Exploring Your Psyche: Understanding Ego States

Have you ever been sitting on the couch while watching a TV show and your partner walks in with the vacuum or dust rag and you immediately feel guilty or pressured to turn off the TV and start helping clean the house? Where do you think that urge comes from?

Certain present day triggers can make you act like a younger version of yourself. If you grew up in a home where Mom or Dad made negative comments about children being lazy and not doing their share of the work or compelled you to participate in household chores through force, you might feel that to avoid negativity, whenever your partner starts cleaning, you also need to get up and get moving. This may be a sign that you have a younger ego state still hurting in a past trauma or negative memory.

Past traumas and negative memories can mean that our ego states are stuck in the past and can be triggered by life events, causing us to revert or act like our younger selves.

But what exactly is an ego state?

An ego state is a part of an individual's psyche that remains in a particular time, place or experience. It's like a part of you that remains stuck in a specific moment in time. It can be a younger version of yourself, or it could be a part of yourself that is still hurting or struggling with a traumatic event or negative experience.

In Lifespan Integration (LI), therapists work with individuals to help them develop greater self-awareness, self-love, and affect regulation. Affect regulation is the attempt to alter or control one's mood or emotional state so as to maximize pleasant experiences and minimize unpleasant ones. As individuals progress in their therapy, they can process further by using active imagination to go into a memory as their present self to help a younger ego state in a painful situation. This gives the individual an opportunity to meet unmet needs and show younger ego states the story of their life - that life went forward and they are safe now.

This process can be challenging and may require the help of a trained therapist. But by working through these past traumas and negative experiences, individuals can gain a deeper understanding of themselves and learn to move forward with greater self-awareness, self-love and affect regulation.

Ego states are a normal part of the human psyche, but they can also be a source of pain and struggle. Understanding ego states and working through past traumas and negative experiences can help individuals to develop greater self-awareness, self-love, and affect regulation. With the help of a trained therapist, individuals can use active imagination to go into a memory as their present self to help a younger ego state in a painful situation. This can give the individual an opportunity to meet unmet needs and show younger ego states the story of their life - that life went forward and they are safe now.