Games People Play

Quotes from this book (without permission)

1. "'If you are not stroked, your spinal cord will shrivel up.' Hence, after the period of close intimacy with the mother is over, the individual for the rest of his life is confronted with a dilemma upon whose horns his destiny and survival are continually being tossed. One born is the social, psychological and biological forces which stand in the way of continued physical intimacy in the infant style; the other is his perpetual striving for its attainment. Under most conditions he will compromise. He learns to do with more subtle, even symbolic, forms of handling, until the merest nod of recognition may serve the purpose to some extent, although his original craving for physical contact may remain unabated. This process of compromise may be called by various terms, such as sublimation; but whatever it is called, the result is a partial transformation of the infantile stimulus-hunger into something which may be termed recognition-hunger. As the complexities of compromise increase, each person becomes more and more individual in his quest for recognition, and it is these differentia which lend variety to social intercourse and which determine the individual's destiny. A movie actor may require hundreds of strokes each week from anonymous and undifferentiated admirers to keep his spinal cord from shriveling, while a scientist may keep physically and mentally healthy on one stroke a year from a respected master." WOWOWOW
2. "When one is a member of a social aggregation of two or more people, there are several options for structuring time. In order of complexity, these are: (1) Rituals (2) Pastimes (3) Games (4) Intimacy and (5) Activity, which may form a matrix for any of the others. The goal of each member of the aggregation is to obtain as many satisfactions as possible from his transactions with other members. The more accessible he is, the more satisfactions he can obtain. Most of the programming of his social operations is automatic. Since some of the 'satisfactions' obtained under this programming, such as self-destructive ones, are difficult to recognize in the usual sense of the word "satisfactions," it would be better to substitute some more non-committal terra, such as 'gains' or 'advantages.'"
3.  "Actually the Child is in many ways the most valuable part of the personality, and can contribute to the individual's life exactly what an actual child can contribute to family life: charm, pleasure and creativity. If the Child in the individual is confused and unhealthy, then the consequences may be unfortunate, but something can and should be done about it." 
4. "In the Child reside intuition, creativity and spontaneous drive and enjoyment. The Adult is necessary for survival. It processes data and computes the probabilities which are essential for dealing effectively with the outside world. It also experiences its own kinds of setbacks and gratifications. Crossing a busy highway, for example, requires the processing of a complex series of velocity data; action is suspended until the computations indicate a high degree of probability for reaching the other side safely. The gratifications offered by successful computations of this type afford some of the joys of skiing, flying, sailing, and other mobile sports. Another task of the Adult is to regulate the activities of the Parent and the Child, and to mediate objectively between them. The Parent has two main functions. First, it enables the individual to act effectively as the parent of actual children, thus promoting the survival of the human race. Its value in this respect is shown by the fact that in raising children, people orphaned in infancy seem to have a harder time than those from homes unbroken into adolescence. Secondly, it makes many responses automatic, which conserves a great deal of time and energy. Many things are done because "That's the way it's done." This frees the Adult from the necessity of making innumerable trivial decisions, so that it can devote itself to more important issues, leaving routine matters to the Parent."
5. "Besides structuring time and providing mutually acceptable stroking for the parties concerned, pastimes serve the additional function of being social-selection processes. While a pastime is in progress, the Child in each player is watchfully assessing the potentialities of the others involved. At the end of the party, each person will have selected certain players he would like to see more of, while others he will discard, regardless of how skillfully or pleasantly they each engaged in the pastime. The ones he selects are those who seem the most likely candidates for more complex relationships—that is, games. This sorting system, however well rationalized, is actually largely unconscious and intuitive." 
6. "A good hostess, of course, takes the situation in hand immediately and states the program: "We were just playing Projective 'PTA.' What do you think' Or: "Come now, you girls have been playing 'Wardrobe' long enough. Mr. J. here is a writer/politician/surgeon, and I'm sure he'd like to play 'Look Ma No Hands.' Wouldn't you, Mr. F?"
7. "Positions are taken and become fixed surprisingly early, from the second or even the first year to the seventh year of life—in any case long before the individual is competent or experienced enough to make such a serious commitment. It is not difficult to deduce from an individual's position the kind of childhood he must have had. Unless something or somebody intervenes, he spends the rest of his life stabilizing his position and dealing with situations that threaten it: by avoiding them, warding other certain elements or manipulating them provocatively so that they are transformed from threats into justifications. One reason pastimes are so stereotyped is that they serve such stereotyped purposes. But the gains they offer show why people play them so eagerly, and why they can be so pleasant if played with people who have constructive or benevolent positions to maintain." WOWOWOW
8. "A GAME is an ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively it is a recurring set of transactions, often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed motivation; or, more colloquially, a series of moves with a snare, or "gimmick." Games are clearly differentiated from procedures, rituals, and pastimes by two chief characteristics: (I) their ulterior quality and (2) the payoff. Procedures may be successful, rituals effective, and pastimes profitable, but all of them are by definition candid; they may involve contest, but not conflict, and the ending may be sensational, but it is not dramatic. Every game, on the other hand, is basically."
9. "An operation is a simple transaction or set of transactions undertaken for a specific, stated purpose. If someone frankly asks for reassurance and gets it, that is an operation. If someone asks for reassurance, and after it is given turns it in some way to the disadvantage of the giver, that is a game. Superficially, then, a game looks like a set of operations, but after the payoff it becomes apparent that these operations were really maneuvers; not honest requests but moves in the game."
10. "Hence at a social gathering, while a salesman is engaged in pastimes, particularly variants of "Balance Sheet," his congenial participation may conceal a series of skillful maneuvers designed to elicit the kind of information he is professionally interested in. There are dozens of trade journals devoted to improving commercial maneuvers, and which give accounts of outstanding players and games (interesting operators who make unusually big deals). Transactionally speaking, these are merely variants of Sports Illustrated, Chess World, and other sports magazines."
11. "As far as angular transactions are concerned—games which are consciously planned with professional precision under Adult control to yield the maximum gains—the big "con games" which flourished in the early 1900's are hard to surpass for detailed practical planning and psychological virtuosity. What we are concerned with here, however, are the unconscious games played by innocent people engaged in duplex transactions of which they are not fully aware, and which form the most important aspect of social life all over the world." 
12. "She and her husband had little in common besides their household worries and the children, so that their quarrels stood out as important events; it was mainly on these occasions that they had anything but the most casual conversations. At any rate, her married life had proved one thing to her that she had always maintained: that ail men were mean and tyrannical. As it turned out, this attitude was related to some daydreams of being sexually abused which had plagued her in earlier years."
13. "Transactional analysis is a branch of social psychiatry, and game analysis is a special aspect of transactional analysis."
14. "The antithesis to IWFY (If It Weren't For You) is permissiveness. As long as the husband is prohibitive, the game can proceed. If instead of saying "Don't you dare!" he says "Go ahead!" the underlying phobias are unmasked, and the wife can no longer turn on him."
15. "Child rearing may be regarded as an educational process in which the child is taught what games to play and how to play them. He is also taught procedures, rituals and pastimes appropriate to his position in the local social situation, but these are less significant. His knowledge of and skill in procedures, rituals and pastimes determine what opportunities will be available to him, other things being equal; but his games determine the use he will make of those opportunities, and the outcomes of situations for which he is eligible. As elements of his script, or unconscious life-plan, his favored games also determine his ultimate destiny (again with other things being equal): the payoffs on his marriage and career, and the circumstances surrounding his death. While conscientious parents devote a great deal of attention to teaching their children procedures, rituals and pastimes appropriate to their stations in life, and with equal care select schools, colleges and churches where their teachings will be reinforced, they tend to overlook the question of games, which form the basic structure for the emotional dynamics of each family, and which the children learn through significant experiences in everyday living from their earliest months." WOWOWOW
16. "If the Child ego state can be revived in the grown-up player, the psychological aptitude of this segment (the Adult aspect of the Child ego state) is so striking, and its skill in manipulating people so enviable, that it is colloquially called "The Professor" (of Psychiatry). Hence in psychotherapy groups which concentrate on game analysis, one of the more sophisticated procedures is the search for the little "Professor" in each patient, whose early adventures in setting up games between the ages of two and eight are listened to by everyone present with fascination and often, unless the games are tragic, with enjoyment and even hilarity, in which the patient himself may join with justifiable self-appreciation and smugness. Once he is able to do that, he is well on his way to relinquishing what may be an unfortunate behavior pattern which he is much better off without."
17. "Because there is so little opportunity for intimacy in daily life, and because some forms of intimacy (especially if intense) are psychologically impossible for most people, the bulk of the time in serious social life is taken up with playing games."
18. "Beyond their social function in structuring time satisfactorily, some games are urgently necessary for the maintenance of health in certain individuals. These people's psychic stability is so precarious, and their positions are so tenuously maintained, that to deprive them of their games may plunge them into irreversible despair and even psychosis. Such people will fight very hard against any antithetical moves. This is often observed in marital situations when the psychiatric improvement of one spouse (i-e., the abandonment of destructive games) leads to rapid deterioration in the other spouse, to whom the games were of paramount importance in maintaining equilibrium."
19. "On a larger scale, games are integral and dynamic components of the unconscious life-plan, or script, of each individual; they serve to fill in the time while he waits for the final fulfillment, simultaneously advancing the action. Since the last act of a script characteristically calls for either a miracle or a catastrophe, depending on whether the script is constructive or destructive, the corresponding games ate accordingly either constructive or destructive. In colloquial terms, an individual whose script is oriented toward "waiting for Santa Claus" is likely to be pleasant to deal with in such games as "Gee You're Wonderful, Mr. Murgatroyd," while someone with a tragic script oriented toward "waiting for rigor mortis to set in" may play such disagreeable games as 'Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch.'"
20. "These three variables [Flexibility, tenacity, intensity] converge to make games gentle or violent. In mentally disturbed people, there is often a noticeable progression in this respect, so that one can speak of stages. A paranoid schizophrenic may initially play a flexible, loose, easy game of first-stage "Ain't It Awful" and progress to an inflexible, tenacious, hard third stage. The stages in a game are distinguished as follows: (a) A First-Degree Game is one which is socially acceptable in the agent's circle. (b) A Second-Degree Game is one from which no permanent, irremediable damage arises, but which the players would rather conceal from the public. (c) A Third-Degree Game is one which is played for keeps, and which ends in the surgery, the courtroom or the morgue."
21. "People who play destructive games will come to the therapist far more frequently than people who play constructive ones. Therefore most of the games which are well understood are basically the destructive games."
22. "The transactions! object of the drinking, aside from the personal pleasures it brings, is to set up a situation where the Child can be severely scolded not only by the internal Parent but by any parental figures in the environment who are interested enough to oblige. Hence the therapy of this game should be concentrated not on the drinking but on the morning after, the self-indulgence in self-castigation. There is a type of heavy drinker, however, who does not have hangovers, and such people do not belong in the present category."
23. "An everyday form of "Corner" which is played by the whole family and is most likely to affect the character development of the younger children occurs with meddlesome "Parental" parents. The little boy or girl is urged to be more helpful around the house, but when he is, the parents find fault with what he does—a homely example of "damned if you do and damned if you don't." This "double-bind" may be called the Dilemma Type of 'Corner.'"
24. "Look How Hard I Tried: Third Degree: Even more sinister and spiteful is the sudden unheralded suicide because of serious illness. The ulcer progresses to cancer, and one day the wife, who has never been informed that anything serious is amiss, walks into' the bathroom and finds her husband lying there dead. The note says clearly enough, 'Look How Hard I Was Trying.' If something like this happens twice to the same woman, it is time for her to find out what she has been playing."
25. "Sweatheart: This is seen in its fullest flower in the early stages of marital group therapy, when the parties feel defensive; it can also be observed on social occasions. White makes a subtly derogatory remark about Mrs. White, disguised as an anecdote, and ends: "Isn't that right, sweetheart?" Mrs. White tends to agree for two ostensibly Adult reasons: (a) because the anecdote itself is, in the main, accurately reported, and to disagree about what is presented as a peripheral detail (but is really the essential point of the transaction) would seem pedantic; (b) because it would seem surly to disagree with a man who calls one "sweetheart" in public. The psychological reason for her agreement, however, is her depressive position. She married him precisely because she knew he would perform this service for her: exposing her deficiencies and thus saving her from the embarrassment of having to expose them herself. Her parents accommodated her the same way when she was little...In another antithetic form the wife, instead of agreeing, responds with a similar 'Sweetheart' type anecdote about the husband, saying in effect, 'You have a dirty face too, dear.' Sometimes the endearments are not actually pronounced, but a careful listener can hear them even when they are unspoken. This is 'Sweetheart' Silent Type."
26. "Thus a man who had held some responsible positions in the foreign service of his country told an audience that another country was inferior because, among other things, the men wore jackets with sleeves that were too long. In his Adult ego state this man was quite competent. Only when playing a Parental game like "Blemish" would he mention such irrelevancies."
27. "Schlemiel: White destroys something of Black's and is forgiven by Black. As in most games, White, who makes the first move, wins either way. If Black shows his anger, White can feel justified in returning the resentment. If Black restrains himself, White can go on enjoying his opportunities. The real payoff in this game, however, is not the pleasure of destructiveness, which is merely an added bonus for White, but the fact that he obtains forgiveness... 
28. Anti-"Schlemiel" is played by not offering the demanded absolution. After White says, "I'm sorry," Black, instead of muttering "It's okay," says, "Tonight you can embarrass my wife, ruin the furniture and wreck the rug, but please don't say Tm sorry.'" Here Black switches from being a Forgiving Parent to being an objective Adult who takes the full responsibility for having invited White in the first place. The intensity of White's game will be revealed by his reaction, which may be quite explosive. One who plays anti-"Schlemiel" runs the risk of immediate reprisals or, at any rate, of making an enemy." WOWOWOW. "Children play "Schlemiel" in an abortive form in which they are not always sure of forgiveness but at least have the pleasure of making messes; as they learn to comport themselves socially, however, they may take advantage of their increasing sophistication to obtain the forgiveness which is the chief goal of the game as played in polite, grown-up social circles."
29. "Third-Degree "Rapo" is a vicious game which ends in murder, suicide or the courtroom. Here White leads Black into compromising physical contact and then claims that he has made a criminal assault or has done her irreparable damage. In its most cynical form White may actually allow him to complete the sexual act so that she gets that enjoyment before confronting him. The confrontation may be immediate, as in the illegitimate cry of rape, or it may be long delayed, as in suicide or homicide following a prolonged love affair. If she chooses to play it as a criminal assault, she may have no difficulty in finding mercenary or morbidly interested allies, such as the press, the police, counselors and relatives..."Badger Game," in which the woman seduces Black and then cries rape, at which point her husband takes charge and abuses Black for purposes of blackmail."
30. "The Stocking Game: This is a game of the "Rapo" family; in it the most obvious characteristic is the exhibitionism, which is hysterical in nature. A woman comes into a strange group and after a very short time raises her leg, exposing herself in a provocative way, and remarks, "Oh my, I have a run in my stocking." This is calculated to arouse the men sexually and to make the other women angry. Any confrontation of White is met, of course, with protestations of innocence or counter-accusations, hence the resemblance to classical "Rapo." What is significant is White's lack of adaptation. She seldom waits to find out what kind of people she is dealing with or how to time her maneuver. Hence it stands out as inappropriate and affects her relationships with her associates. In spite of some superficial "sophistication," she fails to understand what happens to her in life because her judgment of human nature is too cynical. The aim is to prove that other people have lascivious minds, and her Adult is conned by her Child and her Parent (usually a lascivious mother) into ignoring both her own provocative-ness and the good sense of many of the people she meets. Thus the game tends to be self-destructive. This is probably a phallic variant of a game whose content depends on the underlying disturbance. An "oral" variant may be exhibited by women with deeper pathology and well-developed breasts. Such women often sit with their hands behind their heads so as to thrust their breasts forward; they may draw additional attention to them by remarking about their size or some pathology such as an operation or a lump. Some types of squirming probably constitute an anal variant. The implication of this game is that the woman is sexually available. Thus it may be played in a more symbolic form by bereaved women who "exhibit" their widowhood insincerely. Antithesis. Along with the poor adaptation, these women show little tolerance for antithesis. If the game is ignored or countered by a sophisticated therapy group, for example, they may not return. Antithesis must be carefully distinguished in this game from reprisal, since the latter signifies that White has won. Women are more skillful at counter-moves in "Stocking Game" than men, who indeed have little incentive to break up this game. Antithesis, therefore, is best left to the discretion of the other women present."
31. "Cops And Robbers (C-R): Some burglars do their jobs without any waste motion. The "Cops and Robbers" burglar leaves his calling card in gratuitous acts of vandalism, such as spoiling valuable clothing with secretions and excretions. The straight bank robber, according to reports, takes every possible precaution to avoid violence; the C-R bank robber is only looking for an excuse to vent his anger. Like any professional, a straight criminal likes his jobs to be as clean as circumstances permit. The C-R criminal is compelled to blow off steam in the course of his work. The true professional is said never to operate until the fix is in; the player is willing to take on the law barehanded. Straight professionals are well aware, in their own way, of the game of C-R. If a gang member shows too much interest in the game, to the point of jeopardizing the job, and particularly if his need to be caught begins to show, they will take drastic measures to prevent a recurrence. Perhaps it is just because straight professionals are not playing C-R that they are so seldom caught, and hence so rarely studied sociologically, psychologically and psychiatrically; and this also applies to gamblers. Hence most of our clinical knowledge about criminals and gamblers refers to players rather than to straight professionals."

Additional reading:

1. http://www.cruxcatalyst.com/2012/10/19/know-thyself-understanding-ego-states/: Nice 10 minute video in  the link. 
2. Drama triangle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpEx6zjQfTY
3. Nice one on Gimmicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58F2qYyAzME

Published on

7/13/15, 2:15 PM

India Standard Time