Eric Berne
SchoolTransactional Analysis
Lived1910 – 1970
FromUnited States
Transactional Analysis

Eric Berne

Mapped how our inner Parent, Adult and Child talk.

Creator of transactional analysis, a model of personality built on Parent, Adult and Child ego states and the repetitive "games" people play.

techniques

The moment a little boy asks which is a jay and which a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds.
— Eric Berne

Who they were

Eric Berne (born Eric Lennard Bernstein in Montreal) earned his MD at McGill and trained in psychiatry and psychoanalysis at Yale. After becoming a US citizen and serving in the Army Medical Corps, he developed transactional analysis in the 1950s. His 1964 bestseller Games People Play brought the approach to a mass audience, and he founded the International Transactional Analysis Association.

Their big idea

Transactional Analysis

We communicate from Parent, Adult and Child ego states and run scripted "games."

The approach they founded

Transactional Analysis

Maps how we speak from Parent, Adult, and Child — and the repeated "games" that shape our relationships.

Questions in their spirit

What they’d ask you

Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.

All questions

Carry the idea forward

Berne — What they’d ask you

Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.