Over the Shock and GALing 6

[Thinker]

I finished IOKYOK.

I skimmed the last half, which was really superfluous to the point.

He introduces 4 key points during the first half:

• the concept of the basic life positions (I'm not OK, You're OK - vs - I'm OK, You're OK)
• the concept of the 3 conflicting parts of a persons personality (Parent, Adult, Child)
• the concept of analyzing transactions between people in terms of which part of each personality is interacting with which part of the other persons personality.
• the concept of "Games" - repeated self re-enforcing transactions which prevent real growth or intimacy.

unfortunately, after introducing them, he goes into the myriad of ways that the concepts can be used (from helping individuals, to helping parents, to helping understand world politics ) rather than getting into useful levels of detail.

I think the most useful part is that it provides a language for understanding how it is that your parent (rigid, judgmental, better than others) or your child (hurt, emotional, insecure) can get inappropriately hooked and pulled into an interaction - causing problems through "crossed transactions"

My recommendation: worthwhile read, understand the basics, skip/skim the 2nd half of the book.