Transactional Analysis (TA) is a theory of personality and behavior which helps us understand the psychological make-up of individuals. TA was formulated by Eric Berne in 1958. Berne observed that as you watch and listen to people you can see them change before your eyes. There are simultaneous changes in facial expression, vocabulary, gestures, posture and body functions. He realized the existence of ego states when he made an interesting observation in a client. In a session, at times his client had the voice and manner of a small child and suddenly she would transform to a self-righteous parent who was critical and dogmatic in her manner. There were also moments when she sounded like a grown-up woman who reasoned her situation logically. This led to a study which interpreted the above observation as follows — within each one of us lies our own parents, our versions of ourselves when we were children and an adult which has been developing all along in response to the current reality.
These three states of being are psychological realities — the Parent Ego State, the Adult Ego State and the Child Ego State. In this context, ‘Ego’ does not mean what it usually does in our day-to-day life (that is self-importance). An Ego State is a state of being that the person experiences at a given point of time. Watch these videos to learn about the meaning of ego states.