Ego state therapy treats the personality as made up of distinct but related ego states, or parts, that can be identified, communicated with and helped to cooperate. It belongs to the psychodynamic line and draws heavily on hypnosis.
1. Development history
- Sigmund Freud: psychic energy, cathexes (investments of that energy), and the structural model of id, ego and superego.
- Carl Jung: complexes (emotionally charged clusters within the psyche that can act semi-independently) and the collective unconscious.
- Paul Federn: ego states, organized states of the ego that can be more or less energized at different times.
- John G. Watkins & Helen H. Watkins: ego state therapy, first set out in their 1979 work and developed fully in their book Ego States: Theory and Therapy (1997). John Watkins was trained in hypnosis, and the approach combines psychoanalytic practice with hypnoanalytic techniques to reach and work with ego states.
- Richard Schwartz: Internal Family Systems, a parts-based model drawn from family systems therapy. It was developed in the early 1980s, first published as an article in 1987 ("Our Multiple Selves"), and set out in book form in 1995 (Internal Family Systems Therapy).
- Ericksonian lineage: hypnosis in the tradition of Milton H. Erickson, an individualized, indirect approach built on utilization. It is a parallel hypnotic tradition that many ego state practitioners also draw on, while ego state therapy itself grew mainly out of psychoanalytic hypnoanalysis.
- Eric Berne: Transactional Analysis, another approach built on Federn's ego states. See Transactional Analysis.
Current framework (Adaptive Philosophy, in development)
- Cathexis as the line thrown: cathexis is pictured as a line thrown at an ego state that activates it and brings it forward.
- A round table of parts: a background council of parts that works below awareness.
- Automatic responses: a state can respond before one is consciously selected, and is recognized only afterward, much like a slip of the tongue.
2. Cross-links
- Family systems / Internal Family Systems: parts-based work that applies systems thinking to the inner world.
- Ericksonian hypnosis: a related hypnotic tradition that ego state work often draws on.
- Transactional Analysis: Transactional Analysis
- Multimodal
- Eclectic
- Bibliography: Readings (Unified)