Thomas Anthony Harris MD (born 1910, died Sacramento, California, May 6, 1995) was an American psychiatrist and author who became famous for his self-help manual I'm OK, You're OK (1969).[1] The book was a bestseller and its name became a cliché during the 1970s.
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Harris received his bachelor of science degree during 1938 from the University of Arkansas Medical School.[1] He was trained in psychiatry at Washington DC's St. Elizabeths Hospital. A US Navy psychiatrist for many years, Harris became chief of the Psychiatry Branch and ended his service as a commander during 1954.[1] After that, he taught at the University of Arkansas, then worked as a senior mental health bureaucrat. He practiced psychiatry in Sacramento, CA.
Dr. Harris was a long-time friend and associate of Dr. Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis, beginning when both men were among the few psychiatrists of the US military. Dr. Harris was also a founding member of Berne's San Francisco Transactional Analysis Seminar, which met weekly for over a decade, and which developed the main concepts of TA. A Teaching Member of the International Transactional Analysis Association, Dr. Harris was an early advocate for group therapy and TA in preference to traditional psychoanalytic practice, for which he was trained by Harry Stack Sullivan.
During 1985, Harris published Staying OK, a sequel to I'm OK, You're OK, written with his wife, the journalist and lecturer Amy Bjork Harris (born 1929).[2]