Title I'm OK—You're OK

Author Thomas A. Harris

Year Published 1967

Kind of Book Psychology, Self-help, Mental Health

How strongly I recommend it 10/10 

My Impressions This was one of those rare instances where the student (Thomas Harris) explains his mentor (Eric Berne's) ideas better than he did. I loved 'Games People Play' but always found it to be an unnecessarily difficult read. Harris lays out the ideas in that book beautifully, while adding a few of his own along the way. His idea about the 4 "Life Positions" people take is deeply fascinating. It gave me a new understanding of why people seek validation and condemn others. (Hint: Each stem from feeling they are bad or in Harris's words, 'NOT OK.') Harris teach us how to enter relationships and interactions from the place of 'I'm OK—You're OK.' My only critique is that the book could be 100pgs shorter. He drags on a little too long and includes a few dated ideas that have nothing to do with his thesis towards the end. Still, well worth the read.

Date Read June 2021

What question is the author trying to answer?

  • Why don't believe live a good as they know how already?

Practical Takeaways

  • Only use scientific words when no other words will suffice -Herman Melville ("A man of true science uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose."

  • (when someone's feelings are starting to take over) say 'Why don't you stay in your Adult?"

  • Be sensitive to your NOT OK feelings

  • Count to ten to delay the automatic response from your Child or Parent ego state

  • Ask yourself these Adult questions when you feel that your Child or Parent ego state is triggers "Is it true?" "Does it apply?" "Is it appropriate?" "Where did I get that idea?" "What is the evidence?"

  • Ask yourself "Why is my Parent beating up on my Child?"

  • Ask yourself "Who is coming on?" when you feel triggered (Child, Parent, or Adult ego state)

  • See the little boy or little girl (ie. Child ego state) in the people you interact with. Talk to that little boy or little girl, not in a condescending way, but in a compassionate understanding way.

  • When in doubt (in a transaction), stroke the other person

  • Learn to recognize your Child, it's vulnerabilities, its fear, its principal methods of expressing these feelings

  • Learn to recognize your Parent, its admonitions, injunctions, fixed positions, and principal ways of expressing these admonitions, injunctions, and positions

  • Don't accuse someone else of playing a game (they will get angry and defensive)

  • (In marriage) work together to emancipate each other's Adult ego state

  • (when a child is upset) comfort their Child ego state and help them get their Adult ego state working

  • Give children the main reason they can't do something rather than a laundry list of reasons (this gives the child's Adult ego state something to process)

  • (with children) when in doubt, stroke them and comfort their anxious Child ego state

  • (with children) only use spanking to punish a child who is too young to comprehend danger to condition them to stay safe

 

Big Ideas

  • Man has a dual nature ie. Multiple 'people' inside of him

  • Man's dual nature is often explained as a conflict between good and evil or lower nature and higher nature

 

  • Freud called the war within the battle in the unconscious of a person where the Superego is trying to restrict the Id

 

  • Virtue has often been described by thinkers in history as the victory of our higher nature over our lower nature

 

  • Most psychotherapists use technical language (ie. Psycho-babble) that is unintelligible to a general audience

 

  • Its rarely ignorance that keeps someone from making an improvement, but rather putting what they already know into action

 

  • We already know how to live in a way that will make us (happy/virtuous etc.)

But

  • Our actions are often inconsistent with our knowledge of what we know is right (or will make us happy/virtuous etc.)

 

  • Everything that we have consciously experienced is recorded in detail in our mind

  • We are capable of playing back everything that we have consciously experienced

 

  • The feelings associated with the conscious experiences we have are recorded in detail in our mind

  • The feelings associated we had during an experience as locked together in our memory with the experience itself

 

  • When we recall/replay a memory of an experience, we often feel the feeling associated with the experience (rather than accurately see/hear/feel/smell what happened)

 

  • Much of what we relive we cannot remember

 

  • The feelings present during an event stay with us long after the memory of the event (what happened) fades from memory

 

  • Different schools of psychoanalysis have different terminology

Therefore

  • It is difficult to communicate psychoanalytic ideas to a general audience

 

  • The Child ego state is dominated by feelings

 

  • The 3 ego states exist in all people

 

  • The child we were when we were 3 year old is still inside us

  • Our parents are still inside of us

  • Our Child or Parent can come out at anytime

 

An ego state is produced in a person when they experience something which triggers a feeling from their past associated with that ego state (ie. The ego states are conditioned)

 

  • The Parent, Child, and Adult ego states overlap

 

Parent

Parental Clues (Physical)

  • Furrowed brow

  • Pursed lips

  • Pointing index finger

  • Head-wagging

  • Horrified look

  • Foot tapping

  • Hands on hips

  • Arms folded across chest

  • Sighing

 

Parental Clues (Verbal)

  • "once and for all"

  • "I can't for the life of me"

  • "always"

  • "never"

  • "How many times have I told you"

  • "poor thing"

  • "honey"

Evaluative words

  • "stupid"

  • "naughty"

  • "disgusting"

  • "ridiculous'

  • "should"

  • "ought

 

  • The Parent ego state is made up of external events from the child's authority figures (between the age of birth and 5 years old the child)

  • The child at this age is unable to question any of the external events and therefore internalizes them in his Parent ego state

 

  • Everything the child saw his parents do and everything he heard them say is recorded in the Parent ego state

 

  • The Parent ego state is made up both positive and negative

Verbal commands from the parents (between 0-5yo)

  • Praise

  • "No's"

  • Don't…

  • Rules

  • Beliefs

 

  • As well as Nonverbals from parents (between 0-5yo)

  • Tone of voice

  • Facial expressions

  • Being touched

  • Not being touched

 

  • Between 0-5 yo, The young child internalizes everything their parents do and take it all to be true

Because

  • The child is so much smaller and less powerful than the adult at this stage

  • The young child must obey their parents because they fear being punished/not being cared for if they disobey

 

  • The things the young child internalizes from his parent between 0-5yo is permanently recorded and cannot be erased

 

  • The reason the young child internalizes their parent's commands and admonitions at this age is because they can potentially save his life from threats he is not old enough to understand

 

  • When a child's parents act inconsistently with the way that they tell the child to behave (0-5yo) the child will turn off their recorder (ie. Their Parent ego state will become repressed or blocked all-together)

 

  • As a child matures, his Adult ego state will begin questioning the morals his parent's taught him between (0-5yo)

 

  • If a young child's parents were extremely domineering it may be more difficult for the maturing child's Adult ego state to question/override the morals his parents taught him between (0-5yo)

 

  • When the information and rules a child learns from his parent are reliable and accurate the child grows up to be secure

 

  • What a young child's older siblings say/do (between 0-5yo) will be recorded into his Parent ego state

  • What other authority figures say/do (between 0-5yo) will be recorded into his Parent ego state

 

  • Socrates' idea 'The unexamined life is not worth living' can be explained in TA terms as, The unexamined Parent ego state may be wrong and is therefore worth questioning by the Adult ego state

 

  • The Parent ego state can be subtle criticism which almost sounds like object Adult ego state

 

  • Religious doctrine is and example of the Parent ego state on the collective level

Child

Child Clues (Physical)

  • Tears

  • Quivering lips

  • Pouting temper

  • Whining voice

  • Rolling eyes

  • Shrugging shoulders

  • Laugher

  • Hand raising (for permission to speak)

  • Nail biting

  • Squirming

  • giggling

 

Child Clues (Verbal)

  • "I wish"

  • "I want"

  • "I donno"

  • "I gonnna"

  • "I don't care"

  • "I guess"

  • "when I grow up"

  • "bigger, biggest, best"

 

  • The Child ego state is made up of the his internal responses to external events (mostly in response to his father and mother between 0-5yo)

 

  • The young child's internal responses to external events (between 0-5yo) are mostly feelings

Because

  • Between 0-5yo children have little vocabulary to describe their experiences

 

  • Young children (0-5yo) have a hedonic desire to experience pleasure and sensation

But

  • The young child's parents demand that they repress their desire to experience hedonic pleasure and sensation in order to adapt to society

 

  • The parent's admonition of the young child wanting to gratify their hedonic pleasure/senesation causes the child to believe that he is bad

  • These bad feelings in the young child are what cause a person to form a belief in adulthood "I'm Not OK"

 

  • Every adult has a Not OK Child within them

 

  • The Child ego state is in command when a person's feelings (eg.) dominate their reasoning

 

  • By the time a young child reaches school (and other authority figures than his parents) his Parent ego state has already been established

 

  • Young children often don't understand that their parents are punishing them to keep them safe, they just feeling negative emotions from the punishment (fear, anger, frustration)

  • Even if young children learn later that their parents punished them to keep them safe, it doesn't change the negative feelings that the young child encoded during their formative years (0-5yo)

 

  • Our Child ego state demands certainty

 

  • As a person becomes aware/conscious of/sensitive to the little child in them, they will become aware/conscious of/sensitive to the little child in others

 

Adult

Adult Clues (Physical)

  • Continual movement of the face when listening

 

Adult Clues (Verbal)

  • "why?"

  • "What?"

  • "When?"

  • "Where?"

  • "Who?"

  • "How much?"

  • "True"

  • "False"

  • "Possible"

  • "Probable"

  • "I think…"

  • "It is my opinion…"

 

  • At 10months old a baby realizes he can use thought to manipulate objects in the world and to move

  • This realization that the child can use thought to manipulate external reality is the beginning of the Adult ego state

 

  • People pace or go on walks when they feel stressed or overwhelmed

Because

  • Pacing and going for walks allows a person to literally separate themselves and step away from their problem to get some perspective

  • Pacing and going for walks allows a person to connect to the liberating feeling they felt as an infant when they discovered they could move and weren't forever bound to the same physical space

 

  • The Adult ego state is constantly processing and filing information based on previous experience

 

  • The goal of TA is not to eradicate the Parent and Child ego states

  • The goal of TA is to get the Adult ego state free so that it can monitor the Parent and Child ego states

 

  • The Adul ego state allows us to estimate things and think of probability

 

  • Someone the Adult ego state is observing the Child or Parent ego state at play, but is unable to intervene

  • This is what is happening when a person says 'I knew what I was doing was wrong'

 

  • Our Adult ego state understands/accepts that we can not always have certainty

 

The 4 Life Positions

It is possible to change the life position that you formed in childhood

 

I'm NOT OK–You're OK

People with this position

  • Everybody has this position initially

  • Most people maintain this position throughout life

 

  • The 'I'm Not OK—You're OK' position is determined unconsciously in childhood

 

  • The 'I'm Not OK—You're OK' position is determined by feelings in childhood (not by rational thought)

 

  • The young child concludes he is not ok because he has been punished for all the natural things he enjoys doing (ie. Id pleasure pooping, selfish gratification)

  • The child concludes the parents are Ok because they are the one's punishing him and therefore must be right/good

 

  • Every child comes to the conclusion I'm Not Ok—You're Ok (even if they have a 'perfect' childhood)

 

  • Life in the womb before birth is the most perfect and blissful environment humans ever experience

 

  • When a baby is born they are cast out of their blissful world where every need is met into a world of

-Loud noises

-Brightness

-Coldness

-Separateness

  • Until the mother comforts the newborn and strokes him, he is cut off, apart, and alienated

 

  • After the baby is born the mother immediately begins stroking him

 

  • Without physical contact (ie. Stroking) a child will either literally die or be negatively impacted psychologically

 

  • The young child concludes that the person who strokes him is OK

 

  • As a child ages into an adult they replace the physical stroking they received from their parents with psychological symbolic stroking in the form of recognition

 

  • Some of the most successful people have been motivated by a need of approval (ie. Strokes from others) (ie. Achiever types are often I'm Not OK—You're OK)

 

  • Most people cope with the 'I'm Not OK—You're OK' life position by playing games

 

  • All games have their origins in the game 'Mine is Better Than Yours'

 

  • Children play the game 'Mine is Better Than Yours' (ie. Seek recognition) by

-getting a bigger dish of ice cream

-kicking the cat

-laughing at sister's mistake

-being first in line

 

  • Adults play the game 'Mine is Better Than Yours' (ie. Seek recognition) by

-accumulating possessions

-living in a bigger home than their peers

-reveling in how modest they are

 

  • Some people seek recognition (ie. Strokes) by trying to appear modest/humble

 

  • Games do not get rid of a persons life position 'I'm Not Ok'

Rather

  • Games compound a persons suffering and feelings that they are not ok

 

  • The NOT OK person assumes the other person's Adult ego state is their Critical parent being passive aggressive

 

  • The NOT OK person doesn't accept compliments gracefully

Because

  • The NOT OK person doesn't view themselves as being deserving of compliments

Because

  • The NOT OK person thinks deep down that they are bad

 

  • The Person who perpetually initiates transactions from their Child ego state has the NOT OK life position

Because

  • People initiate transactions from The Child ego state in order to be stroked by the other person's parent because they feel inferior (ie. NOT OK) themselves

 

  • The person who perpetually initiates transactions from their Parent ego state has the NOT OK life position

Because

  • People initiate transactions from The Parent ego state in order to make themselves feel superior to someone else because they feel inferior (ie. NOT OK) themselves

 

I'm NOT OK—You're Not OK

People with this position

  • Autistic kids

 

  • The 'I'm Not OK—You're Not OK' position is determined unconsciously in childhood

 

  • The 'I'm Not OK—You're Not OK' position is determined by feelings in childhood (not by rational thought)

 

  • When a young child concludes that the person stroking him (ie. Parent) is not ok, they conclude that all other people are not ok

 

  • Sometimes autistic children start out with an I'm Not OK—You're Not OK life position (as opposed to adopting it after having bad parents)

 

I'm OK—You're Not OK

People with this position

  • People with a lot of abuse in childhood

  • Psychopaths

  • Narcissists

 

  • The 'I'm OK—You're Not OK' position is determined unconsciously in childhood

 

  • The 'I'm OK—You're Not OK' position is determined by feelings in childhood (not by rational thought)

 

  • When a child has been abused too long, eventually he will switch to feeling that he is Ok and the parents (ie. Stroker) is not okay

  • Psychopaths, criminals, often have prolonged physical/sexual/emotional abuse as young children

  • Psychopaths often have the life position I'm OK—You're Not OK

  • Narcissists often have the life position I'm OK—You're Not OK

 

  • When a young child is physically abused after awhile they begin to rely on themselves to stroke themselves

 

  • Children who have been abused too long, eventually conclude that they are alright as long as others leave them alone

 

  • Children who have been abused too long, eventually believe that they are OK (ie. Not at fault) no matter what they do and it is always someone else's fault

Because

  • Their belief that their parent (ie. Stroker) was bad is now projected onto everyone else into adulthood

And

  • Their belief that they're good (as long as they are not being bothered) carries on into adulthood

 

  • The I'm OK—You're Not OK person often surrounds himself with a group of yes men

But

  • The I'm OK—You're Not OK person knows that his yes men are not authentic

So

  • The I'm OK—You're Not OK person will replace his group of yes men with a new group of yes men

 

I'm OK—You're OK

People with this position

  • People who have done TA work on themselves

 

  • The 'I'm OK—You're OK' life position is made consciously and deliberately (as opposed to the other three which are adopted unconsciously in childhood)

 

  • The 'I'm OK—You're OK' life position is based on rational thought (as opposed to the other three which were based on feelings in childhood)

 

  • Intimacy is the result of two people with I'M OK—YOU'RE OK life positions connecting

 

  • The absence of fear is necessary for intimacy

 

  • Intimacy is the result of two people connecting whose Adult ego state is in charge

 

  • Intimacy never has the ulterior (ie. Deceptive) quality that games have

 

  • Games are predictable

And

  • Players of games find comfort in the predictableness of a game that they play

Even though

  • Games can be painful

 

  • Transactional Analysis aims to discover which ego state a person acts from in a transaction

 

  • You can identify which ego state a person is acting from not just by what they say, but also by their tone of voice, gestures, and facial expressions

 

  • Child-Child transactions almost always contain Games

 

  • When someone's head is tilted while they're listening to someone speak they are working out an angle on what is being said

 

  • The most pleasurable sex is sex where each people is considerate of the feelings and pleasure of the other

Therefore

  • The most pleasurable sex contains a component of the Adult ego state

 

  • A relationship between people cannot last very long without both people employing their Adult ego state

 

People Pleasers

  • People pleasers develop from having a childhood where the parents were emotionally unstable (due to Alcoholism, psychosis, bi-polar etc.)

  • The child tried to figure out how to act in order to not upset the parent

 

Workaholics

Ie. Person with no Child ego state

 

  • If a child's parents are so domineering/strict/stern the child learns that the only way to get on in life is to shut of the Child ego state

  • A duty-dominated person (ie. Workaholic) is someone whose parents were so domineering/strict/stern in childhood that they had to turn off their Child ego state

 

Psychopaths

Ie. Person with no Parent ego state

 

  • How a person comes to not has a conscience (ie. Be a psychopath)

  • If a child's parents are so brutal/terrifying/abusive the child learns that the only way they can get along is to shut them off. This shutting off of the parent leads to the child turning off their conscience

  • Ie. Psychopaths are people whose parents were so brutal/terrifying/abusive in their childhood that they had to shut of the Parent ego state in their brain (ie. Their conscience)

  • [SP] The Parent ego state serves as the young child's conscience

  • [SP] If a young child shuts off his Parent ego state, he is shutting off his conscience

 

If a person doesn’t' feel shame/remorse/embarrassment/guilt than their Parent ego state has been turned off

 

Psychotics

Ie. Person with no Adult ego state

 

  • The psychotic is someone who has blocked out his Adult ego state

  • If a person has no Adult ego state, they have no connection to reality

 

The 6 types of Transactions

  1. Withdrawal

  2. Rituals

  3. Activities

  4. Pastimes

  5. Games

  6. Intimacy

 

Kinds of Rituals

  • Worship rituals

  • Greeting rituals

  • Cocktail party rituals

  • Bedroom rituals

 

  • People can use their work as a way of avoiding intimacy

  • Procedures/Activities can be a way of avoiding intimacy

 

  • Pastimes can be a way of avoiding intimacy

 

  • People generally react with anger when someone accuses them of playing a game

 

  • Sometimes toxic games are the things which hold a relationship together and when one or both people stop playing the game the relationship unravels

 

  • The best way to help children is by helping their parents

 

  • Having her first child marks a milestone in a woman's life between girlhood and womanhood

 

  • People cry at weddings

Because

  • Weddings make us reflect on the shortness of life and passing of time

  • [SP] Thinking about the shortness of life and passing of time makes us sad

 

  • People Don't attract people they want to attract into their lives

  • People attract people who are like they are into their lives

Similarly

  • Children don't become the people their parents would LIKE them to be

  • Children become the people their parents ARE

 

  • Battered children become full of rage

Because

  • Battered children want to protect themselves and fight back against the adults who hurt them, but are too small and weak and can't

 

  • If sex leads to low self esteem it is a sign that it is not real intimacy

 

  • You can't enter an intimate relationship with another person if they have already been intimate with several other people

 

  • Sex without intimacy causes a loss of self-esteem in a person

 

  • Premarital sex is bad

Because

  • Premarital sex is generally sex without intimacy

  • Sex without intimacy devalues sex

  • [SP] sex is sacred

  • [SP] it is bad to devalue something that is sacred

 

  • Women learn how to seduce their Fathers at a young age by acting cute in order to get what they want

 

  • Psychiatric diagnoses harm people more than help them

  • [SP] Being labeled as having a mental illness by a psychiatrist is psychologically damaging

 

  • People can recovered from mental illness

However

  • People can never recover from being labeled by a psychiatrist as having mental illness

 

  • [SP] having a preconception of what something will be like prevents us from being present to experience what is actually present

Therefore

  • Our perceptions of what God or a religious experience will be like get in the way of us having one

Therefore

  • Religion/theology might prevent a person from having a religious experience

 

  • The rebirth that Jesus spoke of is the rebirth of the Natural Child ego state

 

  • We can hate evil so much that we forget to love good

 

  • The only way to stay a winner is to surround oneself with losers

 

Surprising Facts

  • Thomas Harris studied under Eric Berne for 10 years

 

Unknown Terms

Reliving: spontaneously and involuntarily feeling what we felt during an event from our past.

Remembering: consciously and voluntarily thinking about a past event.

Life Position:  The four positions Transactional Analysist Thomas Harris believes adults come to based on their childhood conditioning. They dictate how the person feels about themselves and others. They are: I'm Not OK—You're OK, I'm Not OK—You're Not OK, I'm OK—You're Not OK, I'm OK–You're OK 2) "The child's conclusion about himself and others"