According to TA, all people have, in di ering degrees, three ego states—Parent, Adult, and
Child. As Berne (1964) states, “Although we cannot directly observe these ego states, we
can observe behaviour and from this infer which of the three ego states is operating at that
moment.” e three ego states are shown in Figure 8.4.
e parent ego state is an emotional state in which people unconsciously mimic the
behaviour of parents, older siblings, teachers, and persons providing early religious experi-
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.