“All real living is meeting.” — Martin Buber (1923/1937)

Psychotherapy is often a solitary profession. We spend hours behind closed doors, holding our clients’ pain, our doubts and our own reactions — alone. Even within a professional community, in the moment of the session, the therapist remains by themselves. This isolation is rarely discussed, though it is well known (McWilliams, 2004; Yalom, 2002).

Eric Berne described autonomy not only as awareness and spontaneity, but also as the capacity for intimacy (Berne, 1961). This invites a different view of professional independence — not as isolation, but as something that can emerge in dialogue. His Tuesday night seminars were spaces where ideas grew through conversation, suggesting that dialogue has always been at the heart of transactional analysis.

We worked within the same family system, though not in traditional co-therapy. One of us worked with the mother, while the other worked with the child and met regularly with both parents. We were in different places and never observed each other’s sessions. Yet, over time, a dialogue began to emerge between us.

Early on, both of us experienced strong countertransference reactions. The child therapist felt her work was less significant. The adult therapist felt the opposite — that the child therapist held more valuable knowledge. Each of us felt “not OK” next to a “more significant other.”

To speak about this required courage. It meant allowing ourselves to be seen not only in competence, but also in doubt.

Gradually, it became clear that this dynamic did not belong only to us, but reflected the family. The mother focused entirely on the child’s behavior, leaving no space for herself. The father remained distant, and the child felt unseen. Across the system, the same pattern repeated: “The other is more important than me.”

A few months into the work, tension appeared between us — irritation and anger without a clear source. We chose not to act it out, but to stay with it. Over time, it became clear that this anger did not belong to us personally. It reflected what could not be expressed in the family.

By staying in dialogue and holding this tension, something began to change. The mother found the energy to express anger and return to work. The child became more able to say “no” and protect her boundaries.

In one of her stories, a kitten was trapped in a labyrinth, the walls closing in. It called for help. Its friends could not enter, but they kept calling: “We are here. Follow our voice.” When the kitten heard them, the walls crumbled like sand.

We began to see that the family’s pattern — “I’m not OK, You’re OK” (Ernst, 1971) — was also present between us. By reflecting on it instead of repeating it, a different space emerged. The parents began to see that difficulties did not belong to one person alone, but arose in interaction. Their dialogue became more alive and supportive.

As we allowed our own vulnerability, warmth and respect grew between us. In this shared space, it became possible to think together, to feel and to remain in contact without diminishing each other. This felt like movement toward autonomy in Berne’s sense — awareness, spontaneity and intimacy.

Our experience is not a finished model. Yet we see that when therapists remain in dialogue — holding difference, uncertainty and vulnerability — something new can emerge.

In a profession marked by solitude, this opens another way of being present — one in which the therapist is no longer alone in the room, but part of an ongoing dialogue — one that, in a sense, continues with Eric Berne.

Perhaps this is what he meant when he described autonomy as the capacity for intimacy. And perhaps this is what Buber (1923/1937) meant: “All real living is meeting.”