Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis. Pdfdrive com

PARTIAL ANALYSIS
The aim of this game is vindication. Dynamically the mild form may be related
to premature ejaculation, the hard form to rage based on ‘castration’ anxiety. It is
easily acquired by children. The external psychological gain (avoidance of
responsibility) is prominent, and the game is often precipitated by the threat of
impending intimacy, since the ‘justifiable’ anger offers a good excuse for
avoiding sexual relations. The existential position is, ‘I am blameless’.

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NOTE
Thanks are due to Dr Rodney Nurse and Mrs Frances Matson of the Center for
Treatment and Education on Alcoholism in Oakland, California, and to Dr
Kenneth Everts, Dr R. J. Starrels, Dr Robert Goulding and others with a special
interest in this problem, for their continued efforts in the study of ‘Alcoholic’ as
a game, and for their contribution to and criticism of the present discussion.

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REFERENCES
1.
Berne, E., A Layman’s Guide to Psychiatry & Psychoanalysis, Simon
&Schuster, New York, 1957, p. 191.
2.
Mead, M., Growing Up in New Guinea, Morrow, New York, 1951.

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7 · Marital Games
A
LMOST
any game can form the scaffolding for married life and family living,
but some, such as ‘If It Weren’t for You’, flourish better or, like ‘Frigid Woman’,
are tolerated longer, under the legal force of contractual intimacy. Marital games,
of course, can only be arbitrarily separated from sexual games, which are treated
in a separate section. Those games which characteristically evolve into their
most full-blown forms in the marital relationship include ‘Corner’, ‘Courtroom’,
‘Frigid Woman’ and ‘Frigid Man’, ‘Harried’, ‘If It Weren’t for You’, ‘Look How
Hard I’ve Tried’ and ‘Sweetheart’.