Why a Nylon Suit Jacket Made Me Feel Like a 10 Year Old Boy (and how the Parent-Adult-Child Model May Help with Your Love-Life)!

As I sat there, I was a 10 year-old little boy.?Small, alone, a bit scared.?Surrounded by grown-ups who were all bigger and more important than me (and probably rolling their eyes and sniggering at me).?I felt perturbed and powerless.?I had an urge to run away.

I’d been forced to wear clothes that were too big and didn’t suit me.?At some deep level, I perceived this as being punished for not following the rules.?I was on the ‘naughty-step”!

So, what caused the reversion to a childlike state??I was meeting a client for a coaching session at the RAC Club on Pall Mall.?I’d forgotten to check the dress code at Victorian edifice of old-style, establishment power.?I hadn’t worn a formal suit jacket and the porters who greeted me at reception insisted I borrow one of their supply of suitable attire.?Thus, I was given a nylon suit jacket that was two sizes too large; a cheap seventies throwback in which I would never be seen dead!

As I sat in the waiting area, feeling small in my outsize jacket, anxiously scanning the imposing Neoclassical architectural design that is perfectly modulated to exude the power, I was flipping between feeling like the compliant, scared 10 year old who feared everyone was better and more sophisticated than him and the 14 year-old punk rocker; still scared and lonely but responding to the situation as Rebellious Child, silently telling everyone to ‘fuck off’.?

The client, with whom I’d worked for years, was the CEO of a major insurance company.?I had a long-standing and excellent relationship with him and yet, when the session started, I noticed my heightened anxiety and a rush of imposter feelings.?My Child ego-state was creating thoughts that I wasn’t good enough to help him and that I was letting him down.?This was interspersed with my Rebellious Child feeling a bit of irrational resentment that he’d put me in this position.?

Mercifully, I was able to spot my childlike response, regain my composure and re-establish my Adult presence.?When I shared with him how I’d experienced the RAC Club it generated an insightful conversation about some of the power dynamics in his senior team?

Echoes of childhood experiences, where my less than attentive mother had not bought the correct blazer for ‘big school’ and hence where I stood out like a sore thumb as every other 11 year old boy wore brown whilst I wore navy blue, were almost certainly at the heart of my visceral response.?Feelings of not belonging, of being on the outside have been a common companion throughout my life.?These feelings have sometimes held me back but have, increasingly, served me really well in my role as coach and facilitator where ‘being on the edge’ of things is where I most usefully serve my clients.

In this article, we’ll explore the Parent-Adult-Child (PAC) Model and then, in the lead up to Valentine’s Day, we’ll have a look at how it can play out in different ways in our romantic relationships.

The PAC Model is a core part of Transactional Analysis, a psychological theory and method developed by Eric Berne in the 1950s.?‘Transactions’ refer to the communication exchanges between people, and also the internal narrative that we often have with ourselves.

It is a helpful lens through which to spot our responses to situations and to other people.?Most of us enter the different ‘ego-states’ on a regular basis and this is often helpful and appropriate, e.g at work being in Nurturing Parent to a new team member who is a bit fearful.?And finding ourselves in different ego-states can sometimes be really unhelpful, as it was for me at the RAC Club.?

The Parent ego state is arguably essential for at least some of the time when we have responsibility for the wellbeing and development of others.?It is the place of care, of responsibility, obligation and creating rules and standards.?It contains thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are learnt and copied from influential figures in our early life. Obviously, this could be our parents but also teachers, grandparents, older siblings etc.

The Critical Parent is the source of those rules and standards that we all need.?The shadow-side of those necessary guidelines for life is the Critical Parent that is also the source of our Inner Critic, where criticism towards ourself and others can flow.?It is often characterised by words like ‘could’ and ‘should’.

Nurturing Parent is the source of unconditional love and support.?The shadow-side can be a place of over-nurturing; i.e. of being patronising or condescending. ?Mollycoddling a member of our team because we are afraid they may fail is an example of where over-nurturing can get in the way of people taking accountability and building confidence.

The Adult ego state is about being in the here and now. It is a place where we can call upon our talent, skill, capability and experience without that being undermined by patterns learned in childhood. In relationship with others, it is a place of mutuality, with the basic assumption that, ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’.

For example we may have learned from our parents that we should never ‘answer back’ and always be the good, compliant girl or boy. Time and experience will have taught us that some situations don’t warrant this response and that sometimes asserting our own needs is very helpful both for us and others.?While compulsively, we may still have the inner parent voice, when we are in Adult Ego state, we have the ability to rationalise and adapt our responses to what is most useful in that situation.

The Child ego state also contains thoughts, feelings and behaviours that we learned in early childhood but in this place we respond in a similar way that we would have done as a child.?It is often a place of little power; we may respond with compliance but we can also respond with emotion which may include anger, sadness, scare or shame.

For instance, we may have learned that being clever, always being correct and knowing things was the best way to get care and positive attention from our parents.?We make take great pleasure when being told by an authority figure, e.g. our boss, that we’ve done a good job.?However, failure to get things right (or even the possibility of that failure) can create an emotional response where it can sometimes feel catastrophic to make small mistakes.

The PAC model is enormously helpful in work scenarios as family relationships transfer well to understanding the inherent power dynamics of organisational hierarchy.?But it can also play-out in all of our interactions and so let’s explore how it can be helpful in spotting the dynamics in our romantic relationships.

I should perhaps here state my lack of qualification for any claim of expertise on romantic relationships.?I’m a divorced, straight man, who has a catalogue of often lovely but relatively short relationships over the last 20 or so years.?So, I won’t be prescribing any right way to go about being in a relationship; partly because I’m unqualified, partly because any such advice can only be at best partial and, most likely, actively unhelpful.

There is no right or wrong, good or bad about different ego states, and the ability to flex in an agile way is generally helpful.?However, the biggest benefit of the model is the ability to spot our ego state (and that of our partner) and make a choice, in the moment, as to whether it’s helpful or not.

Whilst most of us hope that our romantic relationships are a coming together of equals and that it is mostly therefore an Adult to Adult relationship, there is often the need to flex around being able to play different roles and inhabit different ego states.?In other words, we learn to cope with the infuriating traits that emerge when the love of our life becomes the most irritating person on the planet!?Maybe we can also learn to manage our own infuriating habits too!

Every romantic relationship should, ideally, contain a healthy mix of Adult to Adult, with occasional forays into Parent-Child, be it involving Critical or Nurturing Parent, Compliant, Rebellious or Free Child.

All relationships have their own rules and guidelines by which it functions and keeps both partners safe and happy.?This may be about how the housework is done, who disciplines the kids (or the dog) or about our sex life.?These rules and guidelines may be an act of Adult to Adult collaboration but can also be derived from one partner taking the Critical Parent role of prescribing what the rules are.?

When one partner is in Critical Parent, it necessitates the other to be in Child ego state, whether that is Compliant or Rebellious can be a big factor in the harmony of the relationship.?For instance, a constant request to share the burden of housework that is rarely met, can be seen as Critical Parent – Rebellious Child.

Being ‘childlike’, as with every other trait, has its strengths and shadow-sides.?The openness, spontaneity and fun that comes with Free Child is a place of joy, creativity and maybe a bit of silliness; something that, especially when mutual, is a precious and wonderful component of any relationship.?Entering that light, carefree state without feeling judged by one’s partner is important to many of us from time to time.

However, being ‘childish’, the sulkiness, resentment and powerlessness that can come with Child ego-states, particularly when repetitive, can create unhealthy patterns in relationships that become lop-sided.?We sometimes ‘behave in ways that get us more of what we don’t want’ and, as an example, passive-aggressive sulking driven by a desire to get more love or attention, often has the opposite effect of the other person withdrawing further.

Having said that, the ability to be looked after, to be in Compliant Child in response to Nurturing Parent, can be an intrinsic part of a loving relationship when one partner is struggling with their health or with other problems.?Being allowed to show some tender loving care can be deeply fulfilling and yet the ability to submit to that care is tricky for some.

In every aspect of our life, it’s profoundly helpful to recognise our habitual patterns.?Noticing what part of the PAC Model we are inhabiting and, by extension, noticing where our partner may be, can help relieve the inevitable frustrations and irritations that being in a couple sometimes bring.?It can also help us embrace the joy and safety that loving relationships should bring.

So, for Valentine’s Day, why not give yourself and your partner the gift of a little boost of self-awareness??What are the repetitive hiccups in your relationship that cause annoyance and angst (or, if you’re single, those from past relationships)? When there’s a little bit of conflict, which ego-states do you regularly visit??What does that, in turn, evoke in your partner?

There are not necessarily easy answers to relational frustrations but being able to spot what’s going on is a helpful first step.

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Written by Roger Taylor, Co-Founder of Famn