In These Dark Times: Exploring Our Values as Transactional Analysts

Abstract

This essay addresses personal and professional values underlying (but not necessarily consciously articulated) how we practice and what we define as healthy outcomes for our efforts as transactional analysts. It is an invitation to consider the importance of a professional culture of curiosity and respect, one that can welcome and make use of difference and conflict, stressing the need for the elaboration of theories and values that actively attend to social and political forces that shape beliefs and behaviors. Central to this essay is a critique of the incorporation of “I’m OK, You’re OK” as a central value of transactional analysis.

Keywords:

• OKness
• core values
• revision
• Eric Berne
• transactional analysis history
• cultural determinants
• critical analysis

Acknowledgments

This essay is an expansion of a keynote speech, “A Living CREDO for Transactional Analysis,” presented at the 16th National Congress of Transactional Analysis, 7 October 2023, in Catania, Sicily. It was given on the day of the outbreak of the war between Hamas and Israel. The author thanks Anna Emanuela Tangolo and Francesca Vignozzi for their invitation to deliver this keynote to a rich and stimulating congress and to the TAJ editorial reviewers for their thoughtful comments on the submitted draft, which resulted in important revisions.

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

William F. Cornell

William F. Cornell, MA, is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy) who maintains an independent private practice of therapy, consultation, and training in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as leading frequent training groups in Europe. He is the consulting editor of the Transactional Analysis Journal, the editor of the Routledge book series Innovations in Transactional Analysis, and the author of numerous articles and books. Bill is also Founding Faculty of the Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies. He can be reached at 145 44th St., Pittsburgh, PA 15201-3038, USA; email: [email protected].