Games People Play

This may be defined as a series of semi-ritualistic, simple, complementary transactions arranged around a single field of material, whose primary object is to structure an interval of time.

The essential characteristic of human play is not that the emotions are spurious, but that they are regulated. This is revealed when sanctions are imposed on an illegitimate emotional display. Play may be grimly serious, or even fatally serious, but the social sanctions are serious only if the rules are broken. Pastimes and games are substitutes fo

Actually a position is primarily manifested by the mental attitude to which it gives rise, and it is with this attitude that the individual undertakes the transactions which constitute his role.

By an extension of meaning, “stroking” may be employed colloquially to denote any act implying recognition of another’s presence. Hence a stroke may be used as the fundamental unit of social action. An exchange of strokes constitutes a transaction, which is the unit of social intercourse.

Berne labeled networks that develop early in life as Child ego states. When we activate one of these, we act like the child we once were.

Another task of the Adult is to regulate the activities of the Parent and the Child, and to mediate objectively between them.

The person who initiates a game does so with a discount. These come in one of four varieties: (1) a discount that there is a problem, (2) a discount of the significance of the problem, (3) a discount that the problem is solvable by the person and (4) a discount that the problem is solvable by anyone.

the payoff of a game reinforces a person’s basic existential position,

Berne described ego states as coherent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that occur together.