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

2 · BLEMISH
Thesis. This game is the source of a large percentage of petty dissension in
everyday life; it is played from the depressive Child position ‘I am no good’,
which is protectively transformed into the Parental position ‘They are no good.’
The player’s transactional problem is, then, to prove the latter thesis. Hence
‘Blemish’ players do not feel comfortable with a new person until they have
found his blemish. In its hardest form it may become a totalitarian political game
played by ‘authoritarian’ personalities, and then it may have serious historical
repercussions. Here its close relationship with ‘Nowadays’ is evident. In
suburban society positive reassurance is obtained from playing ‘How’m I
Doing?’ while ‘Blemish’ provides negative reassurance. A partial analysis will
make some of the elements of this game clearer.
The premise may range from the most trivial and extraneous (‘Last year’s
hat’), to the most cynical (‘Hasn’t got $7,000 in the bank’), sinister (‘Not 100 %
Aryan’), esoteric (‘Hasn’t read Rilke’) intimate (‘Can’t hold his erection’) or
sophisticated (‘What’s he trying to prove?’). Psychodynamically it is usually
based on sexual insecurity, and its aim is reassurance. Transactionally there is
prying, morbid curiosity or watchfulness, sometimes with Parental or Adult
concern charitably masking the Child’s relish. It has the internal psychological
advantage of warding off depression, and the external psychological advantage
of avoiding the intimacy which might expose White’s own blemishes. White
feels justified in turning away an unfashionable woman, a man without financial
backing, a non-Aryan, an illiterate, an impotent man or an insecure personality.
At the same time the prying offers some internal social action with biological
gain. The external social advantage is of the ‘Ain’t It Awful’ family –
Neighbourly Type.
An interesting sidelight is that White’s choice of premise is independent of
his intellectual capacity or apparent sophistication. Thus a man who had held
some responsible positions in the foreign service of his country told an audience
that another country was inferior because, among other things, the men wore
jackets with sleeves that were too long. In his Adult ego state this man was quite
competent. Only when playing a Parental game like ‘Blemish’ would he mention
such irrelevancies.