The Risks of Openness

The Risks of Openness
A few weeks ago I was weeping bitterly, feeling insulted and misjudged, because of one phrase a total stranger had written to me. I am a psychotherapist, a happy person; I have the full support of my friends and relations, I’ve done four years of individual therapy and I know a number of self-support techniques. But then this was an entirely unexpected blow. It all began when I decided to write an article about strokes (a concept of Transactional Analys...

So Who Is Happy Then?

So Who Is Happy Then?
A 12-year-old told me recently how the teacher asked her class to think about whether most people on Earth were happy. As a result, the class ended up discussing what is happiness, actually. A difficult topic, apparently, but one relevant to both schoolchildren and adults. I would like to share a theory from transactional analysis, which, in my opinion, tackles this question best. I must start with a disclaimer: we won’t be talking about feeling happ