I'm OK - you're OK: a practical guide to transactional analysis

"Happy childhood" notwithstanding, most of us are living out the NOT OK feelings of a defenseless CHILD wholly dependent on OK others for stroking and care. By the third year of life, says Dr. Harris, most of us have made the unconscious decision I'M NOT OK-YOU'RE OK. This negative Life Position, shared by successful and unsuccessful people alike, contaminates our rational ADULT potential -- leaving us vulnerable to the inappropriate, emotional reactions of our CHILD and the uncritically learned behavior programmed into our PARENT.In personal Transactions, NOT OK people resort to harmful withdrawal, rituals, activities, pastimes, and games for getting needed strokes while avoiding painful intimacy with people they see as OK.Dr. Thomas A. Harris's pioneering work in Transactional Analysis has had a fundamental impact on our understanding of interpersonal behavior. In showing us how to make the conscious decision I'M OK-YOU'RE OK, he has helped millions of despairing people find the freedom to change, to liberate their ADULT effectiveness, and to achieve joyful intimacy with the people in their lives.

Are you OK? It's probably the most important question you'll ever have to answer. Because right now—whether you're aware of it or not—all the relationships with the most important people in your life are strongly influenced by a combination of how you feel about yourself (OK or not OK) and what you think of them (again, OK or not OK). This groundbreaking classic bestseller, I'm OK—You're OK, is the product of Dr. Thomas Harris's pioneering efforts in the field of Transactional Analysis—efforts that have revolutionized therapy procedures throughout the world. After helping countless numbers of people help themselves establish mature, healthy relationships, he translated his startling theories into easily understood language and adapted key ingredients of successful behavior change into practical advice.

Transactional Analysis confronts the individual with the fact that he or she is responsible for what happens in the future, no matter what has happened in the past. Both a teaching and a learning device, it distinguished three active elements in each person's make-up: the Parent, the Adult, and the Child (P-A-C). The Parent personifies the don'ts and a few do's implanted in one's earliest years and automatically accepted as gospel. The Child represents spontaneous emotion. Both Parent and Child must be kept in proper relation to the Adult, whose function is that of a reality computer that arrives at decision based on the data stored in the memory bank of experience. The goal of Transactional Analysis is to strengthen and free the Adult from the rote beliefs in Parent and Child so as to make freedom of choice the creation of new options possible.

Transactional Analysis is a tool that you can apply to everyday saturations in the real world, enabling you to change, establish self-control and self-direction, and discover the reality of freedom of choice. I'm OK—You're OK has already helped millions of readers lead more effective lives and understand their loved ones better.

Transactional Analysis delineates three observable ego-states (Parent, Adult, and Child) as the basis for the content and quality of interpersonal communication. "Happy childhood" notwithstanding, says Harris, most of us are living out the Not ok feelings of a defenseless child, dependent on ok others (parents) for stroking and caring. At some stage early in our lives we adopt a "position" about ourselves and others that determines how we feel about everything we do. And for a huge portion of the population, that position is "I'm Not OK -- You're OK." This negative "life position," shared by successful and unsuccessful people alike, contaminates our rational Adult capabilities, leaving us vulnerable to inappropriate emotional reactions of our Child and uncritically learned behavior programmed into our Parent. By exploring the structure of our personalities and understanding old decisions, Harris believes we can find the freedom to change our lives El análisis conciliatorio es un método para enseñar y para aprender que constituye un planteamiento novedoso al enfrentar al individuo con el hecho de que es responsable de lo que le ocurrirá en el futuro, cualquiera que haya sido su pasado. A partir de la distinción de tres elementos activos en la elaboración de la personalidad: el Padre, el Adulto y el Niño, se marca como objetivo el fortalecimiento y la emancipación del Adulto respecto de los clichés arcaicos del Padre y del Niño, con el fin de hacer posible la libertad de elección y la creación de nuevas opciones. A self-help book that uses the principles of Transactional Analysis to guide a person toward an understanding of his behavior and to help him in attaining more rational behavior