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

Antithesis. As is well known, ‘Alcoholic’ is usually played hard and is
difficult to give up. In one case a female alcoholic in a therapy group
participated very little until she thought she knew enough about the other
members to go ahead with her game. She then asked them to tell her what they
thought of her. Since she had behaved pleasantly enough, various members said
nice things about her, but she protested: ‘That’s not what I want. I want to know
what you really think.’ She made it clear that she was seeking derogatory
comments. The other women refused to persecute her, whereupon she went
home and told her husband that if she took another drink, he must either divorce
her or send her to a hospital. He promised to do this, and that evening she
became intoxicated and he sent her to a sanitarium. Here the other members
refused to play the persecutory roles White assigned to them; she was unable to
tolerate this antithetical behaviour, in spite of everyone’s efforts to reinforce
whatever insight she had already obtained. At home she found someone who
was willing to play the role she demanded.

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In other cases, however, it appears possible to prepare the patient
sufficiently so that the game can be given up, and to attempt a true social cure in
which the therapist declines to play either Persecutor or Rescuer. It is equally
untherapeutic for him to play the role of Patsy by allowing the patient to forgo
his financial and punctuality obligations. The correct therapeutic procedure from
a transactional point of view is, after careful preliminary groundwork, to take an
Adult contractual position and refuse to play any of the roles, hoping that the
patient will be able to tolerate not only abstinence from drinking but also from
playing his game. If he cannot, he is best referred to a Rescuer.
Antithesis is particularly difficult, because the heavy drinker is highly
regarded in most Western countries as a desirable object for censure, concern or
generosity, and someone who refuses to play any of these roles tends to arouse
public indignation. A rational approach may be even more alarming to the
Rescuers than to the Alcoholic, sometimes with unfortunate consequences to the
therapy. In one clinical situation a group of workers were seriously interested in
the game ‘Alcoholic’ and were attempting to effect real cures by breaking up the
game rather than merely rescuing the patients. As soon as this became apparent,
they were frozen out by the lay committee which was backing the clinic, and
none of them was ever again called on to assist in treating these patients.
Relatives. An interesting byplay in ‘Alcoholic’ is called ‘Have One’. This
was discovered by a perceptive student of industrial psychiatry. White and his
wife (a non-drinking Persecutor) go on a picnic with Black and his wife (both
Patsies). White says to the Blacks, ‘Have one!’ If they have one, this gives White
licence to have four or five. The game is unmasked if the Blacks refuse. White,
by the rules of drinking, is then entitled to be insulted, and he will find more
compliant companions for his next picnic. What appears at the social level to be
Adult generosity, is at the psychological level an act of insolence, whereby
White’s Child obtains Parental indulgence from Black by open bribery under the
very nose of Mrs White, who is powerless to protest. Actually it is just because
she will be ‘powerless’ to protest that Mrs White consents to the whole
arrangement, since she is just as anxious for the game to continue, with herself in
the role of Persecutor, as Mr White is with himself in the role of Alcoholic. Her
recriminations against him in the morning after the picnic are easy to imagine.
This variant can cause complications if White is Black’s boss.
In general the Patsy is not as badly off as the name implies. Patsies are
often lonely people who have a great deal to gain by being nice to Alcoholics.
The delicatessen man who plays ‘Good Joe’ makes many acquaintances in this
way, and he can get a good reputation in his own social circle not only as a
generous person but also as a good storyteller.

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One variant of ‘Good Joe’, incidentally, is to go around asking for advice
about how best to help people. This is an example of a jolly and constructive
game worth encouraging. Its inverse is Tough Guy, taking lessons in violence or
asking for advice about how best to hurt people. Although the mayhem is never
put into practice, the player has the privilege of associating with real tough guys
who are playing for keeps, and can bask in their reflected glory. This is one
species of what the French call un fanfaron de vice.

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