Which part of you is responding, and where your energy actually goes.
At any moment, you are relating from one of three places. This is the map itself, before you look at how each part actually shows up in behaviour.
Rules and standards absorbed from the people who raised you.
Present-focused. Deals with what is actually happening right now.
Feelings and reactions that formed early and still show up today.
Each of these three splits further into how it actually shows up in behaviour. That is the functional model, below.
Parent splits into Critical and Nurturing. Child splits into Free and Adapted. Adult stays whole. This describes how the three basic states actually show up, here and now.
Controls, judges, and enforces rules.
Supports, protects, and offers care.
Present-focused. Analyses and chooses consciously.
Spontaneous, creative, and expressive.
Complies, submits, or rebels.
Developed by psychiatrist John M. Dusay, the egogram shows how your energy is distributed across the five functional ego states. Adjust each bar to how present that state has felt for you lately. There is no correct shape, fill in from what you notice in yourself.
The egogram does not measure how well you are doing. It shows where your energy tends to go. There is no correct shape, every pattern has its own strengths and its own costs.
The pattern across all five states says more than any single value on its own.
Can show up as high standards and self-judgment. Worth asking who you are hardest on, other people or yourself.
Can mean spontaneity, play, and emotional expression have had less room lately.
When Adult is present, you can choose your response consciously, instead of reacting from pattern.
Illustrative patterns only, not diagnoses. Every shape has its own strengths and its own costs.
Critical Parent dominant. Control, judgment, rules.
Nurturing Parent very high. Supports, protects, cares.
Free Child dominates. Spontaneous, creative, expressive.
Adult dominant. Present-focused, analytical, chooses consciously.
The Ego States card covers the same structural and functional models above, formatted as a single page to save or print.
Download PDF SummarySource, Egograms by John M. Dusay, building on Eric Berne's original ego states.
This exercise is a supplement to your therapy, not a replacement for it. Please bring anything that comes up for you to your next session.
Your egogram can shift with mood, context, and time of life. That shift is often exactly what is worth exploring.