Games people play eric

Fights about who is guilty , who started it or who is right , are almost always games. By the way: Transactional Analysis has more interesting concepts to offer.

The drama triangle is a concept by Stephen Karpman, which is often used to analyze games due to its clarity and simplicity. You will receive drama triangle exercises so you can start putting the theory into practice. Rescuers and persecutor are on top as the seemingly strong.

The victim is positioned below and seemingly weak. But without the victim, adult games would not work. The tricky thing about the triangle is that players change roles after a while. This often causes the previous distribution of power to tilt.

People who occupy the victim's position, surprisingly often manage to occupy the persecutor or rescuer position after a change of roles. Everyone has a so-called favorite position in the triangle. It is the role you are most familiar with and with which you usually enter the drama. The following exercise will give you an idea of what your favorite role in the drama triangle might be. Once you know your favorite role, you have the opportunity to develop antennas for any game invitation.

For example, if you are prone to occupy the rescuer role, your inner game sensor can jump on if someone acts seemingly weak. Let's see what our options are to step out of a game that has already started. In general you can step out of the game at any given time. Did you get caught in a game that someone else is playing with you? You can do something different from what he or she is expecting.

But you should opt for an alternative that is not on the drama triangle. You can find this out by asking:. If you realize at the moment of role change that you have gotten into a game, you can do without the negative payoff. You can praise yourself, for example. You were smart enough to notice that you got into a game. The time of reflection has paid off. One could also switch to intimacy at the moment of the role reversal.

For example: He has been teasing his girlfriend for a while. He started in the persecutor position and she in the victim position. The moment she takes on the role of the persecutor, he is actually invited to the victim position.

He might say, "Oh, now I realize what's going on here. I'm joking because I really want attention. Now we are arguing, but I actually just want your affection. Can we still change that? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Navigation 1. There's this game he calls RAPO one of the most appealing aspects of the book is the witty labels he's made up for the different games. The first person, most often a woman, flirts with the second person, most often a man, until he expresses some concrete sexual interest.

Then she frowns and moves on, leaving him feeling like a bit of a jerk. Her payoff is satisfaction that she's managed to discomfit him and reassurance that she has sexual power, but it's basically harmless. Then she gets openly indignant. Maybe she tells him loudly to keep his hands off her, or she phones her friends and says that he's such a lecherous creep. Second Degree RAPO is a pretty nasty game, because it is of course impossible for third parties to know whether the accusations are true or not.

Maybe the guy is just a lecherous creep. She then calls the police and formally accuses him of rape. It's clear that it can easily destroy people's lives. I thought it was insightful to point out that all of these are essentially the same thing: the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. I don't buy his analysis completely. But if he doesn't succeed in alerting you to a least a couple of games you're playing without realising it, then I really envy your ability to understand yourself and the things that motivate you.

View all 16 comments. Aug 02, Candace Dempsey rated it did not like it. Games People Play has a good chapter about dealing with alcoholics, but Berne's ideas and I do mean ideas about women and homosexuals are disgusting and sexist.

This book was published in the s and it shows. Scary to think modern psychologists might actually use it as a text or that college students would have to listen to Berne's ugly ideas about women and gays.

Nowadays we use research, not "ideas. View all 10 comments. Jun 17, Rebecca rated it liked it Shelves: pop-science. This was apparently a very big thing when it was published in the 70s, and I can see why. Unfortunately, like many psychology theories, it takes what is a clever conceit that explains some odd aspects of human interaction and then tries to apply it to everything regardless of whether it fits or not.

Add in some very seventies thought processes which are rather out of favor at the moment but the author probably thought of as universal without rea This was apparently a very big thing when it was published in the 70s, and I can see why.

Add in some very seventies thought processes which are rather out of favor at the moment but the author probably thought of as universal without realizing how much was a product of the time , and you end up with a rather dated, if still interesting, book. In applicable cases, it not only provides some reasonable explanations for behaviors that seem inexplicable on the surface, getting to the root of the game offers a way to actually break the pattern. However, I think most modern psychologists would say that a number of the games identified have more root causes than this text makes out.

The attempt to extrapolate the theory to apply to all behavior oversimplifies things. Every problem does not need to be classified as phallic, oral, or anal. Sep 27, Fergus rated it liked it. Are you "nervous in the service? We certainly were. I was a loser like her - but had no idea senior management was keeping close tabs on me, with an eye to career acceleration. I didn't see that they were playing Games People Play with me!

I thought their alternating glares 'n grins were polite but distanced management tools. But there was MUCH more to it than that. Berne started out by positing that we can act Childishly in a relationship, Pater- or Maternalistically - or we act as an Adult.

In the first mode we are judged, second - we are judgmental, and third, even-tempered. Here is where Transactional Analysis tried to Transcend Freud. Gone are our transactional quagmires if we're 'adult' about them. Presto - in one flash of the magic wand we're forgiven. Even-tempered and happy. Until we accept our nothingness.

Berne is right, in a superficial sense. But only that. Otherwise, he is a little dumb Life is deep. Eliot warns us to "gently dip" into the subject - "but not too deep. Be careful what you take away from what, in the end, you will see to have been too many leading questions in this book. Don't go there now. Instead, savour, as you skim this book, its "aha!

There are some. Many of us, like me and Muriel, have known what it is to fall between the cracks. We find ourselves " left-handed, lost.

God forgives. The world? Never, for those who feel fallen. Depressive folks will tell you Berne's a crock. He just puts a shiny, pop veneer on an old, tired world.

Muriel could relax a bit, once she had a fresh coffee from the office vending machine, by regaling me with her woebegone explorations with her Jewish analyst, Moses.

Moses was a serious therapist who persisted in trying to see her mental blockages. Alas - all Muriel and I took away from our therapists was the sheer angst of self-doubt. Do you see now why we were nervous in the service? Life was no fun in Stress City - an apt handle for our jobs in the supply section. And no, we were not OK. The world had judged us. Folks, people DO play games with you.

Many around us, like T. Eliot's "young man carbuncular" are ""assured of certain certanties. Muriel was my confidante, but most only chuckled at me, not with me. Don't cross the Big Boys!

Read this book and chuckle a bit yourself. You'll cheer up - guaranteed. It's our little joke. View all 7 comments. Nov 17, Mandi rated it really liked it Shelves: read-during-peace-corps. However, the description of the games themselves was where I found the book lacking. Mostly, this is where I also felt the impact of the book being so dated. Some of his descriptions of games were based on stereotypical gender behavior of that time, but would not be accurate now, nor would his analysis.

What I wanted was to get the description of the game, see an example provided by an analysis, then see an example of the antithesis with similar analysis.

Only once does he provide an example of an antithesis. Possibly this analysis that was missing for me could be found in other supplemental psychological texts or in a class discussion in which this book was assigned. However, for someone who is reading on their own for only their own personal benefit, it was lacking. Still, this is the historical beginning from which transactional theory arose and, learning about transactional theory for the first time, it was an incredible read.

View 1 comment. I found the general concept an interesting metaphor rather than a scientifically proven social reality.

However, I struggled to finish the book. It felt like a series of scribbled notes thrown together - a set of index cards with brief information on 'games'. I needed further explanation and an attempt to engage me rather than having a series of ideas thrown before me.

View 2 comments. Mar 18, Meg Sherman rated it really liked it. Berne's list of psychological "games" we all play with each other is fascinating, as is what you learn about yourself by analyzing which games you tend to revisit regularly. That being said, if you're on a quest for honest communication, this book is indispensable. View all 3 comments. I find this book impossible to rate.

On one hand, it some had very insightful models about human behavior. For example, there is the notion of "strokes" - a metaphor for any social interaction in which one person acknowledges the existence of another.

Hence a stroke may be used as the fundamental unit of social action. In the book's model, social rituals such as saying hello and asking "how are you" are reciprocal trades of strokes.

Both of the people in question give each other some number of strokes, while maintaining an intuitive calculation of exactly how many strokes they owe each other, depending on the nature of their relationship and the time from their last encounter.

And if e. I say "Hi" to someone and they don't greet me back, I might be offended - because I have given them one stroke, but they haven't reciprocated by giving me a stroke in return. The titular "games" are defined as social transactions with some ulterior motive and a payoff.

For example, if A and B are going to a movie together and A gets offended over something that B said, B might reply with "if you are in one of your bad moods, then I will not go with you, and you might as well go alone". This has an ulterior motive, since B does not really want to go home; the purpose of the statement is to get A to placate B. A may now play along, in which case B wins; or A might refuse to play by pretending not to understand the motive behind B's statement, saying something like "in that case I will go alone, then".

So far, so good, and there is quite a bit of insightful analysis of some games. Unfortunately however, there is also lots of s sexism, homophobia, and outright bizarre Freudian theory. Some of the described games resonate intuitively - and reading the description of some, I realize that I've either played them myself, or been the target of others.

At the same time, other games sound way too specific, and the motives ascribed to the players more like the product of the author's biases than a realistic description. The attitudes implicit in many of the described games - such as the suggestion that a game played by some women is to intentionally seduce men so that the women can then falsely claim to have been raped - are bothersome enough that I don't feel like I can give this book a positive rating.

My absolute darling of a father has been badgering me to read this book since I was a kid. But now I see what all the fuss was about. This book is quite the "A-ha, I see your such and such play, and I raise you this seemingly innocuous play".

Dare I say it's a bit of enlightened fun when you can even scratch the surface of deciphering something so complex as Human Relationships. On a psychological-interactive playfield Bern My absolute darling of a father has been badgering me to read this book since I was a kid. On a psychological-interactive playfield Berne's book is invaluable, it really equips us to call people out on their pattern of behaviour or at least learn how to handle a variety of people if one so wishes to play along.

I guess the introspective takeaway from Berne's book is that when people don't want to be emotionally vulnerable or truly intimate they fall into playing roles, this mask is convenient, lazy and predictable. It's also easier to get caught in a pattern of deceiving yourself, and in a way believing you are what role you play. Which is tragic because one is so scared of unmasking that they would never realise whether their actions and feelings are "real" or just part of the "act" they have taken up as a default.

Falls into the category of books that give you the secret reason for why things happen the way they do. Aug 27, Jay Green rated it did not like it. Unconvincing pseudoscientific psychobabble. Nov 17, Bren fall in love with the sea. I come from a family of Psychologists, social workers, ETC. Well, as we already said, not all games people play are conscious. In other words, each culture, country, and family have their games, and many of the moves we make in our lives, we have picked up during growing up without even realizing it.

Additionally, games enable people to interact with each other without getting intimate, and thus without getting hurt. Most people feel uncomfortable with revealing their true selves to others. So, playing games allows the players to hide in their comfort zones, instead of getting close and intimate.

More precisely, they can be social, without being vulnerable. What we need to understand is that intimacy and vulnerability are essential for forming strong and true bonds between people.

Hence, if we want to create a healthy relationship, we have to give up playing games. The first step is acknowledging and understanding all different games people play. You need to become aware of the ego states that exist in each human mind and pay attention when you interact with other people. If you understand all the games that exist, you will be able to disrupt them whenever you notice they happen. We know it will not be easy, but no other alternative will allow you to have a fulfilling life.

Like this summary? At times it can get a bit wordy, and the terminology may be confusing for beginners in the field, but apart from that, it is a fascinating read. For print-disabled users. This book was released on 01 June with total page pages. Book excerpt: 'The book that has helped millions of people understand the dynamics of relationships We all play games. Eric Berne was a prominent psychiatrist and bestselling author. After inventing his groundbreaking Transactional Analysis, he continued to develop and apply this new methodology leading him to publish Games People Play.

This became a runaway success and Berne leaves a remarkable legacy of over 30 other books and articles, as well as the founding of the International Transactional Analysis Association.