Ego states of the Students and Their Perception of Chosen Elements of the Image of Own Family Life

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to analyse mutual relations between the perception of a biological family and ego states revealed by participants of a study conducted within the framework of Transac-tional Analysis. The analysis begins with the outline of Eric Berne’s concept regarding the structure of ego states: the Critical Parent, the Nurturing Parent, the Natural Child, the Adapted Child, the Adult, and Ethos and Pathos states. Next the paper reviews subject literature focused on the relations between a biological family and the features of a family member exposed to its influence from the perspective of family system typology and family relations. The main research assumptions regarding relations between selected parameters of a family and ego states described by TA were confirmed in the area of relations between the perceived level of consistency and communication in the family and the Pathos ego state. Statistically significant relations between ego states were obtained for selected features of mothers and fathers. The illustration of ego states of adolescents taking part in the study in the form of an egogram was an interesting outcome of the study. The results to a great extent confirm the distribution of ego states optimal for the functioning of an individual proposed in the TA literature. Conclusions suggest further comparative studies and practical implications of the results obtained for the educational process and teacher-student relations.