ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the development of the three ego states of Parent, Adult and Child. This is one of the key concepts of Transactional Analysis which led to the well-known diagram of the three stacked circles. Berne described each ego state as a consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. Two of the ego states (Parent and Child) relate to the past, whereas the Adult relates to the present. Ego states are capitalised to indicate that we are referring to a psychological category of being rather than a biological state of parenting or being a child or a grown-up. Experiences of powerful significant people are stored in the Parent ego state. Experiences of the self are stored in the Child ego state. The Parent and Child ego states are called archaic; that is, they are outdated and more about the past than current reality.
