Tony White

Graffiti

I am writing a part for a book and need to include a piece about the Parent ego state. A section of which I have enclosed below. As you can see it is about how the Parent ego state is a collection of tapes. I was wanting to include some examples. Is there anyone out there who can give me some of their own experiences or even back channel them to me.

What attitudes or behaviors or things you say and do that are similar to what your parents did when you were a child. You may find your self parenting in the same way you were parented, or if you had a critical father you tend to be critical yourself. You may be critical of others your you may express that criticism to yourself. What behaviors, values, thoughts and feelings have you imitated or copied from your parents? They may possibly be included in what I am writing.



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The Parent ego state is where we have modelled on parent type figures in our life. So it is where we have our values and morals about life. When we have our own children we sometimes find that we are doing and saying things to our own children that were said to us. These are all in our Parent ego state.

The Parent ego state can be seen as a collection of tapes one has in their head that one has copied or learned from parent type figures in his life. This could be mother and father or an older sibling or some other person like a grandparent or an uncle who has had an impact on the young child as he was growing up.



This can be drawn as in diagram 2. This shows how the Parent ego state is a collection of audio and video tapes that are slotted into the person’s head. These are copied by the young child and in this case ther are four major ones. This process is inevitable due to the imitative instinct. Each of us will insticntually copy others around us and in childhood that will particularly include parent figures as they are of extra importance to us. As a result as one grows up and becomes a parent themself one can find self saying things to the children that are the same as was said to them.


Diagram 2
This copying process continues through out ones entire life so the Parent ego state is constantly being updated. However usually the strongest and loudest tapes come from early childhood and it is therefore these ones that mainly influence the individuals behaviour. Often they are quite critical tapes and one ends up with a large ‘internal critic’ that sits in the back of their head and judges what they do each day. They can be changed in adulthood with the inclusion of new noncritical tapes that will counter the highly critical ones from years ago.

Graffiti

Humans have what is known as an attachment hunger . That is we all have a biological, psychological and social hunger for an attachment to a mother [father] figure. Without it in infancy there is a swift decline in our mental and physical health eventually leading to a state of marasmus or 'hospitalism'. This hunger persists throughout our entire lives.



However from adolescence onwards, peer attachments allow the childhood need for a parental attachment to decrease. Thus there is more variety in the type of attachments in adolescence and adulthood. However without at least one firm and secure attachment in adulthood there is also mental and physical decline. This is primarily exhibited by withdrawal behaviour and the various problems associated with that. Most notably the schizoid personality type demonstrates these difficulties. In addition, it is noted that the psychopathic personality is also typified by the lack of the formation of social bonds.
Attachment hunger comes into play at about 5 to 7 months of age. Prior to that time there are indiscriminant attachments. The infant does not discriminate between who is feeding her, changing her or holding her. As a result some call this phase the stage of primary narcissism. At about 6 to 8 months the child develops specific attachments - the object period. The child will develop an attachment to one primary person, most often mother. At this time the child shows a fear of strangers and of being left by the primary object.


With narcissism one does not realize others are missing



If the specific attachment phase proceeds well, after a few more months the child will show a broadening of attachments. First to one other person and then to several others. By 18 months most children have an attachment to several people, with some research showing that only 13 percent of 18 month old children are still exclusively attached to one figure.

It should be noted that these two phases: of the attachment to one figure only, followed by the broadening of attachments to a variety of others may be culture specific. In monomatric families there is a tendency for the child to initially form a single all exclusive attachment to one figure. However in polymatric families, where the care of the child is shared around, this initial single all exclusive attachment is less observable. Whatever the specifics are the child will begin forming attachments around 5 to 8 months of age and there will be a broadening of them over time.


Supermario wallpaper



This is not meant to discard the notion of stimulation hunger or the craving for strokes, recognition and sensory stimulation. The research clearly the human need for stimulation. Stimulation and attachment are in many respects necessary for each others existence. For example it seems impossible that two people could become attached without any stimulation. That is physical and/or non-physical strokes, occurring between them.
Stimulation hunger in part allows the attachment hunger to be satisfied. For attachment to occur there must be stimulation or strokes occurring between the two parties. However that is not enough in itself for attachment to occur. There needs to be other conditions met. First there needs to be a consistency of the person providing the strokes. The few primary parent figures need to be there consistently and stimulating consistently. Second the person providing the strokes needs to be giving something of their own Child ego state to the relationship. A parent who mechanically and disinterestedly gave physical strokes to a child would of course hamper the attachment process. Attachment is a two way process.



The literature notes that one of the most important features for attachment to occur is the, "...readiness with which an individual is prepared to respond to the infant's signals and his general willingness to engage in playful interaction". In transactional analysis terms the parenting figure must be willing to invest his own Child ego state into the interactions with the infant. Both sides need to attach.

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The triphasic separation individuation theory of child development.

This is a theory of child development that I first presented in 1985



If you wish to see the diagram in more detail click on it and go to my Flickr. Once there then click on “All sizes”

As you can see there are seven stages of child development. This theory relates to the child’s separation and individuation from a parent. So it is about the stages that a child goes through in order to finally understand itself as an individual who has separated from the primary attachment figure.

This comes from the work of people like Margaret Mahler and Freud. The problem with their theories is that they say human development is basically ended by 3 or 4 years of age. To my mind that is not correct and that many human development characteristics are still being worked out in adolescence.



Whilst using the theories of Mahler and Freud the bulk of this theory of development comes from the Gesell Developmental Scales. Arnold Gesell was a renowned psychologist who obviously developed a set of developmental scales. Their research basically involved observing many thousands of children over a number of years. They observed the children’s behaviour and the psychological issues that were relevant at the various ages.

Thus they could finally put together a compendium of what psychological issues were relevant at the various ages. This allowed parents or people who worked with children to assess if a child had the appropriate psychological issues relevant to that age.

The triphasic theory is separated into three symbiotic stages and three negativistic stages and these of course relate to negative and positive transference that the client can experience with the therapist in adulthood.


Fixated in the Juvenile negativistic stage

The symbiotic stages is where the child is largely co-operative and is building up the relationship and attachment to mother. This is similar to the relationship building that happens in the positive transference stage of a client to a therapist. This is also when the child is individuating or learning who it is as a person in its own right

The negativistic stages are when the child develops character anger and is by and large uncooperative and conflictual. This is where the child is breaking down the attachment and relationship to the parent and separating out. This occurs at ages 2, 4 and adolescence. This is also what happens to the client in a negative transference with the therapist.

However the three negative stages have different functions as to what the child is separating as you can see from the diagram. For instance in the second negativistic stage (Childhood negativistic stage) the child is learning to separate its sexual identity, feelings and physical boundary control from mother and father.
People who have trouble asserting their boundaries with others never successfully completed this stage of development.

Of course what happens when the adult client enters therapy is they will tend to develop a transference depending on where they are stuck in their separation and individuation. Some children will tend to be conformist and they are stuck in a symbiotic stage so in adult hood they may find it quite hard to move into the negative transference stage



Those who are stuck in a negativistic stage may only have a short period of positive transference and move more quickly into the negative transference stage. They will then tend to bring up the same separation issues that they never resolved in the original relationship with mother and they become the issues between the therapist and the client.

Graffiti

Rapid onset of the positive transference

One of the more common approaches to treating the third degree impasse, personality disorder or the character problem is with the transference relationship between the client and the therapist. Whilst this has been widely used one of its problems is that it takes time. One of the reasons why it takes time is because it takes time for the client to develop the strong transferential emotional reactions to the therapist. Once these have been formed then the client is ready to redo the original parent child relationship. Well this is not exactly true.



There is a style of treatment called “Reparenting” which was devised in the 1960s. Originally this referred to a specific approach to psychotherapy in working with psychotics. However the term “reparenting” has over the years been used in a wide variety of ways to cover differing approaches to transferential treatment and thus it has lost some of its original meaning.

I have never liked the term because it carries the implication that the therapist client relationship can in some way double as or be a facsimile the original parent child relationship. That cannot happen. I have children and the way I perceive them and the way I perceive my clients are quite different. I do not perceive my clients as my children so therefore I can never be a parent to them. So I can not ‘reparent’ them.

However I can be something to them, and I am, each and every day I work. What that is continues to be defined but I do know that for some clients relating in this way can be very beneficial to them. So I am not their parent but I am something else and that can psychologically impact on them.



In a previous post on the rapid onset of the negative transference I discussed ways by which strong transferential feelings can develop quite rapidly. The good part about this is the time of overall treatment can be shortened because you do not have to wait around for the emotions to arise.

There is another scenario by which one can get the rapid onset of the positive transference. This has been discussed widely and is known as the Stockholm Syndrome. People who are placed in a highly charged environment will develop quite quickly positive transferential reactions to the person in charge. They will rapidly identify with the leader, develop a loyalty to him, take on his beliefs, mannerisms and so forth. Things that commonly happen to a client when they develop a strong positive transference to the therapist.

Whilst one could take a group of their clients hostage and threaten them with death to develop the positive transference more rapidly. that would seem to be unwise thing to do as one would probably not be practising for too much longer.


Whatever you may think of her she does have a very pretty face.



However there are variants on the hostage situation one being residential treatment marathons as they are sometimes known. Here a group of clients are taken out of their normal environment and placed for a weekend, week or month into a group therapy setting. They move out of their home, leave their loved ones and live with the group and the leaders. The atmosphere is at times highly charged as people in the group do various forms of catharsis and at other times quite regressive work. People are also invited to relate to others in new ways which they would normally not do as they stop or change their relating via games.

This has a number of similar characteristics to the bank where those people were held hostage in Stockholm. The environment is highly emotionally charged, they are out of their home environment, not in contact with their loved ones, relating to others in new ways and there is a strong leader(s) present, (at least one hopes there is). Thus there can be a more rapid onset of a positive transference as happened in Stockholm.


In positive transference the leader is copied.



If one is going to use a transferential style of treatment to address the client with a PD or characterological problems then at some point it is most wise for the client in some way to do this Stockholm type of thing via a group therapy setting. I for one would strongly recommend it.

Graffiti

Being a member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) I get sent various documents and journals intermittently. One recently was of particular interest. It contained some research results that had been conducted by the APS national office.

The research examined how Australians coped with irritating events. Now this firstly raises the question about the value of psychological research. Do we really care what Australians find irritating and in the grand scheme of it all does it really matter?


Does it matter?

However despite that the research has been done and the results have been published. The first part of the research examined what are irritating events and situations for Australians. Below are the results. I would normally only include perhaps the highest 5 or 10 but I have included a few more for reasons that will become self explanatory. These are the percentages of participants who endorsed the event as irritating.

Telemarketing calls 70%
Inconsiderate drivers 68
Unfriendly staff 64
Excessive advertising 60
Sensationalising the news 59
Cigarette smoke 59
Violence 59
Inconsiderate mobile use 58
Unsolicited emails 54
Biased reporting 50
Heavy traffic 49
Cigarette butts 47
Bad language 39
Lack of parking 39
Waiting in line 34
Graffiti 32



I have not included them all. There are in fact 21 events and situations before you get to graffiti. As readers may know I for some time have been banging on about the social phenomena of graffiti. One thing that I have stated is that it has always just been assumed that the general public do not like graffiti. I have called for a public vote to be done on the topic because I question weather that assumption is correct.

Well it seems that this small piece of insignificant research has in one way provided for a referendum on graffiti. One third of Australians find graffiti irritating. Which means of course that according to this research two thirds of Australians do not find graffiti irritating.

This does not mean that this two thirds likes graffiti. It means that they have accepted it as a part of Australian society and it is not really important for them. Indeed they find bad language, waiting in line, biased reporting and inconsiderate drivers more irritating. That to me says something about the assumption of graffiti that I discussed before.


For Kahless

The researchers then looked at what are Australians most common coping strategies. When irritated how did most Australians cope with that? The results are as follows:

Using humour 36%
Take a few breathes and staying calm 32%
Talking them self through the issue 28%
Talking to someone else 27%
Planning how to avoid the same again 23%
Exercising 21%




Well you have to hand it to the old Free Child and humour. Again the therapeutic value of humour is highlighted. The importance of it in counselling is something not to underestimate. On September 12th, 2007 I wrote a blog post on the use of humour in counselling and this is part of that,

“In my counselling there is often humour of some kind. It is a common way that I interact with a client. This means we have FC to FC contact. This also then forms part of the therapeutic process. Humour is often seen as a definite plus as it gets the FC of the client involved. Perhaps there is more as well. If the therapist shares a good laugh with the client what does that say to the client? Does it value the client as a person? I think one could say yes. Laughter feels good and thus it is giving the client permission to treat self well and in a nice way. It could be said to value the client in this sense and promote their sense of self worth.”

Graffiti

Rapid onset of the negative transference

I wrote a post on November 4th, 2008 about transference and outlined the diagram of the full transference process between client and therapist. Here it is below



Two people meet and go through a period of liking and attraction. In that time a bond builds up in the positive transference. After a period of time the honeymoon period ends and then there comes the negative transference.

This however is not always the case and in some instances you can get a rapid onset of negative transference. That is the person does not firstly go through a period of positive transference. It is in the positive transference that the other party develops some importance for you and you have an emotional reaction to them. Over time the therapist becomes more emotionally important for the client in the positive transference

There are two instances when this rapid onset can occur. One is with the coerced client. This is the person who is forced to go to counselling either by the courts, parents, an employer, a partner who is threatening to leave and so forth. These people can enter counselling and immediately have a negative transference reaction to the therapist. The emotion to the therapist does not have to build up over time as the therapist is already part of the relationship dynamics of the client and the person who sent them. The therapist is already aligned with the person who sent the client, at least in the client’s mind and thus the emotion is pre-existing even before the client enters the room for the first time.



The other time when there can be the rapid onset of the negative transference is with those individuals who have character anger and an authority problem. The two prime examples of this are the anti social or criminal personality and the adolescent. Research has shown that the personality of the criminal population and the teenager are quite similar in many ways.

The first one is they can both have character anger. Some times you hear about endogenous anxiety or endogenous depression (sadness). These people have a feeling of anxiety or sadness with them most of the time. If it is not in the fore front it is lurking in the background of their minds. These feelings are also called character feelings as it is said as they are part of the person basic character. Well anger can be the same. People can have character or endogenous anger and many in prisons have precisely that. There is just an anger in them that has been there for many years. Again it can be fore ground or at times it will be lurking in the background.

Most teenagers are the same as it is a part of the normal adolescent stage of development. Most in that stage have an anger about them that is either shown openly or is displayed in more covert ways like sulking or in their famous monosyllabic responses of, “nuh”, “nothing”, “cause” “dunno”.



The other commonality of anti socials and teenagers is the presence of an authority problem. This means that they will be hypersensitive to people who are in a position of authority and when noticed they will have a strong urge to fight them, confront them or ‘beat’ them in some way. So when they see someone wearing a uniform that signifies authority in their mind then they will have such angry and rebellious reactions without even thinking about it.

Hence if a client who has character anger and an authority problem enters therapy it is quite possible the therapist will be viewed as an authority figure in some way. As a consequence the client can have a rapid onset of the negative transference. As they are automatically viewed as an authority there is an instant emotional investment in the therapist by the client and one does not need a period of positive transference for the emotions to build up.

Graffiti

Christmas! Yes it is THAT time of year again. Only 10 shopping days left until christmas! Thus it is a timely at this juncture to consider the psychology of christmas.

It is indeed the busiest time of the year for me as a counsellor. Well it is one of the two busiest times of the year. Christmas and easter are the busiest times.



Why is it busy you may ask? Well Christmas day is not busy, it is the lead up to and the time period after the actual day of festivities. First there is the obvious reason. Christmas is all about happy family and getting together. There are some who no longer have any close family alive and there are those who have plenty but no one speaks to each other. So christmas day highlights their lack of family or their dysfunctional estranged family. This can indeed cause much pain and angst and thus the services of a counsellor are often sought out.

But there is another less obvious more prominent reason lurking in the back ground. For the rest of the year family members can by and large avoid each other or just see others in short spurts. Come christmas day and families are forced together to spend meals and some period of time together. It all usually starts not too badly with high hopes but mix in alcohol throughout the day and sooner or later the shit hits the fan.

In families of course you have relationships with the most history and the most primal emotions that have been experienced from birth and the strongest attachments between two people by far. That is about as emotionally potent and volatile as you can get. If there is some ill feeling then it is going to be no stronger than in one’s family of origin by oodles.



Sibling rivalry at it most potent, parents favouring one child over another, competing for mother’s affection, very primal wounds open up that one has carried feelings around about for the last 30 years, guilt trips, younger siblings seeking approval from older ones and it never happening, intra family abuse where the abuser is invited along for the day and so on endlessly.

It is a veritable Krakatoa waiting to happen and with alcohol it often does erupt. Some times the eruption is overt, obvious and out there but often it remains under the surface and leads to much anger and angst the days and weeks after the wonderful christmas day lunch. Yep the counsellor’s phone line can run hot after the good old christmas day breakfast, lunch and dinner, I can tell you.


It happens in sibling rivalry

Having dealt with the family get together now to the silly season and all those parties. The secret to having a successful party is all in the membership. Who comes and who does not. So the guest list is paramount. What usually happens when writing up the guest list? Well people go through their ego states. It starts with Child ego state and the guest list makers are all keen and animated.

“Lets ask Jock. He is great fun especially when he does his Fat Bastard impersonation”
“Jane and Tom always spark up the place as well”
“The two gay guys who live next door really know how to get a party going”
“Judy is single again and flirts like mad when drunk so lets ask her”


Gay guys know how to have a party much better than straight people.

So this Child phase of the guest list is often animated and active and fun to do. After a time they run out and there tends to be a shift to Adult ego state selected guests.

“We owe Alice and Jim because they invited us last christmas”
“Dr Morton was very good to us when he fitted you in for that quick hysterectomy last year so lets ask him and his wife”
“I will ask Seacomb from HR at work as it is always good to have him on side in the office politics”

These are the reasoned guests who are asked for a specific reason. Well thought out and makes good sense.

Then finally there is a shift to the Parent ego state invites and by this time all the animation has gone and the discussion becomes a bit more sombre. These are the invites that come from guilt.

“We have invited cousin Phoebe so we have to ask uncle Harry even though he tries to tongue kiss all the young women”.
“Cousin Angus had his left testicle removed last month so we can’t really leave him out”
“We have to ask Alison’s partner Juan, even though he is a prick who puts me down”


The 'should' invitee


All the should's and ought too’s come out and add to the guest list. By this time it is starting to get all too much like hard work and you wonder why you bothered in the first place.

The solution is simple. If you want a good party wipe out the last third. The Parent ego state invitees don’t get an ask. If you want a cracker of a party wipe out the second third, all the Adult ego state invitees don’t get asked as well.

With just the Child ego state invitees left it will be one heck of a shindig. With all the subsequent political and emotional fallout later from the uninvited people? What can you do except say, such is life and who gives a rodents rear end!


With a party always take a risk of some kind. It is the host who defines the emotional basis of the party. If the guests pick up on you feeling the risk that gives it the extra edge to make it a good shindig.

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Gestalt Is.
Page 49. Fritz Perls.
“The concept of the organism-as-a-whole is the center of the gestalt psychological approach which is superseding the mechanistic association psychology”

Gestalt Therapy Now.
Page 90. Beisser
“Experience has shown that when a patient identifies with the alienated fragments, integration does occur. Thus, by being what one is - fully - one can become something else”
Page 91.
First gain awareness that the alienated fragments exist. Next the fragment is accepted as legitimate and has a functional need. This then leads to an integrated harmonious whole




Thus:
We are made up of a group of parts or fragments
When one becomes aware of these parts they will like some of them and dislike others.
Accepting a disliked part will result in resistance.

Accept the alienated parts as part of you and identify with them. When done one becomes an organism-as-a-whole. One becomes integrated and becomes something else. The neuroses end and this is seen as the goal of therapy.


Relational contact approach

1. One seeks the identify parts of self such as the various ego states. One then seeks to establish relational contact between those parts. They establish a relationship with one another. Once one has established some kind of workable relationship or some sort of coexistence then one is cured.

One does not seek to integrate them or become a whole. One fully accepts these different parts of self and establishes relational contact between them.

2. These parts establish relational contact with others outside of self. They establish a relationship with one another. Once one has established some kind of workable relationship or some sort of coexistence then one is cured.



Rests on the assumption that health comes from the relational. When one is in a basically sound relationship then one is in health. When healthy relational contact is established there is a growth and development towards health. Research certainly supports such a thing - Hargaden and Sills(2002) page 1


I never knew I was doing this or perhaps I have not looked at this from this slant before. It does provide a new perspective on psychopathology and the psychotherapeutic process.

I have articulated it before
With the demon subpersonality which I initially wrote about in 1987 (Treatment of character). In more recent times when I wrote on the no suicide contract

http://www.ynot1.com.au/magazines/The%20no%20suicide%20contract.cwk%20(WP).pdf



“One way for the client to gain an understanding of their suicidal ambivalence is
for them to take both ego states and dialogue from them. In essence the
therapist sets up a 2 chair exercise. In the Free Child chair the client begins to
understand that part of self which wants to exist and be alive. In the Adapted
Child chair they also gain awareness of their suicidal urges and the part of self
that wants to die or kill self. Sometimes they may even dialogue to each other
and of course the therapist can also speak to both parts. This allows the client
to establish a relationship between the two parts of self and each part is
establishing a relationship with the therapist.” (Page 5)

“Instead one seeks to establish a working relationship with that aspect of the
client. To establish relational contact with the suicidal part of the client. This
means that you do not try and constrain it or limit it. Instead you develop a
working relationship with it. The suicidal aspect of the client and the therapist
learn how to coexist with each other. The approach here is quite similar to that
as is described by White(1987) and working with the demon sub personality. You
learn to coexist and establish a working relationship with it.” (Page 5)

The impasse approach is a very adversarial approach to psychotherapy and indeed an adversarial understanding of the personality in general.



What is being suggested here is more of a bargaining collaborative approach between different parts of the personality

Graffiti

Although tragic it is interesting when you come across a real true example of a abnormal state. I have been working with this guy for sometime now who was a US Marine and was involved in significant episodes of actual combat with the enemy in Iraq. He left the military about a year ago. He was discharged due to injuries sustain in combat.




The diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These days every man and his dog has PTSD. It is one of those diagnoses that has become very fashionable in recent times and of course it is also very useful in legal proceedings. It has an interesting history this condition.

In WW1 they identified a condition which they called shell shock which some returning soldiers displayed. They used the term ‘shock’ because it was believed that the shock from the exploding shells actually physically damaged the brains inside the soldier's skull.


The trauma transaction involves a shattering of the Child ego state




One example of this was with naval aviators who would develop night blindness and vertigo. With these symptoms obviously they could no longer engage in battle. Upon physical examination there was found to be nothing wrong. Instead their Child ego state was so traumatised that it just stated, “I am no longer going out there”. In WW11 they termed it battle fatigue and after the Vietnam and Falklands wars it became known as PTSD. They all seem to be identifying a similar set of symptoms.

Anyway back to my current client. I have worked with many clients over the years that have been diagnosed with PTSD but this guy really does show some of the symptoms in a strong way. Particularly when he talks about the flashbacks. He really is back there in Iraq re-experiencing being there. Also when he talks about the intrusive thoughts and memories they are so strong and clear as is the case when he talks about the welling up of anger. It has just been interesting seeing PTSD in its raw form.



Also of note is the ripple effect that results from him having PTSD. The effect that this has on his wife and children and parents and their various relationships. They have to also do some major readjusting in their own emotional responses and restructure their relationship with him which is changed for ever. Not easy things to achieve.

It has just reminded me that war really does have a lot to answer for. Of course he is just one of many thousands of soldiers who are returning with the same symptoms and all the ripple effects in each and every case. Of course it is exactly the same on the opposing side as well.

Trauma is quite an individualistic thing. What is traumatic for one person may not be for another, baring a few exceptions. Peoples reaction to the same traumatic event can vary considerably even in things like child sexual abuse. The level of traumatic reaction can be quite variable.

One of the few exceptions to this is when a persons life is placed under considerable threat. If one is placed in a situation where it is quite possible or quite likely that they will die then the vast majority of people will develop PTSD to a significant degree.

This assumes that the person accurately perceives the danger and this is one reason why the anti social personality can make such a good soldier because they tend to under estimate the physical threat to them. However most people who are threatened with death will suffer PTSD.



This ex-marine knew that when he went out, there were others out there who were expending a great deal of time and energy to kill him. That was constant over many months and this maybe explains why the PTSD symptoms are so pronounced as compared to the ‘average’ client I see. Thus it is inevitable for many, many veterans and this could make it difficult to have wars in the future as society becomes ‘attuned’ to psychological conditions like PTSD.

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