The Story of TAI
This is a long item. You may like to save it (Alt+F, A) and read it offline.
It all began, way back in about 1975. I was in the depths of a black, bleak GLOOM.
I'd say I was hell to live with - my children were still quite young, and my dear spouse Tony was being father and mother to them most of the time.
One day he left a book lying around where I would find it. When no-one was watching, I sneaked a look - it seemed interesting, and I began to read. Soon I was immersed, and could scarcely leave it down.
I thought it was a great book, and had to admit to myself that Tony was a genius to have found the perfect book for me.
It was called I'm OK, You're OK by Tom Harris MD.
What I didn't find out until quite recently, was that, in fact Tony had never even opened the book - he just thought I needed to know that I was OK, and so was everyone else.
.... Talk about judging a book by its cover ...
After reading I'm OK, You're OK, I went on to read as many TA books as I could find - and I kept asking if anyone knew where I could get TA therapy. But no-one seemed to know.
Years passed - nearly twenty years, in fact.
In 1990 one of my sons was doing a psychology paper and I helped him look up some TA references - suddenly I knew I was still as enthused about TA as ever. Now I decided that I would do something about this 'TA Craze' - I wrote to ITAA in the US and they put me in touch with ITA in the UK.
Eventually in 1993, I did my TA101 course in Metanoia in London. This was a great experience for me - to meet real TA people at last.
The following Spring, my other son visited San Francisco, and brought back the address of the one ITAA member living in Ireland. When I contacted her, she turned out to be from Perth in West Australia. It was with her encouragement, that along with two other people who had also contacted her, I put an advertisement in the newspapers announcing a public meeting on December 4 1994.
Thirty people from all over the country came, and from those present, the little support group TAI was formed.
part two of the Story of
TAI.
I love getting e-mail, so you can write to me at Elizabeth Cleary
© Transactional Analysis in Ireland
Please feel free to copy and distribute our material for non-commercial purposes only.