Born to Win: Transactional Analysis With Gestalt Experiments

Excellent practical guide to intimacy and authentic, spontaneous living. e.e. cummings quote at the conclusion sums it up: "to be nobody-but-yourself in a world thats doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and to never stop fighting"

I read this book in the mid-1970s when I was a confused mid-twenty something. After reading this book I had the drive and courage to accomplish many goals I had previously thought were only dreams. I have recently decided to give this book to my 18 year old daughter, who is a senior in high school and frightened by the life ahead of her. I hope it works as well for her as it did for me. (If I can get her to read the book with an open and accepting attitude.)

There are a plethora of books in the self help section, and sometimes you don't know which ones are really helpful or not... This book is a classic. It was written in 1971, and unlike many texts of that time, it is still fresh, interesting and relevant. It's written in an easy, jargon free language, which has at its heart a depth and genuine empathic concern for people and their journies.The techniques they apply are based on the transactional analysis model developed by Eric Berne, but don't worry, you don't have to know any thing about that - the book explains itself beautifully.The main reason I love it is that it is filled with exercises that you can do by yourself, or share with a partner, about who you are and how you relate to things. It has excellent, simple exercises that open you up to examining childhood influnces, parental attitudes and current behaviour patterns in an illuminating, non-judgemental way.If you are interested in learning a bit more about yourself, or if you have behaviour patterns that are troubling you and aren't sure where they come from, this is a great place to start.I've given this book frequently as a gift (adolescents love it!) and I always get lovely feedback. I would definitely recommend this book ahead of a host of others that are out there.

"Born to Win " , is a book I read 20 years back , & have kept going back to ever since. It is an insight into the inner self of a person , without a whole lot of technical jargon .Its fun reading, with a whole lot of telling-it-all pictures , stories , anecdotes. It stays simple , which is very difficult when the subject is technical.Its a great gift to a confused teenager, a groping adult, a troubled parent or just about anybody. Make sure you have your own copy .

We all behave in ways that mystify us. There are those times when we find ourselves hypercritical and judgmental, or profoundly nurturing, or consumed with anger far out of proportion to the provocation, or able to reason with insight and dispassion. From whence come these vastly different responses to the triggers of life? Born To Win provides a vivid and compelling journey through the emotional (ego) states that are invoked by life events. The authors conceptualize these emotional (ego) states through the hypothetical construct suggested by Eric Berne, M.D. (Games People Play). In the "Parent" state, we are judgmental or nurturing; in the "Adult" state, rational and analytical; in the "Child" state, impulsive and playful or angry and hurt. The authors demonstrate how our emotional responses to life events arise out of these three ego states. Each ego state has an appropriate time and place. Often, however, our inappropriate or self-defeating emotional responses occur because we have been overprogrammed by aversive early life events to respond from one ego state when another would be far more adaptive. Recognizing the inappropriate ego state and making the transition to the more proper ego state vastly improves the quality of one's life (e.g., responding to constructive criticism as a rational Adult instead of as a petulant Child). We are all "born to win" and can do so when we learn to respond to life events from the proper ego state. Born To Win is an invaluable contribution to the cause of mental health.