This document discusses incongruity between a person's internal experiences and external behaviors. It notes that sometimes a person's executive ego state, which determines behavior, does not match their real self ego state that they are experiencing internally. This can occur when a person switches their real self ego state while keeping the original ego state in the executive role. The document provides examples of how subtle behavioral incongruities can reveal this mismatch and help detect what ego state a person is experiencing internally.

1. Incongruity

2. Prepared By
Manu Melwin Joy
Research Scholar
School of Management Studies
CUSAT, Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com
Kindly restrict the use of slides for personal purpose.
Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public
forms and presentations.

3. Incongruity
• The division between
executive and real self
obviously poses extra
problem for ego state
diagnosis.
• Since the ego state with
executive power is the
one which determines
behavior, you would
expect that the person’s
behavioral clues would
indicate that ego state.

4. Incongruity
• So long as that ego state is
being experienced also as
real self, your behavioral
diagnosis will give you an
accurate view of the
person’s internal
experiences.
• But what if the person then
switches into a different ego
state as real self, while still
keeping executive power in
the original ego states?
• How can you detect this
using behavioral diagnosis?

5. Incongruity
• The fact is that
sometimes you can’t
detect it.
• This is most likely at
moments when the
person’s overall
behavior is relatively
inactive.

6. Incongruity
• For example, you may see me
sitting listening to a lecture.
• I am sitting upright, not moving
much and not saying anything.
• At first guess, you might judge
me behaviorally as Adult.
• But internally, I might be in a
Child day dream.
• Without further enquiry, you
have no means of knowing this.

7. Incongruity
• More often, the person does
show behavioral clues to
indicate what is going on.
• When someone has executive
power in a different ego state
from that experienced in real
self, there is a split between his
behavior and his internal
experience.

8. Incongruity
• Externally he usually shows this in the
following way: his most obvious
behavioral signals will indicate the ego
state that has executive power.
• But at the same time, he will exhibit
other and more subtle signals which
do not match those of the executive
ego state.
• Instead they fit the ego state he is
experiencing as real self.
• In TA language, we say then that his
behavior shows incongruity.

9. Incongruity
• When I was having the discussion
with my colleagues at work, my
most obvious behaviors matched
the ego states I had in executive
throughout, Adult.
• But if you had watched and
listened to me with close
attention, you would have
noticed some changes at the
moment I become bored and
shifted into Child as my real self.

10. Incongruity
• Up to that point, the pitch of
my voice had varied noticeably
through my sentences. Now, it
become monotonous.
• My gaze, which until then had
been switching regularly
between the work document
and my colleagues face, now
lost regularly focus and stared
at one point on the table.

11. Incongruity
• These incongruities would
help you judge that I had
shifted my experience of
real self out of Adult and
into Child.
• Recognizing incongruity is
one of the most important
skills you can develop as a
user of TA.

12. Thank You

13. Other TA topics available on slideshare
1. Strokes - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/strokes-24081607.
2. Games People Play - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/psychological-
games-people-play.
3. Structural Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/the-ego-state-model.
4. What is TA? - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/what-ta-is
5. Cycles of Development - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/cycles-of-
developement-pamela-levin-transactional-analysis.
6. Stages of Cure - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stages-of-cure.
7. Transactions - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/transactions-33677298.
8. Time Structuring - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/time-structuring.
9. Life Position - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/life-position.
10. Autonomy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/autonomy-33690557.
11. Structural Pathology - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/structural-pathology.
12. Game Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/game-analysis-33725636.
13. Integrated Adult - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/integrated-adult.
14. Stroke Economy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stroke-economy-
33826702.