Oh, yes, the ego. That's the short answer, but read on. The ego, in fact, is supposed to balance both the id and the superego. So simplistic answer: Ego (but not narcissism). I'm not sure the TA system actually explained the "adult" as balancing the other two. I think it imagined that the adult mode was like something new and better.

Actually now it's a much more nuanced sense of what happens. Today, we don't view the individual as simply acting "alone" - as simply "separate" from relationship. So we think of people as internalizing relationships in a schema fashion or as a kind of "script" which includes a sense of self, a sense of the other, and an emotional coding interlaced. We internalize many of these - based on our past, our childhood, parents, sibs, teachers, friends, important people in our lives. It's a much more dynamic model. The old tri-partite model was more static.

The TA model was attempting to model a person in a relationship. And there is a certain helpfulness in the model (which I too learned about from the book my parents had). But it's hard for any of us to remain in "adult" mode in the face of a 2-year old or a teenager. Some things pull any of us into self-defeating behaviors.

Therapy and models of personality dynamics or interactions continue to grow. Based on both research and clinical experience. So, we've marched on beyond either of these models. I think the Freudian model has greater longevity here, simply because it was the first. And you rarely see anyone referring to TA in a professional paper or presentation, while Freud continues to be cited - if only as a place to start from or rage against.

So the preferred mode, if you want to think of it that way, would be the "ego" balancing your needs, wishes, desires, fears and so on against the injunctions you grew up with, the mores of society, religious training, the expectations of others.

Freud's view, however, doesn't take into account spiritual development - something Jung tried to address (though I find his theories ultimately stultifying myself, intriguing but not capable of growing and changing as Freud's theories have been able to do).

That's why I like the newer model, which takes into account "relationships." As a kind of "one-off" interrelated inner schema (me/you=world/emotional substrate). If I had to posit what happens when someone experiences a "shock" of enlightenment, I'd say it changes that inner schema/script process to such a degree that the "one-off" inner experience is suddenly "realized" for what it is. Hard to say what I mean here. But something profound changes in the brain. And you "see" everything and everyone differently. So differently that it's even hard to put into words.

I'm pretty sure you sort of understand what I'm getting at here. Because for me, any good theory (for personality dynamics) has to be capable of taking into account the complete range of human experience - from psychosis to creative endeavors or spiritual endeavors to just plain old hanging out with the old tramp and old Lux. (and who am I? old hag maybe)

So then it's not like you're moving back and forth between these modes, but you're able to act freely in view of the circumstances as they arise, moment to moment. And if we look at the teaching tales of any tradition, that's exactly what we see!

When we were leaving Snowmass monastery on our second visit (about 2 weeks after 9/11 - not kidding!), I asked Theophan, "Do you have some words of wisdom for the journey?" He did a little jig!

Hope I've answered your question somehow.

No preference.

(To decide on a preference is to be in superego mode - when what's needed at any given moment is impossible to predict ahead of time, right?)

Tom Friedman is a DICK and to be one is to know one.
TF is for TF. David is not always a doomer.

We must try for R, like you say. But I do not think that having hope for the future makes you a C.