In order to facilitate the understanding of the concept of ego states, their development, structure, and function, some discussion of the organization of the mind within the brain is necessary.

     Brain activity can be divided into two categories. The somatic activities are those concerned with the regulation of bodily function. The mental activities are those having to do with the function of the mind; the thoughts, feelings, judgements, decisions, and drives that direct all non-reflexive behavior (reflex response is a somatic activity).

     As was mentioned earlier, the brain exists physically in two sections of equal size called the right and left hemispheres which are connected by the corpus callosum. It has been shown by anesthetizing either of the two hemispheres individually that each is capable of independent function. In terms of somatic function, there is approximate equal distribution of control, with each hemisphere governing the opposite side of the body. One hemisphere is usually the dominant seat of conscious awareness and control. The majority of people are left hemispherically dominant and therefore right-handed. For simplicity, I will adopt the supposition of left dominance throughout this book. Right-dominant/left-handed persons need only transpose the terminology. The qualitative distribution of mental function, however, is not equally divided between the right and left sides of the brain.

     The left or dominant hemisphere operates like an organic computer, recording, interpreting, and processing information. Language activity, logic, and arithmetic skills reside here. These abilities are not present in the earliest part of life, but develop progressively through adolescence into adulthood and later life. The right or subdominant hemisphere is the seat of primitive drives, of emotions, and of the creative awareness. As previously noted, this is the area where thinking and feeling began when we were very young – before the learning of logic and rationality allowed the burden of control to be shifted to the left side. While left side thinking is linear, logical, categorical, and stereotypical, the right brain perceives and processes ideas whole and analysis proceeds without recourse to logical constructs. Thinking is of a nonlinear, gestalt type. This facilitates pattern recognition and quantum leaps in deduction (intuition) from limited information. The reordering of ideas to produce novel patterns, called creativity is also a right brain function.

     The early personality is called the Child ego state. It probably develops on the right side of the brain and grows primarily during the first few years until the Adult and Parent ego states, unfolding on the left side of the brain, develop the capacity to assume conscious control. The three parts of the Child ego state develop at different rates. Some degree of overlap occurs between the two Adult (A₁ and A₂) and the two Parent (P₁ and P₂) ego states, although growth of the Child part of the personality is strongly attenuated toward the end of the first decade of life as is shown in figure #1 below.

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     The Natural Child (C₁) ego state is intimately associated with the emotional centers and the biologically programmed drives of the right hemisphere. Both of the Adult ego states, The Little Professor (A₁) and the second order Adult (A₂) are non-emotional ego states. They differ in maturity, complexity of thought, and type of processing. A₂ continues to develop throughout life and forms the majority of the higher cerebral function centers of the left brain. Series of questions have been developed to determine the approximate age when the little professor stopped growing.

     The two parental ego states are largely permanent passive memory recordings of the parental behavior observed in early authority figures such as mother, father, grandparents, and older siblings. Parental information may also be stored by an active, volitional process mediated by the second order Adult and recorded in the second order Parent. In this way information learned from books, courses, and other sources can be incorporated into the parent ego state. Since much less is known about the Primitive Parent (P₁), I am uncertain whether a similar active storage process occurs there. The parental behavior recordings are also associated with certain feelings so the parent ego states are said to be emotional in nature. These feeling "tags" are associated with the right side emotional centers and are "cross-referenced" with both the behavioral recordings and centers for the interpretation of incoming sensory data and observations. The early Parent (P₁) is then located completely upon the right side. With the second order parent, the parental behavior tapes are probably recorded on the left side with emotional association pathways extending to the right side via the corpus callosum.

     The diagrams are intended to aid the visualization of the concepts discussed above. Figure #2 shows the distribution of the components of the personality within the brain. Figure #1 depicts the chronological development of the ego states. The next section defines the structural and organizational nature of the ego states in greater detail.