Last updated April 10, 2022

{ Books MOC Tags: #literature/books/finished **1 - Social Intercourse

• Stimulus-hunger is just as important as food-hunger, and develops similar symptoms

• Each person’s social appetite depends on their environment (actor vs scientists)

• Any form of social intercourse is better than none

2 - Structuring of Time

• After stimulus-hunger becomes structure-hunger; the structuring of our days

• “Don’t you think the walls are perpendicular tonight?”

• Time-structuring has three aspects:

1. Material (work)

• Our goal in this game is to feel accepted, popular, and have good manners

2. Social

3. Individual

• The most gratifying forms of social contact are games and intimacy

Chapter 1 - Structural Analysis

• People tend to show noticeable changes in posture, viewpoint, voice, vocabulary, and other aspects of behavior, emphasizing the rise of ego states

• Ego states are a system of feelings accompanied by a related set of behavior patterns

• There are different types of ego states:

1. CO ego states (resemble parental figures)

• Our parental states are reflective of our parents

• Promotes the survival of the human race, makes responses automatic, conserving time and energy. Allows the adult to make the important decisions while easier things are given to the parent

2. Ego states towards objective appraisal of reality (adult)

• Processes data and computes probabilities which are essential for dealing effectively with the outside world

• Regulates the activities of the parent and child and to mediate objectively between them

3. Archaic relics (child)

• Everyone was younger than they are now, and such behavior from previous years can be rediscovered depending on the circumstances

• Resembles our creativity, spontaneous drive, and enjoyment

• Within any social context, a person will exhibit a parental, adult, or child ego state, and people can shift from one to another.

• Each stage is integral to living a full and productive life

Chapter 2 - Transactional Analysis

• The unit of social intercourse is called a transaction

• An action to achieve this and acknowledge the presence of others is called a transactional stimulus

• A response to the stimulus is the transactional response

• The simplest transactions are adult to adult transactions (lending out hand to ask for something)

• The next simplest is child to parent transactions (child needs food and parent gives it)

• Such transactions can be continued indefinitely, but it is usually broken off when a crossed transaction occurs

ex) Confronting someone about a drinking problem (adult to adult stimulus) becomes a child to parent response when they are offended by it and refuse to acknowledge it

• Simple complementary transactions occur in superficial working and social relationships, and such relationships can easily be crossed

• Ulterior transactions are must complex, which requires the activity of more than two ego states simultaneously, which is a basis for games

• Transactions can be complementary or crossed, simple or ulterior, and ulterior transactions can be either angular or duplex

Chapter 3 - Procedures and Rituals

• Transactions proceed in programmable series

• Simplest forms of social activity are procedures and rituals

• Procedures are complementary adult transactions to manipulate reality, which can either be static or dynamic (piloting airplane)

• Dynamic reality depends on the potential interactions of everything

• Procedures are programmed by the material

• Evaluating procedures requires two variables:

1. Efficiency- The efficiency of use for the data (psychological criterion)

2. Effectiveness- The actual results (material)

• Rituals are are series of complementary transactions programmed by external forces (mass, parties)

• Rituals can be done under strict parental supervision, or under childlike transactional freedom

• Take for example small-talk

• If you engage in small talk with someone earlier, but then see them again later on in the day, you will usually just walk by or nod or smile instead of conversing

• If someone is gone for a whole month, they will expect others to do more than the norm.

• If someone does more than the usual two-stroke ritual, the recipient will be confused

• Procedures and rituals are similar in the sense that they are both stereotyped

• Once the transaction has been initiated, the series is predictable and follows course until an expected conclusion, unless something unexpected arises

• Adults program procedures, parents program rituals

• People not comfortable with rituals tend to evade them

Chapter 4 - Pastimes

• Pastimes are semi-ritualistic, simple, complementary transactions arranged around a specific field of material in order to structure an interval of time

• The beginning and end of a ritual are typically signalled by procedures/rituals

• Transactions in pastimes are programmed so each party will obtain the maximum gains or advantages during the interval; as someone is more adaptable, the more they will gain

ex) chit-chat, arguments

• Large gatherings are a collection of pastimes

• Cars and sports for men, kitchen and wardrobe for women, making out for adolescent, balance sheet for adults, how much and ever been and do you know and what became for small talk

• Child-child conversations may entail dealing with recalcitrant parents, adult-adult conversations may entail juvenile delinquency

• Pastimes allow for stroking and social-selection where people view the potentialities of others involved, finding others of possible interest to play games with; they form the basis for the selection of acquaintances and friendships

• Pastimes help confirm role and position, which then influences a person’s destiny

Chapter 5 - Games

• Games are ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome

• They are different from rituals, procedures, and pastimes due to their ulterior quality and the payoff

• Games is basically dishonest, the outcome has a dramatic quality

• Operations are simple transactions for a specific purpose

• If someone is asked for reassurance and gets it, that is an operation

• If someone asks for reassurance and then manipulates it to the disadvantage of the giver, that is a game

ex) the insurance game (trying to connect with others just to sell them products)

• Big games are ones planned with professional precision to yield max gains

• Games are not intended to be joyful or fun

Typical Game

• A common game between spouses is “If it weren’t for you”

• The influences they have on each other’s actions can be referred to as social contact

• The aim of IFWY is to provide self-reassurance

• IFWY is a 2-handed game that calls for a restricted wife and a domineering husband

• The wife is either a prudent adult or child

• The husband is an adult or parental

• Socially, it is a child/adult scenario, but psychologically, both parties are communicating with their childish selves (isolation vs phobia)

Moves

• Players can better choose their moves after experience and analyzing the situation

• In IWFY, there is compliance and protest

Advantages

• Advantages are created through the stabilizing functions

• The socially acceptable surrender to the husband’s authority keeps the woman from experiencing neurotic fears and any masochistic needs (internal psychological)

• The feared situation hidden from playing the game (external psychological)

• Internal social advantage affects tight social circles

ex) relationship between the two

• External social advantage affects outside social contacts

ex) Friends who you gossip to

Genesis of Games

• Games help people utilize their rituals, procedures, and pastimes to achieve their destiny

• Games are deliberately initiated by children

Function of Games

• The lack of time for intimacy in daily life causes us to play games

Classification of Games

• Games are classified based off # of players, currency used, clinical types, zonal, psychodynamic, instinctual

There are three stages in a game:

1. First degree- socially acceptable in a person’s circle

2. Second degree- no permanent damage arises but players would prefer not to do it in public

3. Third degree- played for keeps; ends in surgery, courtroom or morgue

Part 2 - Thesaurus of Games

Life Games

Alcoholic

• Purpose: Seek attention and cause a bit of mischief

• Antithesis: Properly give consequences

Debtor

• Purpose: Put yourself in a hopeless situation that lacks growth

• Antithesis: Get them to take action instantly instead of owing debt

Kick Me

• Purpose: Display your flaws for others to comment on to indulge in self-pity

• Antithesis: Don’t give them attention

I got you now, SOAB

• Purpose: Put someone into a position where you can dominate them for a single slip up

• Antithesis: Clarify the rules and avoid mistakes, and handle conflicts in a mature manner

See what you made me do

• Purpose: Put external blame on someone for a minor thing they did

• Antithesis: Leave them alone, force them to take initiative, direct them to professionals

Married Games

Corner

• Purpose: Husband wants the wife to acknowledge his efforts, but the wife fails to and as a result, the husband feels resent and the wife is injured yet triumphant

• Antithesis: Wife submits and joins him

Courtroom

• Purpose: Two sides argue and one person is to judge in hopes of reassurance

• Antithesis: The therapist claims one is right, then tells them that they’re in the wrong OR the therapist can prevent the use of third person pronouns to stop accusations

Frigid Woman

• Purpose: Woman proves that men are only interested in sex by teasing him

• Antithesis: Find a different social companion

Harried

• Purpose: Wife takes all demands, but then gets nothing done

• Antithesis: Fill her roles during the week, but then refuse to play two or more simultaneously to prevent burnout

Look How Bad I’ve Tried

• Purpose: Getting a divorce that doesn’t look like was your intentions

• Antithesis: The person who wants the divorce ends up divorcing

• Alternative: Hiding burdens from your S.O. so when they take a toll on you they feel guilt

Sweetheart

• Purpose: Referencing your S.O. in a charmful way to prevent them from disagreeing

Party Games

Ain’t it Awful

• Purpose: Used by people seeking suffering, possibly because of the opportunities for exploitation it offers, or people who are just complaining about their circumstances

Blemish

• Purpose: Find a blemish in a person’s character

Schlemiel

• Purpose: Cause havoc in a person’s life, forcing the victim to feel angered or ignore it, giving you more opportunities

• Antithesis: Victim becomes responsible for white’s actions

Why Don’t You-Yes But

• Purpose: A person provides solutions while the asker continues to provide further complaints with the aim to find a solution they can’t find fault in

• Antithesis: Just say that is too bad, and don’t provide suggestions

Sexual Games

Let’s You and Him Fight

• Purpose: Two men fight to win over the girl

• Sometimes the girl prefers one over the other, or just leaves with a third

Perversion

• Purpose: Pleasing your perversions

Rapo

• Purpose: Flirting with a guy for him to gain interest in you

• Antithesis: Male avoids being involved through his control of emotions

Stocking Game

• Purpose: A woman teases a group of men, frustrating other women, and becoming self-destructive

• Antithesis: Ignored

Uproar

• Purpose: Dad and teenage daughter get mad at each other to mask their intimacy?

• Antithesis: Daughter gets married

Underworld Games

Cops and Robbers

• Purpose: Criminals gain satisfaction from outmaneuvering or inconveniencing the police, or from profit

• Same can be said for gambling

• Antithesis: Not being caught

How Do You Get Out Of Here

• Purpose: Surviving prison through habitual distraction or escape

• Antithesis: Respecting those who have changed and made amends

Let’s Pull A Fast One On Joey

• Purpose: Conning someone, but in the end, Joey wins

Consulting Room Games

Greenhouse

• Purpose: Expressing your feelings to a group

• Antithesis: A non-welcoming group

I’m Only Trying To Help You

• Purpose: Giving advice to a client that does not have the desired effect.

• Antithesis: Ignoring the advice, rejecting the advice, or telling them what you want them to do to help

Indigence

• Purpose: Wanting change, but doing nothing to work towards it; going against ITHY

• Antithesis: Reprimanding the person initiating Indigience

Peasant

• Purpose: Simping over someone not for their character, but for their perquisites that accompany him

• Antithesis: Split the patient’s adult from the hypocritical child

Psychiatry

• Purpose: An ego of the “healer” insists that if their proposed remedies don’t work, it is the patient’s fault

• Patients may use Psychiatry to learn more about transactional analysis

Stupid

• Purpose: Get people to call or think you are genuinely stupid

• Antithesis: Don’t laugh at people’s stupidity, and the “stupid” people will realize you are not cynical and will befriend you

Wooden Leg

• Purpose: The loss of responsibility due to one’s mental disorder/disability

• Stress, societal culture, and the economic system are also forms of wooden leg

• Antithesis: Asks what they expect of themselves

Good Games

Busman’s Holiday

• Purpose: Telling stories to others

Cavalier

• Purpose: Men not under sexual pleasure compliment other women without pushing the boundaries for mutual stroking

• Antithesis: Women might presume that he is hitting on her, and refuse to play along

Happy To Help

• Purpose: Being consistently helpful to other people

Homely Sage

• Purpose: When a well-educated and sophisticated man shares his wisdom and listens to others

They’ll Be Glad They Knew Me

• Purpose: “I’ll show them” but with kind intentions to the associates

Part 3 - Beyond Games

• Games are timeless, and are passed on through the raising of children

• Games are in between pastimes and intimacy

• There is always a game to play for someone

• The more disturbed you are, the more you play games

• To be jerk-free, you must understand the intentions of the other person and respond accordingly

• Even when given the opportunity to probe her, he let her continue on without feeling any anxiety

Autonomy

• We can achieve autonomy by releasing or or recovering awareness, spontaneity, and intimacy

• Awareness is being present in the moment, and seeing things through your own eyes rather than the perspectives of others

• An aware person is alive because he knows how he feels, where he is, and when it is

• Spontaneity is having the freedom to choose and express one’s feelings from the assortment available

• Intimacy is the spontaneous, game-free candidness of an aware person

Application

• Be aware of what part of myself is interacting in different scenarios (Child, Adult, Parent)

• Pay attention to whether games are being played around me or if I’m put into a game-like situation, and try to propose the antithesis to stop it

• Pay attention and acknowledge if I start playing a game, and act accordingly to try and mitigate the negative effects of it**