Thomas A. Harris
Profile
Dr. Thomas A. Harris is the author of I’m OK – You’re OK, the 1967 bestseller based upon the ideas of Transactional Analysis by Dr. Eric Berne. The late Thomas A. Harris was born in Texas. Harris attended Temple University Medical School in Philadelphia. Upon graduation, Harris began his psychiatry training, and then entered the U.S. Navy as a psychiatrist.
After a long career with the Navy, Harris entered private practice in Sacramento, California in 1956. Around this time, Dr. Eric Berne of Carmel was getting ready to publish his new theory on Transactional Analysis. Dr. Harris went on to study with Dr. Berne, becoming a new breed of psychiatrists embracing the techniques of Transactional Analysis. After the phenomenal success of Berne’s Games People Play in 1964, Harris published I’m OK – You’re OK, his guide to Transactional Analysis based upon the work of Dr. Eric Berne.
After I’m OK – You’re OK, Dr. Harris went on to become a director of the International Transactional Analysis Association. Dr. Harris continued with an active life in psychiatry and practitioner of Transactional Analysis up until his death.
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I’m Ok , You’re Ok
Independent Review -Dr. Harris starts off by going into the history of Transactional Analysis and the theories of those before Dr. Eric Berne. The second chapter explains the basic of Transactional Analysis which is the concept of the Parent, Adult, and Child ego states that are supposed to compose each and every one of our personalities. The Parent ego state contains all the information we accept as true that we have gathered from authority figures including our parents. The Adult ego state is the collection of all information that we have proven to ourselves as being true (using some sort of logic). The Child ego state is our natural good and bad side of feelings – love, anger, greed, empathy, etc. The author extensively uses the phrase P-A-C (Parent-Adult-Child) through the rest of the book.
Dr. Harris then introduces the concept of the four different life positions that each of us adopts at any given time. All of us apparently go through four life positions ending up with the last one in a sequential manner except some of us get stuck in the earlier stages (this results in problems that typically need therapy). These four positions are -
1. I’m Not OK, You’re OK
2. I’m Not OK, You’re Not OK
3. I’m OK, You’re Not OK
4. I’m OK, You’re OK
The next few chapters of the book focus on the fact that we can change no matter what stage we are stuck in and the theory behind how to change. The chapters after that focus on a few specific types of relationships – with spouses, children and adoloscents. There is then a chapter discussing when treatment is necessary and the book wraps up with a couple of chapters on P-A-C with regards to moral values and social implications of P-A-C. These last two chapters are more subjective and probably the author’s personal views at that time. I have typically tried to take the information in these two chapters with a grain of salt.
Overall, this is an excellent book on using Transactional Analysis in improving your relationships with the most important people of your life. I found this book easier to read than ‘Born to Win’ or some of the original works by Dr. Eric Berne. This seems to be a common sentiment among those who have read and like books on Transactional Analysis. More than most self-help books out there, this book promises to lead to the most amount of positive changes. This is probably due to the systematic approach that is followed through out the book and the fact that it is very easy to follow and implement at almost any age.
To sum up –Just amazing, really amazing. If you are prepared to go deep into this then it’s incredible.
Category – Mindset,
