One day I decided that I should sort out for myself and my readers just how the FORMULA and the Adult-Parent-Child systems inter-connect and relate to Mental Fitness issues. I created the “Scaffold” here to capture this for us. In previous posts I’ve illustrated how these systems can combine by describing how I used them to combat fight-or-flight reactions in a few situations. Following the list of 12 Toxic Beliefs in the website discussion of the FORMULA, I noted that usually the first half of the beliefs belong to the Critical Parent and the next, to the Indulgent Parent. Then in Post #2 I admitted that I often think of myself as “we” instead of “I.”
In the scaffold drawing you can see arrows between the Adult-Parent-Child parts denoting how they influence each other. For you who like to have things sorted this way, I hope the scaffold helps. The entire scaffold will be more relevant in future posts. For now it might give you an overview for reference. For those who prefer a more intuitive approach, let me describe how I came to see my mind as multiple parts and why I find it helpful to divide it this way.
After my divorce in the 1970s I had to fend off waves of anxiety and dread that threatened to overwhelm me. I discovered that if my Adult could separate itself from my warring and confused Child and Parent parts, I could get my feet back on the ground. My own take on Eric Berne’s avatars (see ….) allowed me to function as a parent and graduate student despite frequent severe insomnia and panic attacks.
The fact that I could recognize and correct my toxic beliefs on my own was very reassuring and stabilizing. When negative feelings threatened to take over, I decided to use the reminder phrase, “Divide and conquer” to shove them aside. This gave my Adult the space to start sorting them out. My experiences as a mother, babysitter and teacher gave me a short-cut for how to comfort and reassure my own inner frightened or angry Child.
To sort out my Parent parts, I related each parent to half the beliefs and created reminder phrases for my Adult to use when they were too disruptive. “Stop exaggerating; none of this will kill us!” for my Critical Parent and “You’re just setting us up for future grief and we (Adult & Child) know it!” for my Indulgent Parent. These phrases respond to the basic message expressed through each Parent’s beliefs. They provided the space for my Adult to step in and revise any specific Child Brain Habits or Toxic Beliefs involved. “Divide and conquer!” worked so well that I’ve used it ever since.