Originally published in 2008.
For some reason lately I’ve been thinking about Transactional Analysis, or TA.
Being a bookish (read: nerdy) child of the ’70s, I came of age in the days of I’m OK—You’re OK, and because it was on the New York Times Bestseller List during my junior-high years, when I became old enough to want to flee the Juveniles section of the library for the “Adults” section, it was never not in my consciousness as a self-help classic.
I’ve read lots and lots of self-help and advice books, and I’ve taken Youth Effectiveness Training and looked at philosophy and psychology and the Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram, and I got myself a Master of Theological Studies degree, and one might think that I had had enough of studying ways of deconstructing human relationships… But one would be wrong.
It’s kind of funny to me, this move toward ’70s wisdom, because just a couple months ago I felt an urge to revisit Fritz Perls’ “Gestalt Prayer.” I guess it’s a function of being a child of the ’70s. Nostalgia? Returning to one’s roots? Surely I’m more a product of my environment than I like to admit.
Oh. Here’s a link to a review of I’m OK—You’re OK that I thought was interesting as I was compiling the links for this entry.
©2008 Khrysso Heart LeFey
If you like Berne, you should check out some of the excerpts from his book “What Do You Say After You Say Hello?” on my blog. Also, have you ever read anything by P.D. Ouspensky or G.I. Gurdjieff? After reading both of them, I think that Berne was very heavily influenced by their ideas, but I’d love to hear someone else’s thoughts on the matter.
err…also, my blog is at http://www.daxdefranco.wordpress.com