Understanding Transactional Analysis

I initially wrote this article in 2015, but I think it’s fairly evergreen in terms of understanding human relationships.

Been going to therapy recently — because, I mean, why not? — and my therapist gave me two books to read/look at. One was called The Games People Play; it’s by Eric Berne and is fairly famous. (By some estimates, it sold over five million copies.) The other one is called I’m OK, You’re OK; it’s by Thomas Harris and also somewhat popular. I’ve now read the first one and am about to read the second one. This post is related to the broader ideas therein.

Let’s get something awkward out of the way first: when I was 9–10, my mom actually wanted me to read that latter book — because she had read it. I’m not sure I was really read to process said book at 10, but at 34 I’m willing to give it a try. (24 years represents an approximate period of emotional growth, eh?)

Both these books reference what’s called “transactional analysis.” When I first heard that term, I thought negatively of it. First off, the word “transaction” has a negative connotation for most people; when you get asked to do something at work and you think it’s ‘transactional,’ you’re probably pretty pissed off. You want to be doing something with purpose, right? That’s the…