I'm Ok, You're Ok: A Practical Approach to Human Psychology

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Certainly, the Adult in Burns’ book can be equated with the ‘higher self’ that forms the centerpiece of so much self-help and New Age writing. Awareness of, and reliance on, this internal voice is a secret that all successful people share. Modelling and copying behaviour seen and heard contributes to how we fulfil our script and according to Berne, programs or patterns are present before the age of six the majority of the time. The construct of the Adult, which tests the validity of data from the Parent and updates Child data to balance emotional expression, thus moving to a belief of I’m OK-You’re OK The phase "I'm OK, You're OK" is one of four life positions that each of us may take. The four positions are: I’m OK You’re OK”, like many old-school psychoanalytical approaches, talks in terms of dogmas and ultimate truths. Even without the evidence.

As a book that helped me better understand the world, myself and actively helped shed some parental baggage and improve, well… I aam a bit of cheerleader. this was super helpful to put some things into perspective. While I previously didn’t consider Games People Play to be a good book, I then re-evaluated it again. And I will eventually read it again now that I have a broader understanding. That stems from internal confidence and a higher self-esteem that allows them to show their true selves. Review

The most common position is I'm Not OK, You're OK. As children we see that adults are large, strong and competent and that we are little, weak and often make mistakes, so we conclude I'm Not OK, You're OK. Children who are abused may conclude I'm Not OK, You're Not OK or I'm OK, You're Not OK, but these are much less common. The emphasis of the book is helping people understand how their life position affects their communications (transactions) and relationships with practical examples. I’m OK – You’re OK may make it up there right next to the Holy Bible or maybe even The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook” Life Magazine. Interesting Review of I’m OK – You’re OK To the left is the handwriting of Harris. It comes from a first edition copy of I’m OK – You’re OK that Harris personally gave to Berne in advance of the publication. It reads: Harris began learning the theories of Transactional Analysis around 1960 directly from the creator of Transactional Analysis, Dr. Eric Berne MD. Harris observed the runaway success Dr. Berne achieved with Games People Play in 1964. Despite the numerous literary accomplishments of Games, Harris felt that he could simplify Berne’s theories even more and make them more accessible to a wider audience. I’m not OK—You’re not OK is a position of hopelessness, futility and frustration. From this position life seems uninteresting and hopeless. This may result in self destructive or violent behaviour.

Harris continues by linking his interpretation of Penfield's experiments to the work of Eric Berne, whose model of psychotherapy is based on the idea that emotionally intense memories from childhood are ever-present in adults. Their influence can be understood by carefully analysing the verbal and non-verbal interchanges ('transactions') between people, hence Berne's name for his model: Transactional Analysis. Harris sees great merit in the ability of TA to define basic units through which human behaviour can be analysed—the 'strokes' that are given and received in a 'transaction' between two or more people—and a standardised language for describing those strokes. This readily understood standardisation, and the association Harris develops between TA and Penfield's neuroscience, gives TA a degree of credibility not possessed by earlier abstract models such as that developed by Freud [ citation needed].Games are a way of using time for people who cannot bear the stroking starvation of withdrawal and yet whose NOT OKAY position makes the ultimate form of relatedness, intimacy, impossible. Though there is misery, there is something.” Withdrawal, rituals, activities, and pastimes, keep people apart and stand in the way of an emotional connection (also read: turning towards based on Gottman’s research). Games make the relationship combative. Intimacy Is Only Possible With “I’m OK” Berne had developed something called ‘Transactional Analysis’. It was a boring term for an exciting concept, reversing the Freudian tradition that saw the world as ‘I’ or ‘me’-centred. For Freud, other people were not important as people – they were merely one’s ‘object relations’. Berne reacted against this, elevating relationships to the high table of study. He believed that an encounter between two or more people, a ‘transaction’, was psychotherapy’s elusive unit of analysis. Instead of asking a subject about themselves (as in psychoanalysis), one could determine the problem simply by being a witness to what is actually said or done in the course of a transaction. Berne (as well as Harris) would perform psychotherapy sessions based almost entirely on observations of what his subjects were doing, saying, and engaging in. These parents see autonomy in their youngster as a threat to their control of him and may decide they liked it better the way it was, before treatment. Familiar miseries may seem more comfortable to frightened parents than the risk of trusting their teenager to develop his own inner controls.

When you’re assertive, you talk openly about what you need. You might not always get what you want, but by listening to others and by having the courage to speak candidly and respectfully, your calm and agreeable style will earn others’ respect.

The Four Life Positions

Concept: I need to be loved, why can’t I find someone who loves me as much as I love them? Everyone else is ok except me. I need someone to look after me. For instance, the Natural Child is good at finding and highlighting good things about ourselves… the Critical Parent ES may spew out our negative self-talk… The Vulnerable Child usually takes a Victim position of hopelessness, helplessness, or worthlessness… while the Angry/Defiant Child may persecute others by projecting their contempt outwardly. Existential or Psychological Positions

If we take into account that there are several wounded Inner Child Ego States (ES) in Adult Children of traumatic childhoods…then we must look at the possibility that each Child ES has made their own decisions and may be living out a different Life Script as a result. Even though I feel guilty even when its not my mistake, I deeply and completely love and FORGIVE myself. The boy might simply have problems that are not (necessarily) a consequence of “I’m Not OK, You’re Not OK” position. The Demon is an internal unpredictable impulsive voice in which Berne compares to the concept of Freud’s (1989 [1940]) ‘id’, although the reasoning why is unclear as he never went into detail to explain. Once a person has decided on a life position that will often remain fixed unless there is considerable effort put in to change the underlying beliefs and decisions put in about life. The goal of transactional analysis psychotherapy is to bring into awareness, explore, challenge, and change an ineffective life script. This is based on the belief that because we were the original creators of our own script we have the power to change it.

Counterinjunctions

After setting out the context for his belief in the significance of TA, Harris sets out his picture of TA, starting point from the observation that a person’s psychological state seems to change in response to different situations. The question is, from what and to what does it change? Harris answers this through a simplified introduction to TA, explaining Berne’s proposal that there are three states into which a person can switch: the Parent, the Adult and the Child. The real-life applications of I’m OK, You’re OK are multiple and potentially life-changing. Including: I’m Not-OK…You’re Not-OK” (futility position – Hopeless, Helplessness, or Worthlessness)This is the position of those who lose interest in living, who exhibit eccentric behavior, and in extreme cases, may commit suicide or homicide. This is a position that one must work themselves into. It takes time – or some very severe trauma– for things to get so bad that all defenses collapse leaving this person unprotected from their pain.When things are at their worst, it’s a toss-up as to whether all that pain and hostility will be pointed inward resulting in a suicide attempt…or outward resulting in a homicide/suicide attempt.