Eric Berne (1910-1970) was a Canadian-born psychiatrist who developed a revolutionary theory of human behavior called transactional analysis. Transactional analysis posits we unwittingly participate in a series of games, and we do so while in one of a number of states of mind: as a Parent, as an Adult, or as a Child. As with most games, we need another person, so these social-psychological games require another person’s internal Parent, Adult, or Child join in with us. These games can play out as Parent-Child, Parent-Parent, Child-Child, Adult-Child, or some other combination, but the interactions always provide an opportunity to “win” something that fulfills a deep unconscious need. 

The object of a game could be feeling reassured, forgiven, rescued or like a rescuer. It could be a desire to get away with “bad behavior,” to feel avenged, to be right, to prove someone wrong, or any number of things. The game is the transaction that allows us to get something from it. Because we are unaware of most of the games we play in the home, in the workplace, at the party, and anywhere else we go, Eric Berne sought to uncover our unconscious patterns that keep us from being real and vulnerable, and from genuinely relating. Even decades after its original publication in 1964, Games People Play remains an influential classic to which many people still return.

What are games? Games are set patterns of behavior that operate beneath the surface of social interactions. When people play games, they look like they’re after one thing, and could make a superficial case for it if pressed (“I’m just kidding!” or “I was just curious”). But underneath the plausible, harmless, socially acceptable rationales, we are facilitating a carefully crafted, calculated series of transactions. These transactions are most obvious in children, but we persist in pursuing transactions as adults—even if we become socialized enough to disguise these calculated transactions from others and ourselves. These disguised patterns “work” to move us predictably toward the desired outcomes. They are deeply ingrained, reflexive, and dysfunctional ways of extracting some form of validation from others. We play games in exchange for ego strokes.

The word “game” usually connotes something fun and lighthearted. But the kinds of games we're talking about here are not necessarily jovial or jocular. They can be deadly serious, cutthroat, or even criminal. High stakes gambling is a game, as is sadomasochism. War is a game, too, and probably the hardest and most vicious game of all. In games, there are winners and losers, and each side looks to gain a competitive edge over the other.

We learned the games we play at a young age. As we grow up, we intuitively discover which games are played when and which games fit best in certain situations. We learn and practice them assiduously. Obviously, children play all kinds of games with their parents, and parents with their children. But even as adults, we internalize those roles and will play them out in scenarios that fit the dynamics we experienced as children. We can still adopt the internal posture of a Child, a Parent, or a more socially aware Adult.

Parents are eager to inculcate their children with a proper education—at schools, churches, and universities that will reinforce the parents’ beliefs. But what most parents don’t realize is that long before they send their children away to teachers and priests, they have been subtly instructing their children in certain games. These games form the unspoken emotional dynamics within a family, and children will take these with them into adulthood. So a 40-year-old man getting berated by his boss could instinctually adopt the role of an adaptive Child because he sees someone whom he experiences as a Critical Parent. He might even start crying in response to the criticism, which could trigger a new game, in which the employer switches from crushing to caressing, from a Critical Parent to a Nurturing Parent. In that case, the boss would “win”: enjoying a cathartic display of power (the game “Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch!”) and then getting to feel like a Rescuer rushing to the aid of the verbally abused—even if the employer was the one doing the berating.

Game-free intimacy is the height of human relationship, and it is immensely rewarding for those who can let go of the games. In order to do so, it helps to learn what some of those games are.

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The game of “Alcoholic” can be a complex one. It commonly involves 5 players:

-The Alcoholic

-The Persecutor

-The Rescuer

-The Patsy

-The Connection

The person in the Alcoholic role is “it,” meaning he or she is the one who drives the game forward. The main sidekick in this game is the Persecutor, usually of the opposite sex and often the Alcoholic’s spouse. The Rescuer tries to play the family doctor who checks in on the Alcoholic and tries to keep him on the straight and narrow road to sobriety. When the Alcoholic goes several months without a drop, the Rescuer congratulates the Alcoholic, but he also congratulates himself. And then, the next day, the Alcoholic is hung over, so the game can begin again. The Patsy or the Dummy plays the more minor rule of a non-judgmental presence that, while refraining from persecuting or saving, gives food or coffee to the struggling Alcoholic, and even occasionally money. They both know he’s not really spending it on groceries or bills, but they both pretend. The final player is the Connection, usually a bartender or liquor store clerk. In an odd way, the Connection is the most significant role. The professional knows when to stop and say no to the Alcoholic who is getting rowdy. This can force the Alcoholic to find a more complicit Connection.

The most effective interventions see the game “Alcoholic” for what it is, and focus on the morning-after ritual of self-castigation instead of the drinking itself, which is incidental. The punishment the Alcoholic heaps on himself and welcomes from others is the payoff that keeps him coming back for more.

Alcoholics Anonymous often keeps the “Alcoholic” game going, but takes on the Rescuer role. There’s one report of a local AA chapter that ran out of people to rescue so they began drinking again themselves just to keep the game going. Some organizations try to help but merely shift people from one role to another, from Persecutor to Rescuer, for example. The best of them focus on equipping adolescents and adult children of alcoholics with the wherewithal to remove themselves from the game altogether, rather than find a new role in it.

From the villages of Africa or Asia to the suburbs of North America, our biggest celebrations are tied to debt-inducing moments—not the moments when we are liberated from debts. The young American couple celebrates when they close on their new home—even though the house is much more the bank’s than theirs for the next several decades. Friends and family and acquaintances gather for a wedding and celebrate—even if the costs of wedding and dowry leave the bride’s family swimming in debt. Debt is not just common, but virtually a predetermined part of life all over the world, so it is only natural that games come from it. 

In the United States there is a very common set of games people play involving debtors and creditors. One is “Take and Collect” (TAC) in which people live beyond their means, buying luxury items on credit. When creditors are soft on collecting, people feel they can persist in their opulence without consequence. Should the creditors become more aggressive, however (visiting the debtor’s place of employment or finding another way to shame them), the debtor can flip the game from “Watch Me Get Away With This” to some variation of the game "Now I’ve Got You, You Son of Bitch!" in which the debtor turns the creditor into an object for his self-righteous scorn. He can cast the collector as a villain, and look like a simple, upstanding citizen under someone’s powerful, punitive boot. Contrived luxury shifts to contrived victimhood. His credit score might be plummeting, but his social credit is unscathed as those in his sphere rally around the hapless “little guy” facing down greedy overlords.

If the debtor plays the TAC game (“Take and Collect”), some creditors play the game of “Try and Get Away with It.” These players often find each other. And regardless of who "wins," both parties get to play the game of "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" while secretly enjoying the cat and mouse competition. The game “Take and Collect” stops when debtors decide to live within their means or make payments promptly and in full. The game of “Try and Get Away With It” ends when creditors deal with their debtors in a more direct and honest manner that cuts out the sport.

Couples play all kinds of games. Courtroom games are among the most common.

Courtroom games usually involve three people. We see this clearly in a marriage therapist’s office: There’s a Judge (the therapist), a plaintiff (the accusatory spouse) and a defendant (the accused spouse). If the conversation is televised on a popular TV show, the audience becomes the Jury. It’s not uncommon for partners to take turns putting each other on the stand, flipping between defense and prosecution.

The therapist can go along with the husband's “I Can Do No Wrong” posture by telling him, “You’re exactly right. She really did mess up on that one, didn’t she?” And then ask how it feels when the therapist confirms his conviction. The therapist then has the opportunity to rip the rug out from under him: "I actually believe you’re in the wrong on this one," and then wait for a reaction. The husband can be honest and concede, or the therapist can watch for a different kind of reaction—a bristling or exasperation. If the reaction is contrarian, the game is still live.

Another tactic that stops the Courtroom game in its tracks is the rule against appealing to the third party using third-person language (e.g., “He always does this,” or “She never does that”). They can only say “I” or “you,” which forces the couple to speak directly to one another. When this rule is ratified in a therapy session, the couple is forced to drop the Courtroom game, but might initiate new games—usually the game “Sweetheart” or a very different game of “Furthermore.”

“Sweetheart” begins when one spouse makes an understated-but-biting remark about the spouse in front of others, ending the comment or brief story with, “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” So if a husband “Sweethearts” his wife, he puts her in a bind. She could object to the slight, which would make her appear nagging and nitpicking for harping on that small-but-insulting detail—not to mention rude and heartless for rejecting the man who just called her “sweetheart.” The wife usually makes the Adult decision to stay silent.

The husband wins, but she also continues to win by choosing the kind of man she “knew” would expose all her shortcomings. It might sound twisted, but the transactional logic is, “If I marry someone who constantly exposes my issues, it saves me the trouble of confronting them myself.” In most cases, her parents spared her the trouble of facing her own issues, too, by pointing them out. Beside “Courtroom,” “Sweetheart” is the most common marital game.

In the game of “Furthermore,” the Plaintiff-Defendant dynamic continues. The plaintiff piles on, ignoring the defendant’s explanations. Any pause is taken as an invitation to hurl another accusation. This is a classic Parent-Child interaction that many people carry into their marriages.

As children, we played the three-person game in which we position a parent as the Judge, ourselves as the Prosecution, and a sibling as the guilty-as-charged Defendant:

“Mommy, he hit me!”

“That’s because she took my toy!”

In childhood, as in adulthood, the object of games like “Courtroom,” “Sweetheart,” and “Furthermore” is to be right, either in the form of “I’m not guilty” or “The other person is guilty.”

Like many marital and sexual games, the “Frigid Woman” game serves as a terrific way to avoid facing fears of intimacy. There is a “Frigid Man” countertype, but this is far less common. As we will see, the object of the game “Frigid Woman” is a validation. It’s a variation of “Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch!”

Imagine a husband makes an advance toward his wife, which she spurns. “All men are beasts!” she declares, launching into a diatribe about how her husband only wants her for her body, but doesn’t actually care about her. The husband backs off. After some time, though, the wife’s behavior becomes increasingly sexual and provocative (“Honey, can you grab my towel?” and so on). The husband ignores it. If she’s playing a hard game, she might even dress more provocatively when they’re in public or flirt with his friends until it elicits some kind of reaction from her husband. He advances again, but is spurned. This leads to the game of “Uproar,” in which the frustrated pair fights over other matters, like in-laws and finances. “Uproar” usually ends with someone storming out of the room. They both unleashed pent-up libidos while also sidestepping intimacy and all its attendant fears.

Eventually, he gives up on intimacy and stonewalls. He ignores the next several barrages of sensual provocations. Eventually, she advances toward him and though initially reluctant, he trusts enough to return the passion until, at the tipping point, she recoils yet again with, "See?? All men are beasts!! "

To be clear, both spouses are avoiding intimacy, not just the wife. Why else would the husband marry a frigid woman? Choosing someone unreceptive to his advances allows him to avoid confronting his own fear of intimacy while also getting to claim victimhood when his wife rejects him. They both “win” through these transactions.

The solution is tricky. The husband could find a mistress, which could remind the wife of her competition, and lead her to take on the role of the Good Wife. Or it could catalyze a legal battle in which she files for divorce.

Another possibility is that the husband goes to therapy and his wife does not. He learns he’s playing a vicious game, and discovers ways to diffuse the game. But the wife might not like being deprived of the game. If she is playing a hard game, she’ll file for divorce anyway.

The best option for a couple in this scenario is for the transaction to be brought into the light so the pair can see the naked truth about their intimacy-dodging game and decide where to go from there.

Parties are bursting with gameplay. A broader circle of friends and acquaintances may be familiar without earning the requisite level of trust needed for more authentic conversation. This is where games come in: They provide a way to get some ego strokes while also avoiding emotional harm.

One common game is “Ain’t It Awful?” Depending on where we play and with whom we play, the game takes different forms. It can take the shape of “Nowadays” in which people indulge their Critical Parent’s urge to get on the moral high horse and mercilessly judge others, whether it’s the latest news story, what the neighbor did, or what is wrong with society. Unlike inane gossip which has no end-point, those who play “Nowadays” have confident diagnoses and explanations for the matter at hand. According to sociologists, middle-aged women seem especially adept at and susceptible to “Nowadays.”

“Water Cooler” is another variation of the “Ain’t It Awful?” game that is more likely to happen at a workplace. People take an opportunity to commiserate with one another about what “they are making us do this time.” There are three involved in this variant: the two conversationalists and another party called “They.” The mysterious, ill-intentioned “They” is often invoked in political discussions, too.

In “Ain’t It Awful,” players act indignant or outraged, but they derive some intense pleasure from complaining and explaining what’s wrong with the world.

Another party game people play is “Blemish,” in which people hang back and inspect others, sniffing out weaknesses in order to feel safer themselves. This game begins when someone’s held onto the belief from childhood that “I’m no good.” The self-protective response is to project that onto others in the posture of “They’re no good.” The game is to prove the thesis “They’re no good” is true by finding the blemish, thus allowing the player to feel a little more comfortable about him- or herself. Staring at and analyzing others (in effect, putting them in a Petri dish) is a gleeful, relieving process for the Child, but the glee is covered up behind a more socially acceptable air of Parental nurture or Adult dispassion. Players win by staving off their own depression, dodging intimacy, which could lay bare the players’ own shortcomings.

Are these just little interactions to stimulate us and stave off the fear of death and intimacy? Would we be able to function without them? Throughout life, in between our moments of intimacy and our hobbies, we play an array of games. Sometimes our hobbies get stale and intimacy feels scary, so we settle for games. Most games are exploitative in nature, but there are a few games that we can play with others where both players “win.” That happens through giving, not through taking. The good of the other remains an end, instead of being turned into a means to some ulterior end.

These good games are possible, but they are difficult to play because it is difficult to keep our motives pure and to become aware of our motives in the first place. But becoming aware of the games we play and remembering that we are not above slipping back into them gives us the best shot at playing the kinds of games that help us as individuals and posterity, too. Games are passed from one generation to the next, and they vary from culture to culture, but everyone plays. People tend to be drawn to others who play similar sets of games, so the same social and cultural patterns continue indefinitely until someone becomes aware of the games they play, and chooses different games than the ones they learned from their parents and grandparents.

These insights are just an introduction. If you're ready to dive deeper, pick up a copy of Games People Play here. And since we get a commission on every sale, your purchase will help keep this newsletter free.

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