About the Author

Eric Berne (1910-1970) was a Canadian psychiatrist and the creator of Transactional Analysis. He got his certification in surgery from McGill University Medical School in 1935 but started his career in psychology. From 1938 to 1943, he served at different sanitaria. Berne started serving the US military as a psychiatrist in 1943. After World War II, Berne moved to California where he continued teaching and researching psychiatry. He published a seminal paper titled ‘Transactional Analysis: A New and Effective Method of Group Therapy’ which proposed a new approach towards psychotherapy. He also founded the International Transactional Analysis Association around this time. In 1964, he published Games People Play, which became an international bestseller. Berne theorised that an individual’s psychological behaviour is the sum total of their social transactions. From 1964 to his death in 1970, he dedicated his life to research in psychiatry.