We are happy to share this letter from Steve Cosgrove, longtime member of ITAA and NATAA, who had the special privilege of learning TA with Dr. Martin Groder and Ken Windes in the Asklepieion Therapeutic Community in Marion Federal Penitentiary. He shares his love for TA, the many people who become friends over the years, and his hopes for TA to continue to spread well into the future.
Dear Friends April 14, 2026
I began my ITAA membership April 1, 1975 and continued seamlessly for 51 consecutive years…so proud of my membership record and support of ITAA & NATAA.
I have admired the ITAA presidential leadership from Dr. John “Jack” Dusay (1974-75) through current president, Marguerite Sacco (2025-26)…all dedicated to the progress of TA via the structure, continuing emphasis on clinical acumen and global outreach of ITAA.
The reason I write this letter…as of April 1, 2026, I’m wrapping up 51 straight years as a member of ITAA (RM)…I want to warmly express my love for, admiration for, and appreciation for Transactional Analysis, which I started learning in September 1969 and have continued as an active learner all these years. All positive…lots of positive strokes, lots of quality friendships and relationships, many enlightening professional skill development activities, memorable conferences and countless Warm Fuzzies!
I was first introduced to TA in the Asklepieion Therapeutic Community, Marion Federal Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois, known then as the world’s most maximum secure prison. Through Dr. Martin Groder and Kenny Windes, 1969-1973, and beyond, I gained valuable insight into TA. As a graduate student in the master’s Rehabilitation Counseling program at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, I was involved as a counseling practicum student at the Asklepieion Therapeutic Community (Asklepios, Greek for “House of Cure”) for 4 years, 2 months, and 22 days…some weeks 2-3 visits. I learned so much from these inmate-driven TA clinical experiences, often in the context of the Synanon Game…for me, this time served to form the foundation to learn TA as a viable psychological tool firmly riveted for life!
Marty Groder interned in his Psychiatric career with Dr. Eric Berne in the early days of the San Francisco Transactional Analysis Seminar, where he was introduced to TA. Marty created the Asklepieion program at Marion Federal Penitentiary, where he met “his brightest star,” as he referred to inmate Kenny Windes. Kenny was the first prison-institutionalized Clinical Member of ITAA, while he was still doing time. Both Marty Groder & Kenny Windes were consummate professionals, brilliant mentors, highly recognized in the TA community, and remained close lifelong friends to each other and to me, until their deaths.
My first eye-opening TA conference was the Southeast Institute Conference, March 1975, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, founded by Dr. Vann Joines. I use the term “eye-opening” because this is where I met Vann and so many TA rock stars (Felipe Garcia, Lucy Freedman, Bob and Mary Goulding, Jonathan and Laurie Weiss, Curtis Steele and Nancy Porter-Steele, Claude Steiner, Taibi Kahler, Fanita English, Graham Barnes, Alan Jacobs, Jacqui and Shea Schiff, Valerie Batts, Jean Maxwell, Steve Karpman, Richard Erskine, Ted Bruce, Ted and Judy Harrison, Robin Fryer, and Joe Casriel)…and other TA practitioners whom I would come to know and respect.
After that, I had the opportunity to attend ITAA conferences: Snowmass, CO…San Francisco…San Antonio…Raleigh-Durham, NC…each time, I was further enlightened to the practicality and effective application of TA to every situation, every workplace and professional environment…and to all populations, cultures, and ideologies.
Hence, my gratitude to ITAA runs deep and will accompany me always.
I have the same regard for USATAA, now NATAA…also centered around the principles of TA, wrapped in total OK-ness. Founded by Felipe Garcia, Lucy Freedman and supported by Dianne Maki-Sethi and others, USATAA/now NATAA offers an additional professional organization for TA credentials and for ready application to issues in today’s world.
I have personally benefited from TA, its wonderful core of practitioners and leaders, amid diverse learning experiences. I have learned so much and have comfortably shared my modest proficiency of TA with others, places, and situations…often rendering complex conditions as understandable.
I have incorporated TA into my personal, family, and professional life in ways that have augmented the lives of others and the organizations that I continue to work with. WHAT A BOOST TO THE QUALITY & MEANING OF MY LIFE, TA HAS BEEN!
Lastly, along with my complete (to date) collections of the TA Bulletins and the ITAA Journals (all read & re-read), and a nice library of TA articles and related books…I will one day offer these to both NATAA and ITAA for their respective libraries & collections.
It is with heartfelt sincerity that I wish the ITAA and NATAA robust growth, solvency, organizational health and success, as they continue their mission to enlighten people and organizations through the profound and practical tool we know as Transactional Analysis.
Warm Fuzzies Galore and all the best!
Steve Cosgrove, RM (ITAA Regular Member) since 1975
Editor’s Note: At the recent NATAA Virtual Annual Meeting, all the participants were given a moment to speak. Unprompted, each began with some version of “TA changed my life,” their voices full of gratitude. It was a powerful reminder of Eric Berne’s impact through Transactional Analysis. In honor of his May 10th birthday, they’ve shared a few of their stories below. – Pamela Levin, Guest Editor
Eric Berne and his theory of Transactional Analysis changed and enhanced my life in many ways, starting with the theory of OK-OK relationships supporting the idea that everybody has value and worth and the capacity to think and solve their problems. His theory of Ego States provided the awareness of the different parts of ourselves that we were born with and incorporated through adaptations and experiences. TA provided me with a variety of options in initiating and responding when communicating. Enlightening also were the concepts of transactions, strokes, games and scripts. TA inspired me to start my own psychotherapeutic practice doing individual, couple, family and group psychotherapy. My life certainly is different because of TA and I am grateful. – Felipe Garcia, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
The truth that liberation comes from asking directly for what one wants or needs remains so powerful for me. – Marion Gittings, Wilmington North Carolina, USA.
TA has transformed my life by bringing structure to what once felt like chaos. – Elane Ozhdikhina, Santa Clara, CA, USA
TA has been the vehicle through which I’ve opened my awareness, discovered my own OKness—and the OKness of others—and stepped into both the comfort and the thrill of my agency. It has opened the door to a deep appreciation of where I’ve come from, a genuine delight in where I am now, and an eager, joyful anticipation of where I’m headed. – Christopher Zimmerman, Sebastapol, California, USA
Games People Play blew me away—it was the first time someone made real sense of what happens between people. So when I had the chance to meet Eric and attend his seminar in San Francisco, I went. The first concept I learned there was ego states. It gave me a way to understand what was happening inside me and opened up new choices in how I related to others. As I went deeper into the study of “games,” I began to see what Eric taught – that it’s the hidden, or ulterior, level of communication that truly shapes outcomes.
Realizing that games are ways of shifting responsibility, discomfort, and actual expression of an issue onto someone else, everything changed. I could discover what was being shifted, why it was happening, and how to work through it.
Teaching this to others became deeply fulfilling—it brought me a meaningful career, friends around the world, and a way to contribute to something larger. For all of that, I’m incredibly grateful. – Pamela Levin, California, USA
I started reading Eric Berne’s book What Do You Say After You Say Hello? because I liked the title and started learning Transactional Analysis, after doing my 101. At that time, I was very young and couldn’t continue reading this book because each time, I was crying!
Then when I did my TA training, I started in therapy. My therapist was a woman. At that time, talking about my life story, I realized that as mentioned in Berne’s book, the Fairy Tale “Little Red Riding Hood” was similar to my life story. Of course that was my Script, and why I was crying. We can change our Script, I have done this. However, when we are very tired, sick or too anxious, we may go back to it because our Adult Ego State stops functioning well, and we go back to our Script, in our Child ego state. After all, script is built from our life history, and history can’t be changed.
Still, there is a solution. It starts with becoming aware and going back to our Adult ego state, which is only in the here and now! When you know your Script you can recognize when this happens. – Gloria Noriega Gayol, PhD. Colonia Escandón, Ciudad de México.
For me, Transactional Analysis became an introduction to both my inner and outer worlds from the most profound depths. Understanding life scripts explained many complex situations that previously seemed impossible to comprehend. TA gave me the clarity I needed to navigate life’s challenges with awareness. – Inna Kadantseva ,Düsseldorf, Germany.
I believe Dr. Berne was a genius because after sharing his PAC with ages 8 to 80 in my coaching career there wasn’t one person who didn’t get it. They all had “ah ha” moments. – Cathy Katz, Huntington Beach, California, USA.
TA changed my life as it gave me a clear structure and understanding of my psychic processes and made it easier for me to connect to my inner self. I could use the structure to explore with clients and explain to them what is going on. It is not only an approach for me, it is love from the first glance. TA also changed my life as I met amazing teachers and colleagues who share common values and interests. This is awesome! – Natalia Lopatina, St. Petersburg, Russia.
TA was the explanation of human behavior that I was searching for. It gave me a wonderful basis for starting a career. I found many excellent teachers who were the frosting on the cake. – Abe Wagner, Denver, Colorado, USA
TA gave me an acknowledgment of my personal journey to autonomy and encouraged me to continue with my ‘winner’s script’. The concept of Integrating Adult is allowing me to nourish flexibility in this era of instability and unpredictability. – Alexsandra Stanosevic, Victoria, BC, Canada
TA changed my life. I went to my first TA workshop mostly because some of my colleagues were going. I hadn’t read anything about TA, but hanging out with my favorite colleagues sounded like fun. By noon of that day of training, I was hooked. TA sounded like an effective, interesting method. By 5 pm I was ready to sign up for training. It was a bit challenging because I had two young children, and there was no training available in my state, but I made it work and had fun along the way. My life was never the same after that. – Valerie Chang, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Even though I did not have the privilege to meet Eric Berne in person (he died three months before I arrived in CA) his legacy changed my life. Everyone was buying Games People Play because it was a runaway best seller, but it wasn’t until I had my first course in TA under the late Dr. David Steere, TM a few months later that it came alive for me. I then read it from cover to cover enthralled by his genius. It has been so ever since. – John McNeel, San Jose, California, USA
TA gave me a way to understand what was going on and make changes. – Wayne Hart, San Diego, Ca. USA
Transactional Analysis helped me speak the same language as my clients. – Viktoriia Kotova. Los Angeles, California, USA
Discovering Transactional Analysis felt like a childhood moment when you first realize that “Mom” has a name. A simple truth that was always there, yet unseen. Seeing my life script was the same kind of revelation. Beneath what felt like freedom, I began to sense a pattern shaping my path. To see it was to step slightly outside of it. And in that distance, something new appeared: the possibility of choice. – Ekaterina Shtein, Los Angeles, Califonia, USA
I discovered TA this year. It positively affected my life by giving me tools to reaffirm my belief that we should be objectively responsible for ourselves and our future. I’m grateful to Eric Berne for creating an incredible masterpiece. I’m grateful to you and other members of the organization for keeping it alive. I’m grateful to Viktoriia for introducing me to TA. – Alexander Landa, Los Angeles, Ca. USA
When I discovered Transactional Analysis in 2005, it marked a profound turning point in my personal and professional growth. It restored my self-respect, taught me to practice genuine empathy—for myself and others—and helped me understand the underlying dynamics of my relationships. By recognizing the unconscious life scripts I was following, I began making choices from a more conscious place. Thanks to this journey, I navigated a marriage in crisis and built the strong family I have today. – Sandra Stafuza, Atlanta, GA. USA
Thirty-five years ago, I was a troubled teenager navigating a life that often felt unpredictable and heavy. Then I picked Eric Berne’s books. In their pages, I found more than psychology, I found clarity, compassion, and a way out of the patterns that had held me captive. What began as a lifeline has become the quiet framework of freedom that continues to guide me. TA didn’t just change how I saw myself, it gave me the power to redesign my life, and through that, to nurture a home of healing for everyone I love. – Antonio Fernandez, Fayetteville, GA, USA
When I first heard about TA and Eric Berne, I was drawn to the belief that people can think for themselves and deserve to be co-creators with their therapist. As a beginning practitioner, I was especially helped by the book Principles of Group Treatment, because it explained how to intervene during the group process. It was concrete in a way that enabled me to manage the dynamics in my first few TA groups. I appreciate all the other books and actively use the Structure and Function of Organizations and Groups as we develop NATAA today. – Lucy Freedman, Santa Cruz Mountains, CA, USA
At 17, I was struggling with asthma during one of the hardest periods of my life, I picked up Games People Play. Reading Berne, I began to notice something I had never seen before: my body had its own script. Under stress, I would unconsciously stop breathing fully — my chest tightening as a silent response to pressure I hadn’t learned to name yet. TA gave me the self-awareness to catch it in real time. I learned to breathe deeply. I learned to recognize stress before it spoke through my body. The asthma resolved. That is the power of this work — it doesn’t just change how you think about people. It changes how you inhabit yourself. Having just completed my TAP, I’m only now beginning to understand how much more there is to carry forward. – Aibi Piard, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Bob was one of the founders of the Inclusion, Equity, and Social Action interest group, then called the Social Justice Committee in North America Transactional Analysis Association. He was a consistent, determined advocate and cheerleader for the online education provided by Project TA-101. His enduring care for our global community and strong emphasis on equity continues to inform NATAA and IESA. The IESA group members are grateful for his enduring love and friendship over the last decade of his life.
The Inclusion, Equity, and Social Action Interest Group has compiled a calendar of events, commemorations, and important dates in history, which is available here for you to read, share, and learn more about.
(as read during the presentation of the award on August 24, 2024)
Back in 1968, Dr. Stephen Karpman published an article titled “Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis.”
Stephen’s interest in acting, being a member of the Screen Actors Guild, played a big part in shaping his ideas that connected psychology with the world of storytelling and scripts.
In recognition of his groundbreaking work on the Karpman Drama Triangle, Stephen was awarded the Eric Berne Memorial Scientific Award in 1972. This award was well-deserved and highlighted the significant impact his ideas have had on the field. Today his work on this and other Triangle variations has a multiple screen entry in Wikipedia that is translated into 16 languages.
But Steve didn’t just contribute ideas—a few of you might remember how he led the vaudeville finales to ITAA conferences, pulling long-winded presenters off the stage with a shepherd’s crook.
Stephen’s creativity didn’t stop with his academic work. In 2014, he authored A Game Free Life, a book that provides practical advice on living more authentically.
On top of all this, Stephen is a prolific artist. He’s even sold many of his paintings to support the USATAA and ITAA.
Today, we’re celebrating Steve’s lifetime of creativity, service, and impact with the NATAA M&M Award.*
*The M&M Award is so named in honor of its originators, Muriel James and Mary Goulding.
The Inclusion, Equity, and Social Action Interest Group has compiled a calendar of events, commemorations, and important dates in history, which is available here for you to read, share, and learn more about.
