NCJ Number
91545
Journal
Journal of Offender Counseling Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Dated: (October 1983) Pages: 2-10
Date Published
1983
Length
9 pages
Annotation
While transactional analysis (TA) provides the rationale and thrust for group interventions with juvenile delinquents, other approaches, such as moral reasoning, problemsolving techniques, and Gestalt exercises, can complement the development of selected ego states defined under TA concepts.
Abstract
For the group counselor to plan structured interventions for adolescent offenders, a conceptual framework regarding the characteristics of typical juvenile offenders must be developed. A helpful tool in conceptualizing a typical offender personality is the egogram developed by Dusay (1977). The egogram has enabled TA practitioners to improve their ability to illustrate and diagnose an individual according to ego-state functioning. Based on the concept of libidinal energy flow first postulated by Freud, Dusay theorizes that persons invest certain amounts of total life energy in different ego states. The egogram is a bar graph that divides a person's total energy into five ego states: critical parent, nurturing parent, adult, adaptive child, and natural child. The direction of structured interventions can be organized around helping offenders conceptualize the ways in which they maintain ego-state energy levels and how this maintenance supports their problems. Adolescent offenders can then begin to see solutions. Dusay characterized a typical criminal profile as a displacement of high levels of energy to the critical parent and adaptive child states, with a moderate amount of energy going to the natural child and almost no energy going to the nurturing parent of the adult. This study discusses concepts underlying interventions that develop the 'parent' with moral reasoning and that accomplish 'adult' development through decisionmaking and problemsolving as well as 'natural child' development. Eighteen references are provided.