ABSTRACT
Unlike those of the two previous chapters, this book is not currently part of social work’s usual canon of literature. Nevertheless, I believe that the ideas in it deserve a revisiting, because it is a book which literally changed the way I thought about the world, and I would like to share this ‘light-bulb’ moment with others. The book is now out of print but, as the extract shows, it has within it wisdom about human beings and about our relationships with others, developed from an interactionist approach to psychology (also called transactional analysis, or TA). Thomas A. Harris (1910–1995) was a psychiatrist, originally from Texas in the Unites States. He is widely acknowledged as having simplified TA for a popular audience. The chosen extract introduces some of the fundamental ideas in TA.
From I’m OK – You’re OK, London: Pan Books (1973): 16–34.
