Part 5- The Three Worlds: Survival, Emotional, and Practical
RECOGNITION & SWITCHING
My introduction to group and individual therapy came in the fall of 1969 while I was in my senior year of Seminary in Louisville, KY. My teacher was Dr. David Steere and he had spent the previous year on sabbatical on the west coast in California studying all the new forms of psychotherapy that were springing up. He came back full of what he had learned especially about transactional analysis, gestalt therapy, and psychodrama. I took a lot of classes from him that year. (For a description of my first class with him and my meeting Dr. Bob Goulding please see, Bob and Mary: Chapter One by clicking here.)
Under his wise tutelage, I cut my psychotherapy “teeth” on Transactional Analysis (TA). Fifty years later, I am a teaching member in good standing of the ITAA (International Transactional Analysis Association) and a former editor of the TAJ (The Transactional Analysis Journal). Most therapists have at least a passing acquaintance with the basics of TA: the concept of games and that of three ego states. TA became well known through the publication of Eric Berne’s surprise bestseller, Games People Play.
I mention all of this because of the concept of ego states. Here you can see the symbols for the Parent Ego State, The Adult Ego State, and the Child Ego State:
P
A
C
Like my representations for the Three Worlds, it is a tripartite model. However, there are significant differences between that model and my own. The most important difference is that the three ego states are connected at their boundaries. There is space between the Three Worlds. This is intentional and instructive. Any close reading of the TA literature will reveal that one sometimes operates from just one ego state and sometimes from a combination of either two or all three working in harmony.
It only takes one ego state (the Child) to decide to have an ice cream cone on a hot sunny day. One best have all three in play when deciding on a new home mortgage, making a relationship permanent or any other important life decision. If these thoughts are new to you and interesting, there is an endless amount of material elsewhere about them.
Suffice it say, the Three Worlds don’t “work together” or overlap with one another. They are each separate and are satisfied by three distinct criteria that do not overlap. Remember the essence of the Survival World (SW) is action (modify or remove threat), of the Emotional World (EW) is process (talking and sharing), and of the Practical World (PW) is content (facts and measurement in order to fix).
To repeat: What satisfies one World will not in any manner satisfy another World. Actually, using the skills of the wrong World causes frustration and sometimes worse. I do apologize for beating continually on this particular drum, but that is at the heart of this material. Most of us have heard the humorous answer to the question, “What is insanity?” “It is doing the very same thing over and over always hoping for a different outcome.” There it is.
Anyone who has engaged in conducting couples’ therapy can tell you that the “insanity” observation is much more than that, as partners strive mightily to resolve issues in the EW by using the tools of the PW or the SW. No one ever felt emotional solace because their partner “won” the facts contest (PW) nor has peace and a sense of wellness been restored to a home because one partner has threatened (yet again) to storm out of the house if things aren’t fixed “right now” (SW).
RECOGNITION
It is not uncommon for me in working with a couple in my office to intervene at a certain moment and ask something to the effect, “What is it like for you to see your spouse in so much pain?” To this question, I have received a variety of responses: “She pulls this every time I try to talk to her,” “He doesn’t look like he is pain to me,” “I wish she wouldn’t try to interrupt me when I am trying to make a point,” “Well, I’m in pain too,” “It doesn’t do any good if I try to respond to it,” “How can I see any pain when I am being screamed at?”
All of the initial responses are evidence of the failure to recognize that the EW is “in the room” in the moment. The EW has an irresistible pull if it is recognized. Remember, we only do the EW with people whom we have chosen to love. There is always exposed vulnerability when the EW “shows up” and that vulnerability is a pregnant opportunity to respond with empathy, tenderness, and kindness. In fairness, most of us did not witness modeling for such EW responses.
When the EW is present, so is vulnerability: I am showing the other person my longing, my insecurity, or my childhood pain. If I am limited in my skill set to either the SW or the PW, I will not know how to respond to the “opportunity” in front of me, to respond from my own EW experience. From the SW, I will experience the EW vulnerability as “blood in the water” and will press my attack sensing I might be close to overcoming what feels like my opponent rather than my beloved. I will not be able to sense that my partner feels under attack, even abused.
From the PW, I will intuitively use more facts and be more “matter-of-fact.” I will instinctively operate from a win-lose paradigm and will do my best to carry the day. I will use my memory to press my “case” using selected examples of the culpability of my partner and my “innocence” by contrast. I will not be aware that I am not responding to any of the emotional cues in front of me. I will not realize that I am not “in the moment” with my partner. I will not be aware that I will feel cold and that seem uncaring. My partner will not feel empathy from me, but abandoned due to my avoiding any genuine emotional contact. You cannot be a source of comfort by citing condemning “facts” from the past.
“But why would I want to be a source of comfort when I’m fighting for my life?” Because you aren’t “fighting for your life.” No one dies in the EW. “Well, don’t I have to correct the misinformation that is being used against me?” Actually, facts just don’t matter in the EW. “How would you feel if someone was talking to you like this?” Hopefully, I would feel complimented that someone trusted me enough to be so vulnerable with me. “Yes, but I’m being disrespected and I don’t think I should have to put up with something like that being said to me.” The first principle of the EW: It’s not personal. “I just hate it when we get into this. I’d rather not be there.” The most important skill in the EW: Being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
People will often ask when couples’ therapy is complete or at least at a point where it is good to take a break. I answer with this imaginary vignette: A husband comes home at the end of a long day looking harried and exhausted. Upon seeing his wife, he blurts out, “Driving home today I realized that the worst mistake I ever made in my life was marrying someone like you. I must have been insane.” There is a short pause and the wife says, “It sounds like you have had a horrible day. Do you want to pour a glass of wine and talk about it?” Pause. Husband, “Yeah, I just lost my job.” IT’S NOT PERSONAL. It just feels that way.
It would be a very different situation if that husband came home every day expressing such blatant hostility. Abuse may not be “personal”, but that is beside the point. Often, where there is a pattern abuse, there is an underlying feeling of hostility and intimidation, not affection. In such a situation, the bromides about the underlying warmth of the EW do not apply. There are too many of the strategies of the SW in use. In that case, it is not a relationship capable of healing, but a battlefield where physical or emotional survival dominates the environment.
Obviously, the focus of this essay is to be able to recognize the presence of the EW because that is novel for many of us and an area of deep confusion. It is true that most of us are better equipped to make the switch when the PW or the SW makes an appearance. Certainly, when one does not recognize the presence of the EW, then he or she misses the opportunities for learning, sharing, comforting, and being affectionate that are available in that moment. That is the loss of an opportunity to be intimate, to offer surcease, for emotional pain or to mutually experience joy.
There are also potential negative consequences attendant upon the failure to switch into the SW or the PW when one of them appears. The greatest danger in not recognizing the presence of the SW is loss of life itself. It is difficult to deny the presence of the SW when a small child has fallen into a swimming pool. Someone jumps in and saves the child. Above all, the SW is an action world. It is also a world that demands immediate recognition. The child falling in the pool is easy. The woman who is having a heart attack and is experiencing the mild symptoms that women often experience is a different, if no less, dangerous story than the child. “I think I’ll go lie down for awhile,” is an example of the last words some people remember someone saying.
Because of all my years of working at the Meyer Friedman Institute in San Francisco, I have scores of such examples, even some of the physicians, who were having a heart attack and “diagnosed” it as something else only to be found later having expired. When the SW is “in the room," immediate recognition and action are called for. I have taught in my Type A classes for years, “When in doubt, call 911.” That admonition has saved lives.
In a like manner, it is also vital to know when the SW is not present even though the amount of adrenaline in the moment makes it seem so. Having ruled out its presence, then it is possible to recognize if one is experiencing the discomfort of the EW or something unfortunate in the PW. It is terrible to lose one’s home to disaster or debt, but it is not fatal. The PW can be remorseless, but no one dies there even though life can be altered in many unfair and cruel ways. Obviously there are some losses in the PW that raise the specter that the SW might predictably appear.
Failure to obey the prerequisites of the PW can lead to inefficiency and worse. The great demand of the PW is efficiency, order, and routine in order to manage life successfully. There has to be attention devoted to facts and to content. Schedules and hierarchies need to be honored. The PW demands discipline in order to function correctly. If those virtues are not obeyed, then disorder and needless failure might ensue. It is not as dramatic as severe chest pains, but the arrival of a second notice of an unpaid bill or a warning from one’s boss often indicate that sufficient priority is not being given to the dictates of the PW.
SWITCHING
We switch all the time. I loved watching my well-dressed father coming home everyday from his job at the West Virginia State Capitol. He made a beeline for his closet so he could change clothes from his immaculate coat, tie, and “hard” shoes into his khakis, slippers, and sport shirt. He was done with work and ready for the evening with a dinner of my mother’s delicious cooking. The next morning, he switched again in reverse order.
When the bell rang for recess at Mercer Elementary School in Charleston, we charged out the doors already “switched” before we reached the front of the school and the playground. When the bell rang ending recess, we switched again but with far less enthusiasm.
When someone says, “The meeting will come to order,” we switch. I was taught as a nurse’s assistant on the psychiatric ward, One South of El Camino Hospital in 1972, that if I ever came upon a patient who was not breathing I was to step into the hallway and shout, “Code Blue” at the top of my lungs and everyone would immediately switch. Research shows that an infant’s screams are designed by evolution to cause mothers to switch into a mode that will relieve the screaming and the mother’s agitation.
Obviously, it is imperative for all “grown ups” to be able to switch into the PW at the appropriate time and at rare times of urgency in that World. We absolutely need to do that when the SW makes an appearance.
For those of us who have willingly taken on the commitment of relationships, based on affection and choice, we need to know how to heed the call of the EW when it appears, even if it is more subtle than the screams of an infant or the ringing of a bell. Once known, the signs of the EW are as evident as “Code Blue” or “The meeting will come to order.”
TWO INTERVENING PROBLEMS
In a lecture from eons ago, I remember John Gottmann rattling off some fascinating, if disturbing, research findings. I paraphrase, but he said if someone thinks he is having symptoms that signify a possible heart attack, that person will seek treatment in two days (I once had a group member who endured a heart attack for thirty-six hours until he came home from a trip and his wife looked at him and said, over his objections, “We are going to the hospital.” Once there, his heart stopped and they revived him.). If a person finds a lump on their body that could be a signal of cancer, that person will seek treatment in two months. If a couple feels that something corrosive is taking place in their relationship that could damage it severely or even end it, they will seek treatment in five years.
That is the problem of denial. Dr. Friedman said that the greatest danger to people who had had a previous heart attack was what he called “cardiac denial,” the danger that someone who already knew what a heart attack was like would deny that another was taking place and would resist seeking immediate treatment.
If someone could disregard such dire indications that switching was in order, imagine the difficulty of switching taking place in the face of mild utterances such as: “We need to talk,” “Can we talk about sex?” “You look sad,” “I feel scared,” “I worry about us,” “You seem distant and cold,” or a whole host of other cues that the EW is “in the room.”
Besides denial, the other great impediment is a lack of knowledge about the World that is beckoning. Most of us know to call for medical expertise, at least when the signs are obvious enough. We also don’t try to repair our own computers, cars, or Xerox machines. These call for experts in the respective worlds.
Most of us are loath to recognize that we feel ignorant or inexperienced in the face of an EW problem. We bluster or we avoid. We make the other person the problem or give an apology that doesn’t mean I will find out how to change my behavior, “Just get off my back right now.” A recurring drill for my Type A participants is to use the phrase, “Maybe I was wrong” at least once on a given day. This is a drill because it is so hard for so many to say it and it is so necessary in soothing human relationships.
There is a widely, if unspoken, belief that we should just know what to do in the EW. Well, in a sense we do. We know exactly how our early-in-life models did the EW when we were growing up. Think about that. Will that be enough to carry me through a fifty-plus year relationship with both of us feeling more close and more healed? Did our models show us how to do that? Or did they teach us more about how to avoid and how to attack? It’s an important question and a fair one. There is no blame involved in this material.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: CHOICE
In so many ways, the work devoted to modifying Type A Behavior (TAB) offers us a useful template in approaching the Three Worlds material. Remember, my original idea came from my observation that Type A men in particular were perfectly at home in the what I came to call the SW and the PW, but were frequently at a loss with the appearance of the EW.
Included at the end of the monthly drill cards (instructions on how to behave like a Type B) there is included this phrase:
The process of transforming Type A Behavior is simply the creation of choice in
place of our ancient, instant, and habitual Type A reactions.
In the movie Roger Rabbit, his cartoon girlfriend says, “I don’t want to be bad. I’m just drawn that way.” I love that line. People afflicted with TAB don’t get up in the morning with the intention of being impatient and irritated. Unfortunately, they are “drawn that way,” having no other choices for certain stimuli.
It is the same bind created by having little experience of good modeling in the EW. SW and PW responses in the face of an EW stimulus seem “natural.” TAB responses seem just as natural.
This is why recognition is so important. It is why believing we can switch is just as important. We can recognize which World is “in the room,” just as it is possible to switch by being obedient to the dictates of each World. It does mean learning new habits.
One of my group participants described an excruciating scene of incompetence and delay in getting his belongings through an airport security check. In telling us this hilarious story, he described how he would have handled the scene before his training. As it turned out, a person who had watched his equanimity and patience asked him, “Are you a Buddhist?” He had exercised a choice he had not always possessed.
The genesis of having choice is by naming the World that is currently present or, just as important, the World that is not present. If the EW is clearly what is taking place, then it is just as certain the SW and PW are not there. The strategies of those two Worlds will not work at least if you believe what has been written here. One might not know what to do immediately, but it rules out lots of things not to do.