Man Does Not Live by Ego States Alone

Abstract

TA as thus far developed lacks a way of understanding the Self as a unifying dimension within the personality. Yet both the Self, and awareness, as presently described in the TA literature, contain elements which suggest that there is understood to be a thrust toward integration and spontaneous or holistic experience. The author suggests, in fact, that the person begins life in a state of undifferentiated unity, and only the imposition of premature threats to its sense of survival leads it to decide to divide itself into a Parent, an Adult, and a Child ego state. The ego states, then, are survival-oriented structures for dealing with the input and output, or responsive and responsible modes of consciousness. These correspond generally to the right and left hemispheres of the brain respectively. The spontaneous operations of the Responsive Self and the Responsible Self constitute the Transcendent Self.

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Notes on contributors

Thomas Allan Parry

Thomas Alan Parry, PhD, RM, is in the private practice of psychotherapy, and is also a counsellor at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.