furthermore who would want to be a teacher now! They are going to watch their classrooms start to fill up with children who don’t want to be there, who don’t want to learn and who angry about it all. You don’t need three guesses to work out who is going to take the brunt of that anger.

Then there are the other children in the classroom who do want to learn and they are going to be adversely effected because the teacher is spending all the time coping with the welfare driven disruptive student.

And finally there is one other point. People are usually attracted to those things which they are good at. They will naturally seek them out like skills in art, or music or sport and yes academic ability as well. The vast majority of truants aren’t good at it. They are academically challenged or they are dumb as they have been called numerous times before and as they call themselves. Putting such children back in the classroom will only further reinforce their “dumbness” to themselves and their self image is further crushed into the ground. And that is one common feature in many social experiments. The people effected, end up worse off than before the social engineering was implemented in the first place.


He is good at taking baths so he will naturally do it of his own volition.



I am all in favour of getting truants to do some structured activity. A very good idea for sure. Putting them back in the classroom is a very bad idea.

Graffiti

By now you all know how I am often banging on about graffiti and what it represents in youth and so forth. Well guess what?

Last nite my front wall got graffitied and here it is




So what do you do with it? I suppose when you first see it is is a bit of a shock. It is very bright and and probably covers a square meter. I guess when it happens to people’s homes they go straight into their racket. Some get angry, some get sad or frustrated I suppose.

I took a minute to look at it and it certainly is on the artistic end of the graffiti continuum. Actually I think it looks quite good. So I think I will keep it there for a few weeks/months and then get the council to paint over it and wait for the next one.

“Sign, sign everywhere a sign”

Graffiti

Roses states:
“I think it's funny how you don't disclose a lot. Actually, i'm the same.”

Graffiti responds:
My level of self disclosure Roses?
In the past have been told that I am a bit of a closed book. So I do agree with that as there are some areas that I am very private about.

But

In other ways I am not at all. I have stated openly on this blog about my life script and how I am like Eeyore and Popov the clown. Indeed in some areas I would say that I am quite exhibitionistic. Hey, I am a bit narcissistic so I have to be!



At a week long workshop recently there were some people there who were my clients, trainees and colleagues. I got up and did a piece of personal work (as the client) in front of them. I spoke in depth about my early relationship with my mother, her personal demons and how that impacted on me as a child and so forth. So I have no problem with that and that is very disclosing of self.



I always find it entertaining when therapists and trainers say they would never do a piece of their own personal work in front of their clients or trainees as it would damage them and traumatize them. When that is not the real reason at all. They just feel insecure about showing self like that in front of the client. Their perfect persona may come crashing down. Which is OK for them not to self disclose in such a way if they do not want to, but it is just funny how they give a fake reason for doing so.

Since that workshop I have asked my clients and trainees what was their reaction to seeing me do that. All of them (so far at least) have said that they admired me for doing so and indeed it has helped them therapeutically and they see me as more real now. Certainly no one has been traumatized by it.


Keeping up appearances

Graffiti

There were two good articles in the “West Australian’ newspaper today by Paul Murray and Zoltan Kovacs. Discussing how we live in a nanny state and how paternalistic governments can be and so forth.

One comment made was “We’re largely over-governed because we want to be”. A most refreshing comment and one that I fully agree with. Why are we living in a nanny state? Because we want to be. Well I don’t, but most Australians do. So it is the electorate who is responsible for the nanny state not the government.



One always hears people banging on about how politicians lie to us and put spin on this and that. Most politicians are OK people who don’t want to lie, so why do they? Because they know that if they tell it as it is on certain topics then we, the electorate will rapidly ‘un-elect’ them. So it is us, the voters, who say to the politicians tell us the truth but if you do then we will kick you out of office. So it is the voters who are responsible for political spin on this and that. We elect people who we know are going to lie to us, so that is our responsibility. In the final analysis a politician is merely a reflection of the attitudes of the electorate.

And to the nanny state. I went to the beach the other day and as you walk to it from your car you are confronted with all these signs about shallow water here so don’t dive, rocks over there so be cautious, beware of rips, jellyfish and so forth. Fuck! I thought. All they need is one sign which says, “Remember to assess the environment for potential dangers” then the rest is up to me. I don’t need the government to do it for me!

Here is a picture of me when I was a long haired freaky person



With all those signs I was reminded of a great song that was around when I was a long haired freaky person. We used to love this song and sing it at parties when it was played. It is by Telsa and titled “Signs”




And the sign says "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I put my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said you look like a fine outstanding young man, I think you'll do
So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that, huh, me working for you"

[Chorus:]
Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs
Fuckin' up the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

And the sign says "Anybody caught trespassing will be shot on sight"
So I jumped the fence and I yelled at the house
Hey! What gives you the right!
To put up a fence and keep me out, or to keep Mother Nature in
If God was here, he'd tell it to your face, man, you're some kind of sinner

[Chorus]

Oh, say now mister, can't you read
You got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can't watch, no you can't eat, you ain't supposed to be here

And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" - uh!

[Solo]

And the sign says "Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray"
But then they passed around a plate at the end of it all
And I didn't have a penny to pay
So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own fuckin' sign
I said, "Thank you Lord for thinking 'bout me, I'm alive and doing fine", oh

[Chorus 2x]

--------------

One thing that does concern me is how much the youth in particular just accept what the government tells them and it is like they want the government to tell them what to do. When I was young (I always promised never to say that) the government was the enemy. What they told you to do you didn’t do and you certainly didn’t ask them what to do!!



However there is one thing that the youth of today do do which shows they have spirit and gives assurance that they have a mind of their own - graffiti. The government constantly tells them not to do it and they keep doing it. They are making up their own signs!

Graffiti

Freud came up with some very good ones, none better than the concept of Polymorphous Perversity. What a great sounding term isn’t it? But what does it mean?

Well according to Freud all of us were born polymorphously perverse. Did you know that you were once perverse? Every newborn infant is born with this sexual orientation as we can call it and slowly it reduces over time until the child is about 5 years of age. That is in normal human development.

Each newborn has no sexual orientation. That is their erotic focus is not fixated on any one “thing”. As a result they find many different things erotic and sexually arousing. Hence they can quite readily have incestuous sexual feelings and are fully bisexual in their orientation. Of course as they have not yet developed any conscience these erotic attractions go on guilt free in the young child’s mind.



As the child develops slowly but surely the variety gets smaller and smaller until eventually they have an erotic focus or sexual orientation that is quite specific. For the average heterosexual that means they are sexually attracted to a member of the opposite sex of approximately the same age.

For some people this does not happen and they don’t develop a quite specific focus. For instance the bisexual could be seen as such a person. The true bisexual in the psychological sense has a sexual orientation to members of both sexes. So they remain more polymorphously perverse. Interestingly enough Freud would argue that these people are less neurotic than your average heterosexual or homosexual.


The human psyche. A strange thing it is at times.

The way the child gets its sexual focus more specific is by the defence mechanism of repression. The child simply represses each sexual focus that its Parent ego state deems as inappropriate. So this person is more neurotic and highly defended than the person who remains polymorphously perverse. They remain more in their Free Child ego state and less neurotic.

Then we have the problem of what becomes the person’s sexual focus and orientation. Our society says it should be heterosexual to a person of approximately the same age. Indeed it is becoming more acceptable or ‘normal’ to have a homosexual orientation to a person of approximately the same age. Of course sometimes neither of these happen and then we get people like the “Objectophile”. The person who develops a sexual focus towards and inanimate object. Like a wall or a bike or a painting. These people will develop the same form of attachment and feelings towards the object as others develop towards a human partner. They fall in love with it in just the same way.

Indeed this is the psychological mechanism behind many of the fetishes. The man who develops a foot fetish ot breast fetish in one way is an objectophile. Although he usually wont admit it to his wife, he is not actually in love with her but in love with that particular part of her anatomy. The rest of her is just happens to be attached to the foot or the breasts.



This person is not polymorphously perverse as they have developed normally in that they have a specific sexual focus. But their sexual focus or orientation is deemed by their society to be odd, neurotic and maybe even illegal.

Graffiti

I attended a workshop a few weeks ago which in essence was a presentation of the latest research on child sexual abuse. One of the things stated was that if an incident of abuse becomes a police matter then it is quite likely that the child will be psychologically worse off at the end of it. The process inevitably retraumatizes the child no matter how careful one is. I find it hard to think of a larger clash between an individual’s needs and society’s needs. It is psychologically better for the child not to get involved in the legal process and of course society (others) may suffer if they do not.

However I think one can expand this to all people and the psychology of the legal process. I saw it again on TV last night. A man had been murdered and the murderer had been found guilty. The press interviewed the victim’s mother and sister outside the court. They were venomous. The hatred and anger that was coming out of them was disarming and you could see the depth of it in their faces. The legal process is usually psychologically damaging to those who get involved in it such as these two women.


You don't want to end up with anger like this, or its "you loose".



When an event happens to you and you have a feeling the goal is to express the feeling as much as is needed and then drop the feeling. Feelings like anything else can become habitual. The more a person does, thinks or feels something the more habitual it will become. This is one way in which the legal process makes people worse of psychologically. The man had been murdered 2 years ago and those two women were still furiously angry. This means that the anger was very habitual to them now. It was by this time deeply ingrained in their personality and thus it would take considerable effort and time for them to drop the anger. Of course the longer they have the anger the more psychological deterioration they will experience.

My counsel would be to distance yourself psychologically from the legal process as it is a retraumatizing process. Those two women on TV are now worse off than before the trial. Their anger is now stimulated yet again and even more ingrained into the personality.



The other thing which is imperative is to not link your emotional state to the outcome of a trial. One has no control over the outcome of a trial and thus one does not want their psychological well being linked to it. Again it seems a distancing process would be most wise. To make the outcome of the trail as psychologically unimportant as one can.


Taking on the legal process.



Why attend the trial? You hear some people say they did it for their son. Well that is not true as the son is dead and knows nothing about it. If you were murdered would you want your loved ones to attend the trial knowing that it is likely that they would be retraumatized by it. I would not want mine to. Some say they attend the trial for final closure. That is not true either as one can do that in the counselling room. Why wait often years for the final closure and thus it becomes more and more ingrained in the personality and one is worse and worse off.

Weather it be a small thing like being cut off in the traffic or a big thing like attending the trial of your son’s murderer the psychological processes are the same. The more you hang onto the feelings the more psychological damage you do to your self. Trials are usually retraumatizing as the entire legal process can be. The more you get involved with it the more likely you will be worse off. Indeed with children there is strong scientific evidence to support this view.


If you have been traumatized once, why stick this in front of your face again when you don't have to?



Vengeance is a normal human emotion and is by and large an angry process. To use the legal process as a means to get your sense of revenge seems most unwise. That can readily be done in the counselling room where the likelihood of dropping the vengeful anger eventually is far greater. That is the best psychological outcome for any emotion one experiences - drop it.

Graffiti

One. Some people believe that feelings have to be logical. Often they are not. To feel angry on a Monday morning, to feel grief when you sell your car, to feel scared in crowds, to feel despairing when you have a good job, family and life all may seem somewhat illogical.

More often than not feelings are illogical. We would all like them to be appropriate and reasonable in reaction to our environment. Unfortunately there is a powerful illogical part of ourselves. Freud called it the id and in Transactional Analysis it is called the Child ego state.



There are even some therapeutic approaches that rest on this false belief. They try and take control of these ‘irrational’ parts of the personality and make it rational or at least dominate it with rationality. Rational Emotive Therapy(RET) and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy(CBT) are two prime examples. I suggest that such a task of dominating the Child with rationality is doomed to failure if not in the short term then in the long term.

The approach I would suggest is that you accept that we are irrational beings to some extent at least. Do not try and fight it but work to live with it.



Two. Some people believe that feelings must have a goal or be a means to an end. We hear statements such as:
“What is the use of being angry, it doesn’t change anything”
“If someone dies why cry about it, it wont bring them back”

80% of the time feelings do not change reality. So in this way feelings are not a successful means to an end, yet I would suggest that they are an end in them self. They do not have to lead to something, indeed they are that something.

Consider this metaphor. When one drinks water the bladder expands and then there is a tension. The tension is expressed by releasing the bladder and taking a leak. Feelings are the same. Something happens and the body goes into a state of tension (feeling is felt). One can then act and expresses the feeling and the tension reduces. This is a biological fact I am afraid so you might as well get used to it.



Three. Feelings and issues often get mixed up and then the feeling becomes the issue. Hubby wants to go out at night and the missus wants to spend the night at home. They begin to negotiate the issue of going out or staying in. During the negotiating they start to feel angry at each other. Now there are two problems:
1. Going out vs staying in - the issue
2. The anger - the feeling

Some do not make this distinction between the issue and the feeling and they will then start to use the issue as a means to express the feeling. At this point the issue becomes irrelevant but often people believe they are addressing the issue and cannot understand why the other person is not understanding them. Both stop listening to each other because it is no longer about the issue and it is about expressing the feeling instead. This can make the issue drag on for long periods of time. If they do make the distinction then first set about expressing the feeling and forget about the issue. Once that is done then get back to the issue and usually it is resolved in record time.



Graffiti