FEATURE STAR: STEPHEN KARPMAN
Stephen Karpman was born in Washington D.C. to Benjamin Karpman, a psychoanalyst,and Manuela, a psychiatric social worker. He has one sister, Kaye Hemler, who is doing
Alcoholic Counseling in New Mexico, and another sister, Betty Duggan, who did dental
technician work in Philadelphia. His father was a pioneer in Criminal Psychoanalysis,started the Washington D.C. Psychoanalytic Institute, and wrote 10 books, two of whichwere The Sexual Offender and His Offenses and The Alcoholic Woman, which was bannedin Boston.
Steve went to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina for undergraduate work andmedical school. After moving to California, he started studying with Berne in the mid-60'sand once went three years without missing a Tuesday night Seminar. His first ideas about
TA were the Tombstone and the Altar. The Drama Triangle he used for two years withclients before writing it up. His Options idea he presented at the Golden Gate Group
Psychotherapy Association annual meeting in June 1967. It was innovative as being T A's
first tool to tell people what to do rather than Berne's idea of just analyzing.
Steve ran for President of the ITAA last year and missed in the run-off by just 5 votes. Heis heading a committee that is writing the Bill of Rights for ITAA members and staff. He
was Vice President of the ITAA in 1968 and 1974-5 and is the only person to have won
the Eric Berne Memorial Scientific Award twice: in 1972 for the Drama Triangle and in1979 for Options. He was the first Editor-in-Chief of the TA Journal in 1974-5.
In the late 60's he worked at the Center for Special Problems and has been in private
practice since then. In addition he is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry atU.C.S.F., supervising residents in group therapy. Currently he is doing intimacy
workshops in his home, and travels a lot teaching Social Level T A. He did two workshops
in New York this fall and has two in Florida, one in Mexico, and one in England coming
up before June.
Steve is working on several books: one on politics, one on the Drama Triangle, and one onRelationships, tentatively called If Our Love Is So Titanic, Why Are We Splitting Apart?
Steve has always been active in sports, and in his S.F. home with a view of the coastline,
he sports 12 different trophies, representing 6 different sports, although basketball hasbeen his favorite. The Drama Triangle was the result of 30 pages of football strategy.
He has been oil painting since the 4th Grade. In High School he won 4 straight years in acontest sponsored by the Washington Star. He has been in group exhibitions in six
museums, from Washington D.C. and Raleigh, N. Carolina to San Francisco. InWashington, he was active in the Washington Color Painter's School, and recently lectured
at S.F. State University on this. He does modern color painting, and his most recent work
is interlocking triangles.
Another hobby is acting. Steve has been in the Screen Extra's Guild since 1970. In George
Lucas' (Star Wars) first Movie THX1138, he shaved his head and beard for work in thisfuturistic movie...to the shock of his patients and friends. He has done background extra

work in a dozen Hollywood movies. In one, when Maud of Harold and Maud crashes her
car into a tree in front of the courthouse, Steve can easily be seen as the first lawyer whowalks up to check the car.
In 1969, he was married to Mary. He is now divorced and has two bright, happy, andloving boys living with him: Eric, 9 1/2, and Justin, 8. He is a Libra, balancing science andart, and anything he goes after, he goes all the way. In past lives, first as a rainbow trout,he came back as a Pirate (Child), next a Priest (Parent), and now to balance the two
opposites, a Psychiatrist (Adult)...all said with a twinkle in his eye.
(Star Reporter: Susan Ray)
*This article was originally published as: Karpman, S. (1980). Feature star. Bulletin of theEric Berne Seminar. 2(1), 4. Reformatted for the website
www.KarpmanDramaTriangle.com. Copyright © 1980 by Stephen B. Karpman, M.D. All
rights reserved. Downloads free.