How to gain control of your future, no matter what has happened in the past – that is the promise Dr. Harris holds out to his numerous readers.
The author
says that most people have come to accept that psychiatry is a good thing, but exactly what it is and what it does has not been made clear, especially as the words psychiatrists use seems to mean different things to different people. Dr. Harris has taken up the challenge in this book, in simple (though not simplistic) terms.
Dr. Harris says that people do not have to be mentally ill to benefit from reading his book; for it has applications in marital relations, bringing up children, understanding adolescent behavior and time management among other things. The tools at his disposal are the tools of
transactional analysis.
All of us are familiar with the term “childlike” behavior; the author says that the
child within us reacts primarily by way of expressing emotions and feelings. As the individual matures, the
adult begins to differentiate between life as it was taught to him (parental control), life as he wished it (childlike) and life as it really is. Everything that the child’s parents did and said in his early years becomes part of him. In the adult conflict arises when parental data conflicts with his desires and with reality as he perceives it.
Early on in life, a child reaches a conclusion about himself and his relatioship with others – this is what the author describes as his “life position” because this attitude tends to stay with him for the rest of his life. These positions are I’m not
ok & You’re Ok / I’m not Ok & You’re not Ok / I’m Ok & You’re not Ok. We cannot erase the not Ok recordings, but we can choose to consciouly turn them off. It is the attempt of the analyst to convert his patient to the I’m Ok & You’re Ok position. But the author adds a note of caution – the child in us wants and expects instant gratification, the adult person must understand that patience is needed.
The author says that fear of parental data may produce contamination in the adult, but that we can change nonetheless. The goal of transactional
analysis is to restore to the individual his freedom of choice, the freedom to change. Most people are not even aware that they can change, it is the purpose of transactional analysis to show them how.
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