Claude Steiner

Steiner died at his ranch in Ukiah, California on 9 January 2017, three days after his 82nd birthday.

the Study of Emotions" Transactional Analysis Journal 1996, January #1.

In the 1970s and '80s, Steiner was a founder and practitioner of Radical Psychiatry, a new approach to psychotherapy based in a social theory (of alienation) rather than a medical one (of individual pathology). Influenced by progressive movements of the time, work in this modality continues into the present and is gaining recent recognition worldwide. He was also considered the originator of the theory called Stroke Economy.

The concept of radical psychiatry was first introduced by the Canadian psychiatrist, Eric Berne, who was Steiner's teacher. Steiner's contribution to the foundation of this theory was his Manifesto, which outlined fundamental tenets of the theory's framework such as the incorporation of elements of transactional analysis (TA) assumptions about the psychiatric field and people. He founded a Radical Psychiatry Center in Berkeley and worked with a Radical Psychiatry collective there. In 1970 he made contact with the Radical Therapy Collective, then in Minot, North Dakota, which led to period of collaboration between the two groups. Steiner wrote extensively about radical psychiatry in books and journals such as The Radical Therapist. Steiner practiced as a Radical Therapist (as the nomenclature migrated over time) for decades as part of the Bay Area Radical Therapy Collective. The practice of Radical Therapy continues across the U.S. as well as in Germany and other European sites.

A Warm Fuzzy Tale is a 1970 book by Steiner. The fairy tale–like story introduces "strokes" and other ideas about social interaction and emotion derived from transactional analysis. It was republished in 1977 as The Original Warm Fuzzy Tale with illustration by Jo Ann Dick, and has since been translated into multiple languages. The slang term warm fuzzies, a reference to positive feelings, derives from the book and its adaptations. The story and ideas derived from it are sometimes used in teaching or counseling about emotion and interaction. In the story, people exchange things called "warm fuzzies" which make them feel happy and warm. A bad witch convinces one character that warm fuzzies are in limited supply and should not be given away. Instead, the witch induces people to exchange "cold pricklies" which make them feel cold. These exchanges symbolize Steiner and Eric Berne's notion of "strokes", recognition and emotional support among people. The story ends by inviting the reader to make warm fuzzies abundant "by freely giving and asking for Warm Fuzzies and being as loving and healthy as you can".

In 1952, Steiner went to the United States to study engineering. In 1957 he met and became a follower of Eric Berne, a psychiatrist and founder of the transactional analysis school of psychotherapy. In 1965 he obtained a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He was a founding member and teaching member of the International Transactional Analysis Association.

Steiner was born in Paris, France. His parents were Austrian, his mother Ashkenazi Jewish and his father white. The family left France in 1939 ahead of the impending Nazi invasion. Eventually the family settled in Mexico.

Claude Michel Steiner (6 January 1935 – 9 January 2017) was a French-born American psychotherapist and writer who wrote extensively about transactional analysis (TA). His writings focused especially on life scripts, alcoholism, emotional literacy, and interpersonal power plays.