James R. Allen, M.D., and Barbara A. Allen, Ph.D.

This is a collection of articles by two well-known transactional analysts, mental health practitioners, and educators, Jim and Barbara Allen. They spent 40 years integrating mental health principles into their public and private lives and their teaching of medical students, family practice and psychiatry residents, and a variety of other mental health professionals. The topics range widely and include what to do after meeting the patient, types of treatment, trauma, social constructivism, working with children and adolescents, the biological underpinnings of transactional analysis and mental health interventions, family therapy, transference, redecision therapy, and social issues related to drug use, American Indian adolescents, the Oklahoma City bombing, war, and the Tulsa race riots of the 1920s. While neither solely a textbook nor a memoir, beginning practitioners can use these papers to better understand their interactions with patients. More experienced practitioners can use them as an invitation to reexamine their practices and their lives.