Tony White

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Kahless,
Happy birthday to you



Graffiti

Roses says:

“But aren't we supposed to be in Adult ego most of the time? Isn't that when we're able to be objective and logical; matter-of-fact type thing?” (end quote)

Well that is so Roses,

Transactional Analysis theory says that it is best to have the Adult in executive control of the personality. This means that all the Parent ego state and Child ego state thoughts and feelings are under the control of the Adult ego state.

So any interactions the person has with the others comes from the Adult ego state that has understood and tempered the machinations and irrationality of those two other ego states. The person has made a considered decision on what is the best course of action to take and their decision is not overwhelmed by Child or Parent urges and thoughts.


An example of the Child ego state getting expressed without Adult control. His Adult is probably unaware he is doing it and thus does not have control over the Child ego state



This is one of the many ways that Transactional Analysis and CBT are similar. CBT does the same. Both systems assume that rationality is the healthy psychological state. The psyche that is dominated by the Adult ego state is defined as the state of psychological health.

To my mind in some ways this is a very dubious assumption. We are all born with a Parent and Child ego state that at times are irrational in some way. So Adult control of them could be seen as Adult ego state repression of them. They are not allowed free and unfettered expression. If this is so then an Adult dominated personality is not a healthy state because it involves the defence mechanism of repression dominating the personality.

I have recently put together another article from my blog posts that is to go onto my website, although it is not there yet as my website guy is away, but it should be there shortly. It is titled, “Siblings - rivalry and jealousy”.



In it I state:

“What is being presented here is that jealousy and sibling rivalry are normal emotions for children to experience during childhood. In contrast to this much of the psychological literature on jealousy presents it as a bad emotion that needs to be avoided. Indeed envy is counted as one of the seven deadly sins and of course envy and jealousy are largely interchangeable terms. There are many program and techniques which describe how to over come your jealousy and descriptions of how parents can seek to avoid their children becoming jealous. To my mind this is erroneous and misses the significant psychological growth that can be gained from jealousy.” (end quote)

To restate this relevant to this blog post. The many programs around that work to stop feelings like jealousy basically are seen to assist the person to get Adult control over that emotion. If that happens then one basically thinks the emotions away. And this is one of my main criticisms of CBT and the Adult ego state dominated personality. Feelings are thought away and not expressed. To my mind this is a dangerous thing to do if used consistently over time.

Humans are naturally irrational at times and this irrationally needs to be allowed to be expressed or one is repressing a significant part of the personality.

The first diagram shows how the theory says it should work.



1. The husband says or does something
2. The wife listens to what her Parent ego state says about what hubby said
3. The wife listens to what her Child ego state says about what hubby said
4. Her Adult then makes a decision based on the first three transactions on how to respond. In this instance she responds from her Adult but she could also decide to respond from her Child or Parent

In the second diagram



1. The husband says or does something
2. The wife makes a spontaneous response from her Parent with out consulting the Adult
3. The wife makes a spontaneous response from her Child with out consulting the Adult

TA and CBT theory really do not like the second diagram and would define that as a state of psychological ill health. Indeed if one wanted to get sociological one would say that governments don’t like diagram two. Governments do not like their populations to act is such irrational (non Adult dominated) ways. So one could argue that this psychological theory is used in the service of keeping the powerful in power. However that is for another blog post.

I certainly see diagram 2 as healthy at least some of the time. The spontaneous undeliberated response is psychological health at least some of the time. Most people have a lot of trouble with this because it means surrendering to ones irrationality or emotions. It involves trusting self to a degree that most don’t. This is too frightening for most people and they will complain that they are loosing control, to which I will respond, ‘Yes you are”. An example of this may be when I ask my clients to have a panic attack in front of me.

Its like using mood stabilising drugs. What is wrong with having unstable mood some of the time at least to some degree. Diagram 1 is like a mood stabilising drug. It’s all about control of the personality and that is often over done in a society like Australia. This to my mind it is a pathological state.


Can this Free Child really happen if one has a personality that is dominated by the Adult executive? My answer is, no, as you loose that spontaneous free aspect.



Note to Roses. Do not say this in any of your TA assignments or you will probably get a big black mark. There are a lot of people who would disagree with what I have said here.


Implications for counselling
What the counsellor spends a good amount of their time doing is looking for the non-Adult dominated communications. Looking for the irrational communications that the client is making.

It seems safe to say that people’s verbal communications are going to be much more dominated by Adult than their non-verbal or body language communications. People will display their unconscious urges much more in their body language than in their verbal language.

I often find myself saying to trainee counsellors - Turn down the audio and turn up the video. That is listen less to what they have to say and listen more to they have to do. Stop listening and start watching because that allows one to avoid the Adult dominated communications.

In the picture above I am sure Prince Charles is speaking to the woman in a very appropriate and respectful manner. That is what his audio says. She also looks quite attractive and has a good rack which is what his video says. This is no criticism of him, he is just a member of the male gender of the human species. If males could get their Adult ego state down below their waist line more often the world would probably be a much simpler place.



So what is my point? Well by watching his video tells me all sorts of things. First it says that he is probably of a heterosexual orientation. So if you have a client who is saying that he thinks he may be homosexual and then is displaying such video then that is incongruent.

In counselling I say watch the hands and the feet. These extremities often seem to display the Child, non-Adult dominated communications. Hence one can see why I assert that approaches that define rationality and the Adult exectutive in the personality as healthy use the defence mechanism of repression. This is why I would say it is not a healthy state but a pathological state.

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KazzaB states about the previous post:

"I loved reading about the german women. What was the reaction from the other people around the pool? I think that's wonderful and something I'd love to aspire to. To not feel self conscious and just accept yourself as you are is a real gift”



There would have been three reactions from all the others at the pool KazzaB

One third would have responded from their Child ego state: I know that as I watched them I was interested and curious from an anatomical point of view because I never get to see a body like that without it being almost completely covered up. What does the body do with all that fat and extra weight? Where and how does it put it on the body?

One third would have responded from their Adult ego state: These people would have observed and viewed them and maybe asked a question like, “Is that a cultural thing where over weight German women can display their bodies like that?”

One third would have responded from their Parent ego state: “Look at those fat women, they are disgusting and should be ashamed of themselves. They are obviously weak willed and should go on a diet”.



That’s it KazzaB. There is always going to be those three responses. Obviously the Parent ego state response is the most contentious one. You can get laws changed where one can’t make discriminatory statements about over weight people. But you can never stop people thinking and feeling Parent ego state responses.

This is where I think most political groups fail. The “Fat is good” political force in society stands up for their rights and get laws changed that say you can’t poke fun at fat people and so forth. To my mind they also need to openly acknowledge that people will always have a Parent ego state and that means that some of them will always think derogatory and discriminatory thoughts. Those can never be stopped and this needs to be openly stated.



Those German women would know that. That some of the people watching them pool side would be thinking that they are fat and ugly. Somehow they have their own internal thinking structured such that it does not modify their behaviour or their perception of self (I assume).

Part of that would be an acceptance of self. That is they are focusing on self and not others. The question is not - “Do they think I am fat and ugly?” instead it is - “Do I think I am fat and ugly?” And it is in this way that the political groups are actually bad psychologically for the over weight people. The political groups are focussed on changing others. Their focus is on how others behave which to my mind is the wrong thing to do. It is not about focussing on self it is about changing others.

This is what I like about the Pro-ana groups. Whilst they do give out unfortunate advice to teenage girls on loosing weight and so forth, it is a self focussed approach. It says to the girls “I live the anorexic lifestyle and that is (I am) OK”. They are not trying to change others.



That is why I like the last sentence in your comment KazzaB, about the self acceptance. We always know how others will react. One third will be from Child, one third will be from Adult and one third will be from Parent. But that focusses on them and not on what I think and feel.

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Last night I went with a few friends to the Mustang bar. Doesn’t that sound cool. Said in a very nasal way the “Mus-Taaang Baaar”. I have been to a few bars in my time but never the Mustang bar before. With today (Monday) being a bank holiday (as Kahless calls it) it was going to be a good Sunday night out at the bar with my cohorts.

I went there all ready to have a go on the mechanical bucking bronco in the corner and line dancing with a group of men wearing oversized hats. But when I got there I discovered it was not “Mustang” as in cowboys but Mustang as in the mustang car, sleek and fast! The place was full of the trendy set with fast women and men having a mid life crisis. The kind of place where women go looking for men with money and men with money go looking for women who are looking for men with money. Which ruled me out for getting lucky that evening.



Kind of tragic really. Most of them would have been much better off dressed in their pyjamas and sitting at home in front of the TV. But I ended up having a grand time indeed. There was one other thing I noticed at the Mustang bar. There would not have been one real boob in the entire place and the botox had been flowing like the Amazon river. It was a plastic surgeons showcase!

Now I actually have no problem with plastic surgery. In the psychotherapy business it is kind of frowned upon and that the person who gets the fat sucked out of their thighs or their buttocks raised a few centimetres must be neurotic.

I don’t agree with that even though I do understand the logic behind it. Yes there are people who feel self hatred and think that if I change this and that physically then I will feel better about myself. Of course it does not stop the self hatred. Then there is the 20 year old young woman who wants to have a boob job and that probably is not such a good idea.


Physical beauty

Many years ago I was holidaying in Bali and was staying in one of those huge super duper hotels where the swimming pool is as big as a medium sized lake. The regulars go down every day and spend it lying by the pool, drinking beer and eating peanuts and chips. On this holiday there were three German women who were regulars by the pool. I know they were German because I eaves dropped in on them and picked up the vernacular.

Now these ladies were big ladies and I mean big. They also all wore very small bikinis. So there was a lot of flesh to be seen and there were many rolls of fat on display. But the thing was they could not have cared less. They would strut around the pool area and not give a damn. They did not try and hide themselves or look around at who might be watching or comparing them self to anyone else as far as I could tell. They talked and laughed loudly and they continually ate and drank whilst relaxing pool side. Then there were the other women who had obviously been living on carrot sticks and lettuce leaves for the past 10 years who were obviously very body conscious. They would dash as quickly as they could from their “loll-about” seat into the water so no one could see them.

I had much admiration for those three German women and this is what the psychotherapy set would see as good. That individual who accepts self as they are and is not trying to transform into something else. Which is a bit odd really as psychotherapy is all about change, but it is also about self acceptance as well.



That is the logic behind why getting plastic surgery can be seen as a neurotic act. It is a dramatic display of a non-acceptance of self. But I that really true? I had a colleague who was also a very good friend for many years. She was physically quite attractive. She was a good looking woman and she also had one very large “honker”, which is an Australian term for nose.

She would come to me and we had many a discussion about should she have rhinoplasty. Now that is a really bad name to call it and they must change the name, pleeese! Here is this kind woman with a large nose talking about maybe having surgery which is called rhinoplasty. Which obviously comes from the word rhinoceros. For heaves sake it is saying she looks like a rhinoceros!



I would always tell her to go for it and get the nose job. Eventually she did and from what I saw if anything she benefited from it psychologically. So there maybe some women who do benefit from plastic surgery, physically and emotionally. So if a woman wants to get a boob job, go for it I say!

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Myalterego asks in a recent post of hers:
“Is there a rule that therapists should never apologise?”

In my involvement in counselling and psychotherapy over the past 25 years I have never heard such a rule being stated. I know that I have and do apologise to clients when necessary. I see nothing wrong with it. It certainly is not often that I have felt the need to apologise but I have done so.


Did Bill ever apologise for his errant ways?



What have I apologised for in the past? Most often it would be a practical thing like a mix up in appointments that was my fault. However I can recall some times when a patient has protested that my comments to them have been unfair or uncalled for in some way. I have gone away and thought about it and may have even spoken to someone about it. In the next session I have apologised to the client and that I agree with them that my comments were unfair or unnecessary.

Myalterego asks in a recent post of hers:
“Is there a rule in therapy that it (apologising) undermines authority/transference/focus on the patient to apologise?”

I think if anything it would enhance the transference relationship and the relational contact. If a therapist apologises to a client, to me that shows a respect for the client as a person and an acknowledgement to the client that the therapist is realistic about them self as a person and a clinician.


Sometimes it is difficult to remain realistic about ones self.



Every body stuffs at some time and of course than includes therapists when they are working. Every body knows this including the patients. So if a therapist never apologies or acknowledges they have erred what does that say to the patient about the therapist. It is certainly not going to add to the client's sense of trust in the therapist as a person or a practitioner

Myalterego asks in a recent post of hers:
“Is any problem always the patient’s pathology?”

My answer is, No. In any relationship therapeutic or otherwise, both parties sooner or later contribute to the relationship difficulties in some way. This also begs the question as to why a therapist would refuse to apologise to a client. Off the top of my head I have come up with a short list.
1. The therapist has a need to be seen as perfect and idealised by the client.
2. There is some kind of personal insecurity in the therapist. “If I admit to the client a failing of mine then they will see I am incompetent, a fake, etc just like mother told me I was”
3. They have power issues, so if they apologise then they have a sense of a loss of power in the relationship.
4. They simply lack the art of introspection. This is typified in personalities like the narcissist, hysteric and the paranoid. They are not ‘able’ to see their own contributions or failings and thus it is always the ‘fault’ of the other person.
5. The person is angry. I think it is safe to say that when someone is angry at another then they are far less likely to apologise than if they were not angry.


Sometimes therapists get self centered and narcissistic like when they are idealized over time.



Sometimes however it is a very difficult judgement call for the therapist. I recall being at a week long training event where I was one of the five leaders and there would have been 30 to 40 participants. At one point I was doing therapy with a woman who I knew well and she stated that I was being too harsh on her and that I should stop being so. I felt that I was not and so I continued as I had been. She cried and so forth and after the work when there was discussion there was about 90% of the group agreeing with her and in essence saying that I should apologise to her. I still didn't but I came under great continued pressure to do so over the next few days. I certainly considered what I was doing with her many times in the next few days but decided that this was the approach required at that time. After the week ended she continued in her individual treatment with me and as it turned out it was a major turning point in her therapy with me. She saw me being able to stand up to all that pressure and thus her level of trust in me was enhanced considerably.


Finally it seems cogent at this point to highlight another aspect of conflict and disagreements in relationships which of course is most often when apologies are necessary. Humans are great at getting into relationship and awful at getting out of them. This can of course apply to therapeutic relationships as well.

If two people disagree and believe they are right and that the other should apologise what is most likely to happen? The will move away from each other and not see each other again. So if two people are in a relationship, have an attachment but are tired of the relationship one way to get out is to have a disagreement or some kind of dispute. Of course the content of the dispute is irrelevant but instead it is just a means by which both parties can finally get out of the relationship.


Human relationships. Easy to start and hard to stop.




One other thing needs to be said about the therapeutic relationship that makes it different to many other relationships. One would hope that a therapeutic relationship does not end with a dispute of some kind. Where either the client refuses to attend again or the therapists refuses to see the client again. If this happens then it probably breaks the golden rule.

What is the golden rule? The most important factor in the termination phase of counselling, is that the client does not leave the therapeutic relationship in the same old self defeating relationship patterns that they have done so before.

If the relationship ends in a dispute then it is quite likely that the patient has left the relationship in some kind of script reinforcing manner. It is incumbent upon the therapist to do all they can to not let this happen. It is far less incumbent on the client in this way.

If the therapeutic relationship terminates without any hostilities then the client probably has been able to avoid using the end of that relationship to further their life script.

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