I'm Ok- You're Ok by Thomas A. Harris | Chapter 3

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Chapter 3: The Four Life Positions

Chapter 3 of I’m OK—You’re OK introduces what Harris calls the four life positions:

  1. I’m not OK — you’re OK

  2. I’m not OK — you’re not OK

  3. I’m OK — you’re not OK

  4. I’m OK — you’re OK

At first, I found the language “I’m not OK” a little misleading. As adults, when we hear someone say I’m not OK, we naturally interpret it as something is wrong with me. That was also where some of our discussion about the chapter initially went.

But Harris is talking about something that begins much earlier, before the age of five. Once I understood it from that perspective, “I’m not OK” began to mean something different.

Imagine being a very young child surrounded by adults. They can reach things you cannot reach. They know things you do not know. They can feed themselves, go wherever they want, make decisions, and seemingly understand the world around them. Meanwhile, you are dependent upon them for almost everything.

From that perspective, I’m not OK—you’re OK doesn't necessarily mean, “There is something fundamentally wrong with me.” It may be closer to a comparison:

You possess something I don't.

That makes Harris's argument interesting because a child doesn't necessarily need bad parents to arrive at the first life position. A child can be loved, cared for, and surrounded by good people and still experience the enormous difference between their own dependence and the apparent independence of the adults around them.

I can remember experiencing something like this myself. As a child, I looked up to my parents and thought they had everything figured out. They seemed strong and powerful. Growing older meant eventually confronting the reality that they didn't have everything figured out. They had limitations of their own.

Oddly enough, that realization has been something to grapple with in adulthood. The people who once seemed completely “OK” become human.

Where do the other positions come from?

This is where Harris introduces the importance of stroking.

A stroke is essentially recognition from another person. For a young child, that recognition is enormously important. The presence, absence, and nature of these strokes can contribute to the conclusions the child begins forming about themselves and everyone around them.

Harris gives us very different examples: the child who receives strokes, the child who lacks them, the child whose strokes diminish as they grow older, and even more extreme examples in which a person finds ways of providing an “OK” feeling for themselves while regarding others as “not OK.”

These examples help explain how someone might arrive at one of the first three positions:

I’m not OK—you’re OK.
Something about the other person appears greater, safer, stronger, or more complete than the self.

I’m not OK—you’re not OK.
Neither the self nor the other person provides the security of being “OK.”

I’m OK—you’re not OK.
The sense of “OK” resides in the self while the other person becomes the one who is deficient.

What I don't want to do yet is make these positions overly simple. Harris's examples suggest that strokes matter, but so do other early experiences. A domineering parent, for example, introduces something different from merely receiving too little recognition. At this point, I think it is enough to recognize that these early experiences contribute to the position a child takes without requiring the child to consciously understand what is happening.

And that is what makes the fourth position so different.

The fourth position is a decision

The first three life positions are unconscious.

A young child does not sit down, examine the available evidence, and decide, After careful consideration, I have concluded that I am not OK and you are OK.

The conclusion simply develops.

But Harris presents I’m OK—you’re OK differently.

This position involves the Adult. It is conscious. Rather than remaining within a conclusion formed in childhood, we become capable of looking at what we have carried with us and making a different decision.

That distinction may be the most important part of the chapter for me.

There are plenty of things we eventually call “maturing.” We grow older, learn more, understand our parents differently, and hopefully begin seeing ourselves and other people more clearly. But I also approach this from a Christian perspective.

Life continually presents opportunities to return to old conclusions about ourselves and others. Scripture also gives us a picture of a spiritual enemy who seeks to deceive and pull us away from truth. So perhaps I’m OK—you’re OK is not something we simply arrive at one day and permanently possess.

Perhaps there is an element of choosing it again.

No, I will not define myself through that old conclusion.

No, I will not define another person through it either.

For now, though, I think Harris's four positions give us a useful framework for recognizing something that happens remarkably early: before we are old enough to understand ourselves, we are already drawing conclusions about ourselves in relation to everyone around us.

The first three happen without our choosing them.

The fourth is for us to choose.

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