At a certain point in my professional development¹, I found myself asking: Why did I choose TA? And what does the therapeutic method we practice reveal about us as practitioners? Do we choose TA, or, perhaps, in a script-driven way, does it, in some sense, choose us?

It seems increasingly clear to me that this choice is not solely a matter of professional preference. It is not possible to be a psychologist or psychotherapist without bringing oneself into the work — one’s personal history, coping strategies, and unresolved vulnerabilities. In this sense, the therapeutic approach we choose becomes more than a tool. It becomes a language through which we speak not only to the client’s pain, but also, inevitably, to our own. We help others through the very processes by which we are, in some way, also helping ourselves.

These reflections gradually led me to turn toward the history of TA and to the life of its founder, Eric Berne. In clinical practice, no matter how much we rely on theory, we still find ourselves searching for answers in the person behind it. As I immersed myself in the biography of Eric Berne, I began to notice not only intellectual interest, but also a subtle, almost bodily sense of recognition, as if something distant were unexpectedly becoming very close.

Berne’s story is, among other things, the story of a boy who lost his father at an early age and was compelled to grow up prematurely. His father, a physician, appears to have had a formative influence on his professional identity. It is also the story of a man who grew up in an environment marked by antisemitism, repeatedly confronted with the question: Are you one of us, or not? And later, the story of a psychotherapist who was denied recognition by the psychoanalytic community to which he had aspired to belong.

For me, these elements of his biography resonate not only with the script dynamics described within TA, but also, to some extent, with my own script and perhaps, I would cautiously suggest, with the script of many practitioners drawn to the modality. I recognize in his story the search for belonging. There is something deeply familiar in the experience of being “in-between” — between cultures, between systems, between “insiders” and “outsiders.” A recurring question emerges: Where is my place? And perhaps even more fundamentally: Is such a place something to be found externally, or internally constructed?

At some point, following these reflections, Berne’s story began to take on a different meaning for me. His break with psychoanalysis, his distance, his irony, and even his critical stance toward psychoanalysts may be understood not only as theoretical disagreement, but also as a way of responding to experiences of exclusion and non-recognition. In this light, the emergence of TA can be viewed as an attempt not only to develop a new theory, but also to preserve a sense of self while searching for others with whom one can stand on equal ground.

Belonging to a professional community, in this sense, is almost like knowing one’s blood type — something invisible, yet deeply defining. It is a kind of code through which one is recognized as “one of us.” At some point, this question became so alive for me that it grew into a deeper exploration of Eric Berne’s narcissistic wounds, which I later shared in an article in the journal Transactional Analysis in Russia (pp. 18–26). These reflections have led me to consider that TA may have been created by Berne not only as a theoretical framework, but also, in part, as a form of self-help: an effort to find ways of establishing meaningful contact and relational closeness with others.

The very concept of a transaction in TA points to this: A transaction is that which occurs between people, an exchange that includes not only words, but recognition, acknowledgment, and relational presence. In this sense, TA extends beyond being a method. It becomes a relational field, something co-created:

• With colleagues, through professional communities.
• With teachers, through learning and dialogue.
• With clients, through the therapeutic relationship itself.

Within this field, a space emerges in which it becomes possible to be oneself and to be with another. It is a space where a language develops — one that allows for clarity and freedom of expression at the same time. It is a space in which intimacy is no longer accidental, but something that can be intentionally developed, supported by clear structures and contracts from the Adult, while still preserving the spontaneity and vitality of the Free Child ego state. From this perspective, one might consider that a deeper intention within Berne’s work was not only to construct a theory, but to create a relational structure in which something profoundly human becomes possible, something that may not always have been readily accessible to him personally.

Human beings need belonging. We need proximity, contact, and recognition. As Berne (1964) famously noted, “If you are not stroked, your spinal cord will shrivel” (p. 14). In the language of TA, strokes are essential for psychological survival. Without them, something within us begins to diminish.

What emerges in the therapeutic space, then, is more than a professional setting. It can resemble a field of play, a space in which each participant brings their own patterns, roles, and script dynamics, yet where it also becomes possible to observe the “game” itself and, perhaps, to play it differently. At times, it becomes a place where one can experience, perhaps for the first time: I am not here by accident. There is a place for me here.

And perhaps it is through such encounters — first within the therapy room, and later within the broader professional community — that a genuine sense of belonging begins to take shape. It may be that one of the fundamental human longings is to find “one’s own,” while still preserving one’s individuality. In this, I recognize not only Berne’s story, but also the developmental path of many transactional analysts. Even in situations of professional competition and fragmentation, it is important to remember that it is not the person who doesn’t feel envy or anger who matters. Instead, it is the one who can remain in dialogue while experiencing those feelings—operating from the Adult ego state. In this sense, "place" is not defined from the outside, but emerges wherever such dialogue becomes possible.

First, we seek somewhere to belong. Then, we discover how we are different. And somewhere in between, we begin to find something that is truly our own: a form of relational closeness in which we can remain ourselves, and at the same time, be with another.

For me, TA is not only a theory. It is a way of thinking, and a way of being in a relationship. And perhaps, this is why I find myself here.