The CRITICAL INNER PARENT

can take up a lot of space!

PREVIOUS: Ego States – CHILD -#5

SITE: “IDENTITY & INTROJECTION”

• The Child & the Seriously Disturbed Parent (Patterns of Adaptation to Parental Psychosis)

POSTS: The Introject (PP)

Reminder: Ego states are normal internal parts of ourselves, aspects of our True Self that are supposed to work together for our benefit.

Main PURPOSE: The survival of the Species

For US: In general, the PES allows us to function AUTOMATICALLY, so we can respond to many aspects of our life without having to think about ‘How or What’ (how to behave in different situation, how to ride a bike or dress ourselves, what we believe, what comes next, what’s right. …). This saves time & effort, freeing up the Adult part to make decisions ‘in the now’.

ALSO – it’s the way we treat ourselves, both in inner dialogue & actions. The Inner Parent is either loving or abusive. Because it’s how we are supposed to ‘nurture’ ourselves, we need to identify if it has toxic content, & then work to correct it.

⬇️ P2 in this chart indicates the stage when the ‘early parent’ (C’s P) is formed – from birth to about age five

For OTHERS: Functions as PARENT to the next generation (our own children, & anyone else in genuine need), by combining family experience with our native personality & what we’ve taught ourselves.

The ideal parent is “all-about-the-child”, nurturing & protective

• P1: The grown-up Parent ego state is formed between ages 5 to around 20, with continued input from authority of caretaker figures. After that, any time P2 gets triggered, people tend to reacts just like their original role m odels.

But since each of us also brings our own personality to how we express P2, plus Recovery, it’s possible to behave much better than our dysfunctional training!

👨‍👦👩‍👦

OLD – accumulated version of major caretakers

NEW – for ACoAs, the Loving Parent (LP) – in PART 2

CHILD ES = “Archaeo-psyche”/ ADULT ES = “Neo-psyche”

Inner PARENT Ego State (PES) ‘Extero-psyche’

1. HISTORIC (rooted in the past)

This E.S. is our Introject – positive or toxic, an internal picture of how we saw & experiences our real parents & other important care-givers when we were growing up. Children are highly intuitive, with little antenna up all the time to learn about themselves & how they’re expected to behave.

SO – kids pick up just as much subliminal info about the people around us as what’s visible, AND what we absorbed was not only OUR immature thinking BUT also their WIC & PP!

Since all children think they’re the center of the universe, they assume everything the adults do & say is about themselves, which leads to a limited understanding & sometimes distorted perspective of grow-ups

• In healthy families this template will have less discrepancy with reality, but

• for ACoAs, this part of us is the Negative Introject, also called Pig Parent, gathered from a collection of people who influenced us as kids, & who we now carry around in our head. It’s the one the WIC is always listening to, is terrified of displeasing, is trying to obey -perfectly- & constantly failing!

🔻Along with our inborn personality this combination becomes the blueprint for the way to think of ourselves & how to function in the world.

*WHEN family members who are long-term caretakers are mis-attuned, invalidating, emotionally neglectful &/ or physically abusive – they create great anxiety in the child.

The resulting desperation triggers an unconscious defense:

❥ the child identifies with ‘the other’, taking on the character of the abuser & canceling out its own needs, in an attempt to stay attached, bonded and loyal. This becomes the PP.

So now PP messages can be very hard to get rid of, since they’re linked to a great deal of original psychological & emotional trauma still being held in the WIC ego state.

NEXT: PARENT E.S. (Part 2)