The neopsyche: the integrating Adult ego state*

Abstract

This chapter discusses the implications of the metaphor of and lays the theoretical foundations for the integrating Adult by considering transactional analysis as an organismic psychology. It presents revised model of the Adult, based on constructivist approaches to transactional analysis and, specifically, co-creative transactional analysis. Ego states are fundamental to transactional analysis, indeed it may be said that they define this modality or branch of psychology. If the Adult ego state is defined as characterized by an autonomous set of feelings, attitudes, and behavior patterns which are adapted to the current reality, it follows that the neonate has an Adult ego state or, as Sprietsma put it: a person is actually 'Born Adult'. The chapter concludes with reflection on the implications of an expanded notion of Adult ego states for transactional analysis itself.