I'm OK, You're OK
Encyclopedia
I'm OK, You're OK, by Thomas A Harris MD
, is one of the best selling self-help
books ever published. It is a practical guide to Transactional Analysis
as a method for solving problems in life. From its first publication during 1967, the popularity of I'm OK, You're OK gradually increased until, during 1972, its name made the New York Times Best Seller list
and remained there for almost two years. It is estimated by the publisher to have sold over 15 million copies to date and to have been translated into over a dozen languages.
(TA, or as Harris often refers to it, P-A-C) as a major innovation addressing the slow process and limited results that he and other psychiatric practitioners believed was characteristic of conventional psychiatry. His motivation for writing I’m OK, You’re OK is that TA offers an approach that is accessible, produces results and which can scale to offer many ordinary people affordable ways to deal with issues in their lives, especially because it can be used in group situations which are less costly than traditional one-to-one therapy.
made great progress describing those facets in abstract terms such as Id
, Ego and Superego. However, he also describes the practical difficulty of trying to apply these terms to help his clients resolve their problems (and the difficulty of trying to get Freud’s devotees to agree on a consistent model).
Rather than working with abstract concepts of consciousness, Harris suggests that the pioneering work of brain surgeon Wilder Penfield
in uncovering the neurological basis of memory
could offer complementary insights grounded in observable reality.
Specifically, Harris emphasizes reports of Wilder’s experiments stimulating small areas of the brains of conscious (but locally anaesthetised) patients undergoing brain surgery. Though the patients were conscious that they were on an operating table, the stimulation also caused them to recall specific past events in vivid detail — not just facts of the event, but as a vivid "reliving" of "what the patient saw and heard and felt and understood" when the memory was created. Based on these experiments, Harris postulates that the brain records past experiences like a tape recorder
, in such a manner that it is possible subsequently to relive past experiences with all their original emotional intensity.
Harris continues by linking his interpretation of Wilder’s experiments to the work of Eric Berne
, whose model of psychotherapy is based on the idea that emotionally intense memories from childhood are ever-present in adults. Their influence can be understood by carefully analysing the verbal and non-verbal interchanges (‘transactions’) between people, hence Berne’s name for his model: Transactional Analysis. Harris sees great merit in the ability of TA to define basic units through which human behaviour can be analysed — the ‘strokes’ that are given and received in a ‘transaction’ between two or more people — and a standardised language for describing those strokes. This readily understood standardisation, and the association Harris develops between TA and Wilder’s neuroscience, gives TA a special credibility that makes it both superior to, and more easily understood than, earlier abstract models such as that developed by Freud.
Harris describes the mental state called the Parent by analogy, as a collection of "tape recordings" of external influences that a child observed adults doing and saying. The recording is a long list of rules and admonitions about the way the world is that the child was expected to believe unquestioningly. Many of these rules (for example: "Never run out in front of traffic") are useful and valid all through life; others ("Premarital sex is wrong", or "You can never trust a cop") are opinions that may be less helpful.
In parallel with those Parent recordings, the Child is a simultaneous recording of internal events — how life felt as a child. Harris equates these with the vivid recordings that Wilder Penfield was able to cause his patients to re-live by stimulating their brains. Harris proposes that, as adults, when we feel discouraged, it is as if we are re-living those Child memories yet the stimulus for re-living them may no longer be relevant or helpful in our lives.
According to Harris, humans start developing a third mental state, the Adult, about the time children start to walk and begin to achieve some measure of control over their environment. Instead of learning ideas directly from parents into the Parent, or experiencing simple emotion as the Child, children begin to be able to explore and examine the world and form their own opinions. They test the assertions of the Parent and Child and either update them or learn to suppress them. Thus the Adult inside us all develops over time, but it is very fragile and can be readily overwhelmed by stressful situations. Its strength is also tested through conflict between the simplistic ideas of the Parent and reality. Sometimes, Harris asserts, it is safer for a person to believe a lie than to acknowledge the evidence in front of them. This is called Contamination of the Adult.
The most common position is I'm Not OK, You're OK. As children we see that adults are large, strong and competent and that we are little, weak and often make mistakes, so we conclude I'm Not OK, You're OK. Children who are abused may conclude I'm Not OK, You're Not OK or I'm OK, You're Not OK, but this is much less common. The emphasis of the book is helping people understand how their life position affects their communications (transactions) and relationships with practical examples.
I’m OK, You’re OK continues by providing practical advice to begin decoding the physical and verbal clues required to analyze transactions. For example, Harris suggests signs that a person is in a Parent ego state can include the use of evaluative words that imply judgment based on an automatic, axiomatic and archaic value system: words like ‘stupid, naughty, ridiculous, disgusting, should or ought’ (though the latter can also be used in the Adult ego state).
Harris introduces a diagrammatic representation of two classes of communication between individuals: complementary transactions, which can continue indefinitely, and crossed transactions, which cause a cessation of communication (and frequently an argument). Harris suggests that crossed transactions are problematic because they "hook" the Child ego state of one of the participants, resulting in negative feelings. Harris suggests that awareness of this possibility, through TA, can give people a choice about how they react when confronted with an interpersonal situation which makes them feel uncomfortable. Harris provides practical suggestions regarding how to stay in the Adult ego state, despite the provocation.
Having described a generalized model of the ego states inside human beings, and the transactions between them, Harris then describes how individuals differ. He argues that insights can be gained by examining the degree to which an individual’s Adult ego state is contaminated by the other ego states. He summarizes contamination of the Adult by the Parent as "prejudice" and contamination of the Adult by the Child as "delusion". A healthy individual is able to separate these states. Yet, Harris argues, a functioning person does need all three ego states to be present in their psyche in order for them to be complete. Someone who excludes (i.e. blocks out) their Child completely cannot play and enjoy life; while someone who excludes their Parent ego state can be a danger to society (they may become a manipulative psychopath who does not feel shame, remorse, embarrassment or guilt).
Harris also identifies from his medical practice examples of individuals with blocked out Adult ego states, who were psychotic, terrified and varied between the Parent ego state's archaic admonitions about the world and the raw emotional state of the Child, making them non-treatable by therapy. For such cases, Harris endorses drug treatments, or electro-convulsive therapy, as a way to temporarily disrupt the disturbing ego states, allowing the “recommissioning” of the Adult ego state by therapy. Harris reports a similar approach to treating Manic Depression.
The second half of the book begins by briefly describing the six ways that TA practitioners recognize individuals use to structure time, to make life seem meaningful. Harris continues by offering practical case studies showing applications of TA to Marriage and the raising of both Children and Adolescents. This section of I’m OK, You’re OK concludes as Harris describes when TA can be relevant to an individual’s life, and how and by whom it might be delivered. He promotes the idea that TA is not just a method for specialists, but can be shared and used by many people.
Having described such a structured method of dealing with the challenges of human psychology, the final two chapters of the book discuss the question of improving morality and society. In particular, he asks, if we are not to succumb to domination by the Parent ego state, how can individuals enlightened through TA know how they should live their lives? Starting from his axiomatic statement I’m OK, You’re OK, he acknowledges that accepting it at face value raises the same philosophical dilemmas as the problem of evil
does for believers in a just, omnipotent God
. Harris continues to explore aspects of Christianity
with reference to TA, together with more generalized questions about the nature of religion
.
The final chapter of I’m OK, You’re OK refers to social issues contemporary at the time of writing, including the Cold War
, Vietnam war
and the then-recent controversial research
of individuals’ response to authority conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram
. Harris applies TA to these issues and concludes his book with the hope that nations will soon gain the maturity to engage in Adult to Adult dialogue, rather than conducting diplomacy in the collective archaic ego states of Parent or Child, which he sees as causing war and disharmony.
it was published first during 1970 by Jonathan Cape
with the title The Book of Choice. It is still in print, published by Harpercollins
.
has not been realised (the panacea may have also been his attempt at finding a suitable ending to his book. A person of his experience - as in the observations of human nature he mentioned in the book - would very well know that a concept such as TA would not be sufficient to heal the entire world).
The work of Wilder Penfield
concerning human memory, which appeared to Harris to give TA special credibility because it inferred a direct association with neuroscience, has not proved readily repeatable.
Harris's assertion that a child does not mature with the life position I'm OK - You're OK without therapy has been criticised as positioning TA as a quasi-religious soteriology
. However the assertion is counter to other TA authorities.
Against these criticisms, this book is not intended as an academic or theoretical introduction to Transactional Analysis
. Nor is it an attempt to deal with advanced topics of psychopathology
. Rather, Harris emphasizes that his ambition is to offer a popular science
interpretation of TA.
Intriguingly, Thomas Harris' assertion that all children start out with an I'm not OK, You're OK life position was contested by his friend Eric Berne
, the originator of TA. In contrast, Berne believed that the natural state of a child was feeling I'm OK, You're OK.
philosophies as being overly accepting. The phrase I'm OK, You're OK is a common cliché
in Anglophone
culture, at least among an older generation more accustomed to hearing the phrase. Examples of the influence elsewhere are:
Thomas Anthony Harris
Thomas Anthony Harris MD was an American psychiatrist and author who became famous for his self-help manual I'm OK, You're OK . The book was a bestseller and its name became a cliché during the 1970s.-Career:Harris received his bachelor of science degree during 1938 from the University of Arkansas...
, is one of the best selling self-help
Self-help
Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
books ever published. It is a practical guide to Transactional Analysis
Transactional analysis
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. It is described as integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches...
as a method for solving problems in life. From its first publication during 1967, the popularity of I'm OK, You're OK gradually increased until, during 1972, its name made the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
and remained there for almost two years. It is estimated by the publisher to have sold over 15 million copies to date and to have been translated into over a dozen languages.
Content
In the opening preface, Harris praises the then-new procedure of Transactional AnalysisTransactional analysis
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. It is described as integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches...
(TA, or as Harris often refers to it, P-A-C) as a major innovation addressing the slow process and limited results that he and other psychiatric practitioners believed was characteristic of conventional psychiatry. His motivation for writing I’m OK, You’re OK is that TA offers an approach that is accessible, produces results and which can scale to offer many ordinary people affordable ways to deal with issues in their lives, especially because it can be used in group situations which are less costly than traditional one-to-one therapy.
Harris' context for the book
The main text of the book starts with the observation that historic attempts to understand human nature have long recognised that individual personalities have multiple facets. Harris first claims that Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
made great progress describing those facets in abstract terms such as Id
Id, ego, and super-ego
Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described...
, Ego and Superego. However, he also describes the practical difficulty of trying to apply these terms to help his clients resolve their problems (and the difficulty of trying to get Freud’s devotees to agree on a consistent model).
Rather than working with abstract concepts of consciousness, Harris suggests that the pioneering work of brain surgeon Wilder Penfield
Wilder Penfield
Wilder Graves Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRS was an American born Canadian neurosurgeon. During his life he was called "the greatest living Canadian"...
in uncovering the neurological basis of memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
could offer complementary insights grounded in observable reality.
Specifically, Harris emphasizes reports of Wilder’s experiments stimulating small areas of the brains of conscious (but locally anaesthetised) patients undergoing brain surgery. Though the patients were conscious that they were on an operating table, the stimulation also caused them to recall specific past events in vivid detail — not just facts of the event, but as a vivid "reliving" of "what the patient saw and heard and felt and understood" when the memory was created. Based on these experiments, Harris postulates that the brain records past experiences like a tape recorder
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...
, in such a manner that it is possible subsequently to relive past experiences with all their original emotional intensity.
Harris continues by linking his interpretation of Wilder’s experiments to the work of Eric Berne
Eric Berne
Eric Berne was a Canadian-born psychiatrist best known as the creator of transactional analysis and the author of Games People Play.-Background and education:...
, whose model of psychotherapy is based on the idea that emotionally intense memories from childhood are ever-present in adults. Their influence can be understood by carefully analysing the verbal and non-verbal interchanges (‘transactions’) between people, hence Berne’s name for his model: Transactional Analysis. Harris sees great merit in the ability of TA to define basic units through which human behaviour can be analysed — the ‘strokes’ that are given and received in a ‘transaction’ between two or more people — and a standardised language for describing those strokes. This readily understood standardisation, and the association Harris develops between TA and Wilder’s neuroscience, gives TA a special credibility that makes it both superior to, and more easily understood than, earlier abstract models such as that developed by Freud.
The Parent, Adult, Child (P-A-C) Model
After describing the context for his belief of the significance of TA, Harris describes TA, starting from the observation that a person’s psychological state seems to change in response to different situations. The question is, from what and to what does it change? Harris answers this through a simplified introduction to TA, explaining Berne’s proposal that there are three states into which a person can switch: the Parent, the Adult and the Child.Harris describes the mental state called the Parent by analogy, as a collection of "tape recordings" of external influences that a child observed adults doing and saying. The recording is a long list of rules and admonitions about the way the world is that the child was expected to believe unquestioningly. Many of these rules (for example: "Never run out in front of traffic") are useful and valid all through life; others ("Premarital sex is wrong", or "You can never trust a cop") are opinions that may be less helpful.
In parallel with those Parent recordings, the Child is a simultaneous recording of internal events — how life felt as a child. Harris equates these with the vivid recordings that Wilder Penfield was able to cause his patients to re-live by stimulating their brains. Harris proposes that, as adults, when we feel discouraged, it is as if we are re-living those Child memories yet the stimulus for re-living them may no longer be relevant or helpful in our lives.
According to Harris, humans start developing a third mental state, the Adult, about the time children start to walk and begin to achieve some measure of control over their environment. Instead of learning ideas directly from parents into the Parent, or experiencing simple emotion as the Child, children begin to be able to explore and examine the world and form their own opinions. They test the assertions of the Parent and Child and either update them or learn to suppress them. Thus the Adult inside us all develops over time, but it is very fragile and can be readily overwhelmed by stressful situations. Its strength is also tested through conflict between the simplistic ideas of the Parent and reality. Sometimes, Harris asserts, it is safer for a person to believe a lie than to acknowledge the evidence in front of them. This is called Contamination of the Adult.
Four life positions
The phrase I'm OK, You're OK is one of four "life positions" that each of us may take. The four positions are:- I'm Not OK, You're OK
- I'm Not OK, You're Not OK
- I'm OK, You're Not OK
- I'm OK, You're OK
The most common position is I'm Not OK, You're OK. As children we see that adults are large, strong and competent and that we are little, weak and often make mistakes, so we conclude I'm Not OK, You're OK. Children who are abused may conclude I'm Not OK, You're Not OK or I'm OK, You're Not OK, but this is much less common. The emphasis of the book is helping people understand how their life position affects their communications (transactions) and relationships with practical examples.
I’m OK, You’re OK continues by providing practical advice to begin decoding the physical and verbal clues required to analyze transactions. For example, Harris suggests signs that a person is in a Parent ego state can include the use of evaluative words that imply judgment based on an automatic, axiomatic and archaic value system: words like ‘stupid, naughty, ridiculous, disgusting, should or ought’ (though the latter can also be used in the Adult ego state).
Harris introduces a diagrammatic representation of two classes of communication between individuals: complementary transactions, which can continue indefinitely, and crossed transactions, which cause a cessation of communication (and frequently an argument). Harris suggests that crossed transactions are problematic because they "hook" the Child ego state of one of the participants, resulting in negative feelings. Harris suggests that awareness of this possibility, through TA, can give people a choice about how they react when confronted with an interpersonal situation which makes them feel uncomfortable. Harris provides practical suggestions regarding how to stay in the Adult ego state, despite the provocation.
Having described a generalized model of the ego states inside human beings, and the transactions between them, Harris then describes how individuals differ. He argues that insights can be gained by examining the degree to which an individual’s Adult ego state is contaminated by the other ego states. He summarizes contamination of the Adult by the Parent as "prejudice" and contamination of the Adult by the Child as "delusion". A healthy individual is able to separate these states. Yet, Harris argues, a functioning person does need all three ego states to be present in their psyche in order for them to be complete. Someone who excludes (i.e. blocks out) their Child completely cannot play and enjoy life; while someone who excludes their Parent ego state can be a danger to society (they may become a manipulative psychopath who does not feel shame, remorse, embarrassment or guilt).
Harris also identifies from his medical practice examples of individuals with blocked out Adult ego states, who were psychotic, terrified and varied between the Parent ego state's archaic admonitions about the world and the raw emotional state of the Child, making them non-treatable by therapy. For such cases, Harris endorses drug treatments, or electro-convulsive therapy, as a way to temporarily disrupt the disturbing ego states, allowing the “recommissioning” of the Adult ego state by therapy. Harris reports a similar approach to treating Manic Depression.
The second half of the book begins by briefly describing the six ways that TA practitioners recognize individuals use to structure time, to make life seem meaningful. Harris continues by offering practical case studies showing applications of TA to Marriage and the raising of both Children and Adolescents. This section of I’m OK, You’re OK concludes as Harris describes when TA can be relevant to an individual’s life, and how and by whom it might be delivered. He promotes the idea that TA is not just a method for specialists, but can be shared and used by many people.
Having described such a structured method of dealing with the challenges of human psychology, the final two chapters of the book discuss the question of improving morality and society. In particular, he asks, if we are not to succumb to domination by the Parent ego state, how can individuals enlightened through TA know how they should live their lives? Starting from his axiomatic statement I’m OK, You’re OK, he acknowledges that accepting it at face value raises the same philosophical dilemmas as the problem of evil
Problem of evil
In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is the question of how to explain evil if there exists a deity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient . Some philosophers have claimed that the existences of such a god and of evil are logically incompatible or unlikely...
does for believers in a just, omnipotent God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. Harris continues to explore aspects of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
with reference to TA, together with more generalized questions about the nature of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
.
The final chapter of I’m OK, You’re OK refers to social issues contemporary at the time of writing, including the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and the then-recent controversial research
Milgram experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of notable social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that...
of individuals’ response to authority conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist most notable for his controversial study known as the Milgram Experiment. The study was conducted in the 1960s during Milgram's professorship at Yale...
. Harris applies TA to these issues and concludes his book with the hope that nations will soon gain the maturity to engage in Adult to Adult dialogue, rather than conducting diplomacy in the collective archaic ego states of Parent or Child, which he sees as causing war and disharmony.
Editions
The book was published first in the USA by Harper & Row, then republished as I'm OK- You're OK (ISBN 0-380-00772-X). In the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
it was published first during 1970 by Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
with the title The Book of Choice. It is still in print, published by Harpercollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
.
Criticism
Several decades have now elapsed since Harris published I'm OK, You're OK, so inevitably some of the cultural references which might have seemed new and relevant when the book was first published may now seem dated and less accessible to contemporary readers who do not remember the 1960s. In some places the book also has a US-centric view of the world. Finally, Harris' optimistic projection of TA as a near-universal panaceaPanacea
In Greek mythology, Panacea was a goddess of healing. She was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione. Panacea and her five sisters each performed a facet of Apollo's art: Panacea was the goddess of cures, Iaso was the goddess of recuperation, Hygieia was the goddess of disease prevention, Aceso was...
has not been realised (the panacea may have also been his attempt at finding a suitable ending to his book. A person of his experience - as in the observations of human nature he mentioned in the book - would very well know that a concept such as TA would not be sufficient to heal the entire world).
The work of Wilder Penfield
Wilder Penfield
Wilder Graves Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRS was an American born Canadian neurosurgeon. During his life he was called "the greatest living Canadian"...
concerning human memory, which appeared to Harris to give TA special credibility because it inferred a direct association with neuroscience, has not proved readily repeatable.
Harris's assertion that a child does not mature with the life position I'm OK - You're OK without therapy has been criticised as positioning TA as a quasi-religious soteriology
Soteriology
The branch of Christian theology that deals with salvation and redemption is called Soteriology. It is derived from the Greek sōtērion + English -logy....
. However the assertion is counter to other TA authorities.
Against these criticisms, this book is not intended as an academic or theoretical introduction to Transactional Analysis
Transactional analysis
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. It is described as integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches...
. Nor is it an attempt to deal with advanced topics of psychopathology
Psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...
. Rather, Harris emphasizes that his ambition is to offer a popular science
Popular science
Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is broad-ranging, often written by scientists as well as journalists, and is presented in many...
interpretation of TA.
Intriguingly, Thomas Harris' assertion that all children start out with an I'm not OK, You're OK life position was contested by his friend Eric Berne
Eric Berne
Eric Berne was a Canadian-born psychiatrist best known as the creator of transactional analysis and the author of Games People Play.-Background and education:...
, the originator of TA. In contrast, Berne believed that the natural state of a child was feeling I'm OK, You're OK.
Influence on popular culture
The name of the book has since become used commonly, often as a dismissive categorization of all popular psychologyPopular psychology
The term popular psychology refers to concepts and theories about human mental life and behavior that are purportedly based on psychology and that attain popularity among the general population...
philosophies as being overly accepting. The phrase I'm OK, You're OK is a common cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
in Anglophone
Anglosphere
Anglosphere is a neologism which refers to those nations with English as the most common language. The term can be used more specifically to refer to those nations which share certain characteristics within their cultures based on a linguistic heritage, through being former British colonies...
culture, at least among an older generation more accustomed to hearing the phrase. Examples of the influence elsewhere are:
- A side project of MxPxMxPxMxPx is a pop punk band from Bremerton, Washington with connections to the Christian punk scene. The band has recorded eight studio albums, four EPs, four compilation albums, a live album, a VHS tape, a DVD and released 20 singles....
called The CooteesThe CooteesThe Cootees were an American pop punk band. MxPx members Mike Herrera and Tom Wisniewski joined with Dale Yob and a mutual friend, Jiles O'Neal. They only created one album, entitled Let's Play House, which was released in 1997...
had a song named I'm OK, You're OK, criticizing pediatric psychology in general. (this song was later "coveredCoveredCovered is a term used in popular music in general to refer to a song recorded by different performer from its original or most popular recorded version, and by some disc jockeys in particular to describe a musical recording presented under the guise of a false title and artist name...
" by MxPx themselves) - Punk rockPunk rockPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band The DickiesThe DickiesThe Dickies are an American punk rock group formed in San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California, U.S. in 1977.-History:The Dickies were among the first punk rock bands to emerge from Los Angeles...
also had a song named I'm OK, You're OK. - The Foo FightersFoo FightersFoo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...
released a 1995 MTVMTVMTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
concert from England called I'm OK, Eur OK. - One parodyParodyA parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of the book has the title, I'm OK, You're not so hot. - A company sells bumper stickers that reads, "I'm OK, you're a sh--head."
- Wendy KaminerWendy KaminerWendy Kaminer is a lawyer and writer. She has written several books on contemporary social issues, including A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight From Equality, about the conflict between egalitarian and protectionist feminism; I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other...
wrote a critiqueCritiqueCritique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a written or oral discourse. Critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgement, but it can also involve merit recognition, and in the philosophical tradition it also means a methodical practice of doubt...
of the self-helpSelf-helpSelf-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
business during 1992, named I'm Dysfunctional, You're DysfunctionalI'm Dysfunctional, You're DysfunctionalI'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions is a non-fiction book about the self-help industry, written by Wendy Kaminer...
. - When Jerry SeinfeldJerry SeinfeldJerome Allen "Jerry" Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and television and film producer, known for playing a semi-fictional version of himself in the situation comedy Seinfeld , which he co-created and co-wrote with Larry David, and, in the show's final two seasons,...
opens his apartment door to find his hapless friend George CostanzaGeorge CostanzaGeorge Louis Costanza is a character in the American television sitcom Seinfeld , played by Jason Alexander. He has variously been described as a "short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man" , "Lord of the Idiots" , and as "the greatest sitcom character of all time"...
reading a self-help book (I’m OK - You’re OK), it confirms Jerry's opinion that his friend is a loser. - George CarlinGeorge CarlinGeorge Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
parodied the name in his Join the Book Club routine, offering the book I Suck, You Suck. - Sean Maguire owns a copy of the book, which is displayed in the movie Good Will HuntingGood Will HuntingGood Will Hunting is a 1997 drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgård...
. - In one episode of the ABC televisionABC TelevisionABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
sitcom TaxiTaxi (TV series)Taxi was an American sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982 on ABC and from 1982 to 1983 on NBC. The series, which won 18 Emmy Awards, including three for "Outstanding Comedy Series", focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher...
, character Latka GravasLatka GravasLatka Gravas is a fictional character on the television sitcom Taxi portrayed by Andy Kaufman. Latka was based on a character Kaufman created known as Foreign Man.-Foreign Man:...
suffers from multiple personality disorder. One of his personalities is a cowboy called Arlo who favors urban cowboyUrban CowboyReleased as a 2× vinyl record album, re-released on CD in 1995.Side A:#Hello Texas – Jimmy Buffett #All Night Long – Joe Walsh #Times Like These – Dan Fogelberg #Nine Tonight – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band...
fashion. Cool, outgoing personality Vic Ferrari, upon replacing Arlo, remarks on his clothes as he finds himself in a psychiatrist’s office, “What is this? The I’m OK, You’re OK Corral?” - In The Odd CoupleThe Odd CoupleThe Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...
, Season 3, Episode 13 "I Gotta Be Me," Felix tells Oscar he bought a new bestseller on psychiatry entitled "Finding Your Marbles" by the author of "I'm OK, You're Not." - In the clay-animated film Mary and MaxMary and MaxMary and Max is a 2009 Australian clay-animated black comedy-drama film written and directed by Adam Elliot and produced by Melanie Coombs. The voice cast included Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toni Collette, Eric Bana, Bethany Whitmore, with narration by Barry Humphries. The film premiered on the...
, Max' imaginary friend is sitting in the corner and reading I'm OK, you're OK among other self-help books.