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Essay on Book Report: Games People Play
This book is Eric Berne's popularization of Transactional Analysis, the approach to understanding and treating relationship disorders that he largely developed. Whatever its efficacy as a form of therapy, it is a fascinating way to view ordinary human interactions. Each chapter addresses various situations (i.e. relationships, party) and he lists the multitude of games people partake in where the outcome is win, lose, or draw.
While Berne's categorizations of pastimes and games seems somewhat skimpy (after all, behavior is infinitely richer than any theory can easily handle) the basic assumptions of Transactional Analysis provide a new way of understanding much that people do that otherwise seems either meaningless or baffling. It is a real contribution to understanding ourselves.
Berne’s focused on patterns of action that people display over and over again, which he referred to as scripts or games. Some of these scripts required a crowd, while others could be limited to one or two people. He analyzed games such as NIGYSOB, (The initials SOB mean exactly what you think they do) in which a person who has the upper hand takes more pleasure in making the loser look bad than in actually winning. Another, Why don’t you—yes but, involves the interesting party game in which one person presents a problem and the rest of the group offers suggestions, all of which are turned down no matter what their value.
Berne doesn’t just describe the games, he gives the reasoning behind them, and what each player gets out of it. He also analyzes the interaction from the point of view of the participants, who act as child, parent, or adult, according to the circumstances. This is good reading if you want to add dimension to your characters or insight into your situations. It is truly a must-have, and also pretty entertaining reading.....
