Games children play - Happy to help

This game is about survival

The good child. This child does what it is told, follows the rules, can be overly

helpful, can be quite shy, is reluctant to express what it wants or needs, will put

others before itself. If they are not so much the shy one they can become high

achievers if they have natural talent in some area. They learn that to be good you do

well at school, or in sport or in civic work and so they achieve in that way, by doing

’stuff’, rather than hiding away.

Why would such a youngster exhibit excessive Conforming Child ego state and

give up their Rebellious Child and Free Child ego states?

There can be a number of reasons for this

* There can be an excessive pressure for the child to conform by the parents

who may be quite conforming themselves. “What will the neighbors think” is often

the motto of such a family. The parents are reluctant to be non-conforming

themselves and perhaps are merely parenting the way they were parented.

The pressure can also be applied because the parents use the child as a status

symbol. Often this is the eldest child in the family or the one the parents believe

have some natural talents. I recall one instance of an individual who was

relentlessly pressured by mother to go to university and become a doctor. When

ever there was a family get together it was repeatedly announced particularly by

mother that he was a doctor. She was using her sons achievement to compete or gain

credence in the wider family. You see clients like this in counselling room in their

30s or 40s and they say things like, “I never wanted to be an economist, I just

wanted to be an opera singer”.

* This can be the oldest child in the family which the parents use as a live

in baby-sitter for the younger siblings which frees up the parents. If the eldest

child accepts this role this fosters the child to put its needs behind

those of its younger siblings. Alternatively it can be a child who has a sibling who is

disabled, or sick, or has extra needs of some sort. The parents simply do not have

the time and energy to deal with the non-sick youngster so they force it to be good

so it requires less attention. In large families as well you can get the ‘forgotten

child’. In today’s culture any family that has over three children is quite possibly

emotionally damaging to the children for the reason just cited.

People who are this type of good child often will tend towards the helping

professions in adulthood. They can quite easily become transactional analysts

because in such a role you focus on the needs and wants of others and do not discuss

your own such wants. Your needs are secondary at least while you are working.

* Sometimes it is the only position left in the family. As a new child enters the

family and grows into it he has to find where he fits. The parents have the Parent

and Adult ego states covered and a sibling may have the outspoken, demanding

position taken so the ‘happy to help’ good child position is the only one left. If the

child’s natural temperament is of that kind than it can very easily fall into the good

child position in the family.

* The good child can be anxiety driven. If a child develops significant anxiety for

some reason (abuse, abandonment, threats, etc), it can make the early decision, “To

make myself safe I need to sit quietly and watch what is happening” or, “I must not

rock the boat or bad things happen”. This is an unfortunate child as it can suffer quite bad anxiety or depression but it never gets identified or diagnosed. As it does not cause problems at school or at home the adults around it will focus on other problem children and it is left unattended.

The ‘Happy to help’ game in essence involves a contraction of the Free

Child(FC) ego state. As mentioned before such game players often present for

counselling in their 30s or 40s and ask the question, “Who am I?” in some form.

Without good access to the Free Child one cannot answer that question. If you are

high Conforming Child (CC) the answer to that question is - “I am who you want me

to be”. If the person if high Rebellious Child (RC) they answer - “I am the

opposite of who you want me to be”. Both the RC and CC are adaptations to the

parents. If they are left to do what they want then they are lost, they do not have

a sense of who they are and thus will not have a direction in life and will never find

their true passion in life. The person with good access to their FC will be able to

answer the question, “Who am I?”. They can answer that with the practicalities of

life, but they will also have a sense of who they are. They will feel it inside. The RC

and CC do not feel it. The good child will struggle with this problem.

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Stage fright and performance anxiety

What is stage fright?

This it seems safe to say this is an anxiety based condition

I will mainly talk about people giving a workshop or some kind of public speaking as I have dealt with this mainly, including my own public speaking. However I have dealt with many others over the years who present the problem of stage fright in a wide variety of areas. For instance I knew a woman who plays the guitar and she used to get very anxious before any performance and used to take Beta blockers before auditions.

That is one solution to stage fright, some kind of anti anxiety medication. I recall another client who was very religious and had strong views against drugs or alcohol of any kind. She had to give a presentation in a tutorial to fellow university students. I recall being surprised when she said that before the tutorial she dank a glass of beer. She was that anxious that she dropped her views on alcohol to deal with the fright. This demonstrates just how significant stage fright or performance anxiety can be for some people.

I think it is fair to say that every person who does some kind of public presentation suffers stage fright to some degree. The Free Child ego state will naturally be nervous as you are performing to some degree. You are up there in front of an audience who are all looking at you and who will make a judgement of you of some kind. 

For some however the anxiety is neurotic in that it is beyond the normal degree of stage fright or has some other psychological meaning. People who present for stage fright or public speaking anxiety in counselling usually have all sorts of thoughts and produced many scenarios about how the audience will negatively asses them. Interestingly however, stage fright has little to do with them (the audience) and much more to do with you. In most cases the audience is somewhat irrelevant to what is going on psychologically.

There is a small group who suffer stage fright because of a problem in the Child ego state of the presenter. In this case the person has significant doubts about their own worth or OKness. They feel bad as a person in themselves. In their mind they start to link performance with OKness such that if they perform badly then that proves they are a bad person or their sense of personal worth is diminished. 

This person can suffer very badly from performance anxiety because each time they go out and perform their very sense of self worth is on the line. Whilst this does occur I would say that this is a small group of sufferers of stage fright. Most sufferers usually have an active internal Critical Parent ego state which they project onto the audience. This is why I say stage fright has much less to do with the audience than the performer them self.

When a client says the audience will think they are bad, performed poorly or give them a highly critical assessment I usually respond with - “Some will and some wont”. Those in the audience with a high CP will give a critical assessment no matter how good you are and those with a low CP will give a non critical assessment no matter how bad you are. (This is to be distinguished from an Adult ego state assessment which audience members can also make, however this is not usually what the stage fright person is anxious about.)

Stage fright is about how much CP the performer has in their own mind. Usually those who come from a background with highly critical parents often have their own high CP and those with less critical parents will have a lower CP and suffer less performance anxiety.

Dealing with stage fright is about 

Increasing internal NP

Reducing internal CP

Developing a strong A

Making sure the Child feels OK about self such that its OKness is not linked with performance.

After a presentation of a workshop or performance of some kind one needs to use their Adult to make an assessment and hence a robust Adult is most useful. Sometimes you do well and sometimes you don’t do so well. An Adult ego state assessment allows the presenter to get better and learn from each presentation they do. It is important to assess self but it must be an Adult assessment and not a CP assessment.

Finally there is a related type of stage fright that is solely a male condition. Indeed, it is often referred to as stage fright. Some men cannot stand at a urinal and urinate especially when there is another man standing next to him. However even if no one is there, for some men the thought that another man may enter the toilet and stand at the urinal is enough to produce significant anxiety. 

When that happens either the internal and/or external sphincter will not release and the urine cannot flow. He will have to wait for a cubicle to become available or urinate elsewhere. In many ways this is similar to the stage fright I discussed initially. It is an anxiety based condition that can revolve around a Be Perfect type of mindset and is a kind of performance anxiety. He thinks the other men will see he is not urinating and imagines they are making a CP assessment of his ‘performance’ at the urinal.

Whilst this may seem odd or even mildly humorous. Urinating can hold a special place in the male psyche that many women do not understand. Most men can recount urinating competitions when they were young boys. Competitions to see who can urinate the highest up the wall or over the longest distance are important psychological rituals for any young boy. With the winner achieving a special status amongst his peers (no pun intended). Who knows, maybe the grown man who cannot urinate in the public toilet suffered damage to his psyche by poor performances in these early urinating competitions.

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Three causes of anxiety driven OCD

1. Obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are used as a means for the defense mechanism of suppression. The feelings are layered under the thoughts and behaviors. The person is in essence distracted from their feelings and thus they are kept out of consciousness and hence do not have to be dealt with. Therapist asks or invites the client, “If you weren’t allowed to check the door 5 times what would happen” or “If you stopped thinking and went blank what would happen”. Usually some feelings would start to come up.



Solution deal with the feelings and then there is less need for the OCD in the first place.

2. Due to emotional abandonment and thus the development of the hurried child syndrome.

3. Parents were anxious as were the grand parents. We get modeling, possible natural temperament and the formation of the Don’t injunction. The “Don’t” message is given by scared parents. “Don’t do anything because it may lead to disaster”. The child may make the decision of “Don’t”. This person can often develop magical thinking which can result in the belief that if they do compulsive behaviors or obsessive thinking then that will some how ward off the evil and keep them safe.



The young child looks up at its parents and sees that they view the world as a dangerous and scary place and they may even be told that it is. They see their parents operate in a way that it is. They may be restricted from doing many normal things like going near steps, climbing trees, swimming in the ocean, roller skating, wandering off by itself.

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Self harm

This was sent to me today by a self harmer who did this to her leg.



It catches the emotional core of the Borderline personality. A mixture of anger and fear.

She makes an interesting distinction between ‘playing” self harm and ‘punishing’ self harm. This is playing self harm where the cuts a quite superficial but with punishment self harm the cuts are significantly deeper. And it is the bleeding that has the most psychological significance.



In my book - Working with suicidal individuals - I propose 8 possible motivations for self harming:

1. Self harming as part of gang tattooing behaviour.
2. Self harming to make self feel real which can be found in those who dissociate.
3. Self harming to make self feel something.
4. Self harming used as a means of tension relief and to release pressure build up.
5. Self harming as a physical expression of emotional pain. Self harming is seen as providing concrete evidence of the pain.
6. Self harming as a means to self nurture. It allows the person to care for self as can be found in Munchausen Syndrome.
7. Self harming as a means to punish self and an expression of self hatred.
8. Self harming as a means to manipulate others or as a cry for help.

It would seem that reason number 7 is part of the motivation to self harm. As for seeing the blood and bleeding one would need to enquire as to what it means for the self harmer. It could be a variety of things such as found in reasons # 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6.

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The emeshed family

A video on how the emeshed family structure can result in anxiety and panic attacks



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Adult ego state strengthening - Part 2 **

As mentioned in the previous post the Adult ego state is in the here and now whereas the Parent and Child ego states are living in the past. This diagram shows how one can avoid the here and now (H&N).

One way to strengthen the Adult ego state is to practice being in the H&N. The more one gets used to it and the more one does it the more habitual it will become and thus easier to access.

First one does a H&N diary. One gets a note pad and then goes about their day to day business. One can feel bad (angry, scared, depressed, despairing, shame and so forth) because they are reacting to something in the H&N. These are healthy Free Child feelings. One can also feel bad by doing what the diagram shows. They remove self from the H&N by thinking about the future, thinking about the past or thinking about another place. These are considered neurotic feelings because they are not relevant to the H&N. They are self manufactured angst.

Now that is what you call H&N Free Child anxiety!

Every time one feels bad during the day they are to see if they are in the H&N or they have moved out of the here and now in time or place. This is then diarized such that patterns can be identified after a few days or a week of doing this.

When one realises they have moved out of the H&N they then practice moving back into the H&N and thus into their Adult ego state again. This can be done one of two ways.

1. Acknowledging Adult facts. One simply continues to do what they are doing and brings it into the conscious mind.

“I am sitting in my blue chair at work. It is 1.33pm and I had a pie for lunch. I am looking at my computer and it is asking me if I want to buy porn. My co-worker Jimbo is sitting in the next cubicle and is in the process of buying internet porn. I am writing a report on my last client who tried to sell me a years subscription to Readers Digest magazine. ....”

One simply moves into their Adult ego state and observes what is in their current environment and makes note of it in their conscious mind. Some will find this easy to do and can do it for long periods of time. Others will have considerable difficulty maintaining this and will continually slip back into a different time or place and then usually back into some feeling and out of their Adult ego state.

The more one gets used to being in Adult in this way the the more familiar and habitual it will become and thus it is strengthening the Adult ego state. Once done the person diarizes their success or failure at the task and feelings that happened. These are then reported back to the counsellor where patterns are identified.

2. Acknowledging Adult facts about their own Child ego state. In this case the person observes from their own Adult ego state their own Child ego state. For some this will be quite hard to do as it requires the person to get into their Child ego state and their Adult ego state at the same time. In the exercise above the person was only required to be in their Adult ego state and the Child ego state was being ignored.

Instructions for this can be, “Observe and diarize the current state of your body in terms of sensations, soreness, temperature, etc starting from your toes up to your head”.

Or, “Look at the feelings chart and what are you feeling now, what have you felt in the last week and in reaction to what?.

Or, “What makes you feel sad, happy, scared, sexual, angry and so forth?”

In each of these the person is required to firstly get into their Child ego state and then make Adult ego state observations of it and bring those observations into the conscious mind and diarize them. Those with a weak Adult may find this hard but the skill of being able to think (Adult) and feel (Child) at the same time is a most important one to learn and is one of the key factors of a strong Adult ego state.

One would only tend to use this exercise of acknowledging Adult facts about their own Child ego state (exercise 2) when they have shown that they can successfully acknowledge just the Adult facts (exercise 1).

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A study in depersonalization

Depersonalization.

A fragmentation in ones sense of physical self and a sense of estrangement from the body.

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Monologue on emotional neglect

This monologue describes a child's emotional reactions to psychological neglect by the parents. There will be a range of emotional reactions depending on the degree of the neglect.