Transactional but not transformative

When I was in graduate school during the 1970s, a UOP professor had Saturday night get-togethers at his home for a handful of selected students. He would invite interesting people from various backgrounds to mingle with us younger wannabe intellectuals.

During that time period, my wife and I also were into “Transactional Analysis.” It was a refreshing new way to look at human interactions and selfawareness.

Some of you may remember “TA” as focusing on the “Parent,” “Adult,” and “Child” ego states. As the theory went: By paying attention to which ego state was momentarily in charge, we could dramatically improve human communication and understanding.

My wife and I were “true believers.” We were involved with Dr. Thomas A. Harris in Sacramento, author of the best selling book, “I’m OK, You’re OK.” The TA methodology was quite popular in the ‘70s, and followers were springing up all over the country. But getting back to the Saturday night party, I was sipping on a glass of Spanata, a cheap wine popular among college kids, when I began a discussion with a guest. He was an experienced clinical psychiatrist.

I thought: “Here’s my chance to run Transactional Analysis by an expert and get his opinion on this brilliant new system. With the enthusiasm of a revivalist preacher, I spouted off the miracles of TA and how I thought an understanding of it by the masses would simply change the world.

But instead of mirroring my enthusiasm, the psychiatrist’s eyebrows dipped with a frown. His lips tightened. His body language told me that somehow,

I was missing the mark.

So, of course, I had to ask:

“Well, what do you think, Dr. H? Is this the greatest breakthrough since Carl Jung?

He remained silent while biting his lip.

“Come on, Doc: What do you think?”

Again, a silent response. Finally, after a third try, the psychiatrist replied: “It’s nothing but a bunch of BS!” (He didn’t use the initials.) Then Doc turned and walked away.

I was stunned. First of all, my image of a psychiatrist was one who was always non-judgmental. How could he express such a negative opinion about a system I worshipped like a religion? “He must be envious of this great revelation,” I rationalized.

But over time, a funny thing happened. Through education, clinical work and other experiences, my passion for any “true believer” ideology began to wither. I was becoming more like Dr. H than I ever would have imagined as a younger person.

Eventually, I realized that while Transactional Analysis was certainly a valid way of looking at how humans think and interact, it wasn’t unique to truth, nor did it invalidate other methods of viewing the same subject matter. Like most true believer movements, Transactional Analysis quickly rose and then eventually fell in popularity.

People’s objectives had also changed over time. In seemed back in the 1970s, folks were hungry for knowledge and new ideas. Dozens of books were written by professionals with different views about the problems humanity faced. People wanted personal growth.

At the same time, music and movies were very creative. Artists tried to find styles and approach subject matters that were distinctly unique. Freedom of thought was “in.” Political correctness did not exist for the vast majority. When I taught college part time in the 1970s and graduate school in the ‘80s, I was given course titles by department heads. But at the same time, professors had a free hand in choosing textbooks. We also wrote the course syllabus for every assigned subject. Yet by 1990, I was facing a different set of rules. Textbooks were now chosen by the university and profs were simply there to carry out predetermined agendas. Suddenly, creativity and the unique knowledge each professor brought to the classroom no longer seemed to matter.

But getting back to Dr. H: Was he right about TA? Well, it didn’t change the world. Societal and mental instability continue today — perhaps even worse than what was in the ‘70s. It certainly didn’t have the lasting universal appeal supporters hoped it would.

So, what can I conclude from these situations over the last few decades? I suppose it’s the realization that the wisdom of my father’s paradox is essentially true. With education, experience and time, come the knowledge that we are all naïve, fallible and developing creatures. I think Dad got it right when he summarized life’s journey as, “The more we know, the more we realize what we don’t know.”