Analysing parent-ego by contemplating own parent-ego involves self-analysis. What are our shared and non-shared attitudes with our parents or parental figures? What are our own values? Which values have we consciously chosen to carry on versus those we say we follow because it is expected?
What are our non-shared attitudes, and why do we no longer share them? What are our core beliefs? While core beliefs may be held by the parent-ego, core beliefs can also be developed logically or accepted from the parent-ego by the adult-ego.
Shared and Non-Shared Attitudes
The first part of analysing parent-ego by contemplating own parent-ego is to looking at the attitudes our parents. These attitudes were either adopted as our own or we chose not to share them. To analyze your parents’ attitudes, answer these questions.
1. What were my parents’ attitudes toward money?
2. What were my parents’ attitudes towards men and women?
3. What were my parents’ attitudes towards crises?
Now ask these questions of yourself.
4. What are my attitudes toward money?
5. What are my attitudes towards men and women?
6. What are my towards attitudes crises?
What attitudes are the same? These are the shared values between you and your parents. What are the differences between your parents’ values and your own? These differences can range from nuances to complete reversals. These are non-shared values.
• A domineering father and submissive mother lived in a dynamic where the father was OK and the mother was not-OK. Their children have matured and hold an “I’m OK – You’re OK” view of others in accordance with the adult ego in transactional analysis. The children see the other gender as equal, versus their parents’ values of “I’m OK – You’re not OK”.
• A parent valued pleasure over self-control or pursued pleasure for fear of not being able to do it again. When Mom blew the rent money gambling, the parent can make excuses, but the child remembers the cold or the dark or the hunger. The child who lived in a sense of scarcity because the parent blew money on pleasurable objects and experiences can take an opposite tact, viewing money as scarce and precious and then hoard it, becoming not just frugal but miserly for fear of not being able to buy food or necessities.
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