This article offers a historical and critical review of the transactional analysis concepts of permission, protection, and potency (the three Ps). Taking account of permissions that are given and taken, verbal and nonverbal, direct and indirect, the author extends the classification of two to four types or groups of permissions. The three Ps are reconsidered not only as qualities and skills of the transactional analyst but also, and rather, as principles that reflect a two-person, relational psychology and psychotherapy.