Games People Play

7 WOODEN LEG 
Thesis
. The most dramatic form of "Wooden Leg" is "The Plea of Insanity." This may be translated 
into transactional terms as follows: "What do you expect of someone as emotionally disturbed as I 
am—that I would refrain from killing people?" To which the jury is asked to reply: "Certainly not, 
we would hardly impose that restriction on you!" "The Plea of Insanity," played as a legal game, is 
acceptable to American culture and is different from the almost universally respected principle that 
an individual may be suffering from a psychosis so profound that no reasonable person would 
expect him to be responsible for his actions. In Japan drunkenness, and in Russia war-time military 
service, are accepted as excuses for evading responsibility for all kinds of outrageous behavior 
(according to this writer's information). 
The thesis of "Wooden Leg" is, "What do you expect of a man with a wooden leg?" Put that way, 
of course, no one would expect anything of a man with a wooden leg except that he should steer his 
own wheel chair. On the other hand, during World War II there was a man with a wooden leg who 
used to give demonstrations of jitterbug dancing, and very competent jitterbug dancing, at Army 
Hospital amputation centers. There are blind men who practice law and hold political offices (one 
such is currently mayor of the writer's home town), deaf men who practice psychiatry and handless 
men who can use a typewriter. 
As long as someone with a real, exaggerated or even imaginary disability is content with his lot, 
perhaps no one should interfere. But the moment he presents himself for psychiatric treatment, the 
question arises if he is using his life to his own best advantage, and if he can rise above his 
disability. In this country the therapist will be working in opposition to a large mass of educated 
public opinion. Even the close relatives of the patient who complained most loudly about the 
inconveniences caused by his infirmity, may eventually rum on the therapist if the patient makes 
definitive progress. This is readily understandable to a game analyst, but it makes his task no less 
difficult. All the people who were playing "I'm Only Trying to Help You" are threatened by the 
impending disruption of the game if the patient shows signs of striking out on his own, and 
sometimes they use almost incredible measures to terminate the treatment. 
Both sides are illustrated by the case of the stuttering client of Miss Black's, mentioned in the 
discussion of the game "Indigence." This man played a classical form of "Wooden Leg." He was 
unable to find employment, which he correctly attributed to the fact that he was a stutterer, since 
the only career that interested him, he said, was that of salesman. As a free citizen he had a right to 
seek employment in whatever field he chose, but as a stutterer, his choice raised some question as 
to the purity of his motives. The reaction of the helpful agency when Miss Black attempted to break 
up this game was very unfavorable to her. 
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"Wooden Leg" is especially pernicious in clinical practice, because the patient may find a therapist 
who plays the same game with the same plea, so that progress is impossible. This is relatively easy 
to arrange in the case of the "Ideological Plea," "What do you expect of a man who lives in a 
society like ours?" One patient combined this with the "Psychosomatic Plea," "What do you expect 
of a man with psychosomatic symptoms?" He found a succession of therapists who would accept 
one plea but not the other, so that none of them either made him feel comfortable in his current 
position by accepting both pleas, or budged him from it by rejecting both. Thus he proved that 
psychiatry couldn't help people. 
Some of the pleas which patients use to excuse symptomatic behavior are colds, head injuries, 
situational stress, the stress of modem living, American culture and the economic system. A literate 
player has no difficulty in finding authorities to support him. "I drink because I'm Irish." "This 
wouldn't happen if I lived in Russia or Tahiti." The fact is that patients in mental hospitals in Russia 
and Tahiti are very similar to those in American state hospitals.1 Special pleas of "If It Weren't For 
Them" or "They Let Me Down" should always be evaluated very carefully in clinical practice—and 
also in social research projects. 
Slightly more sophisticated are such pleas as: What do you expect of a man who (a) comes from a 
broken home (b) is neurotic (c) is in analysis or (d) is suffering from a disease known as alcoholism? 
These are topped by, "If I stop doing this I won't be able to analyze it, and then I'll never get better." 
The obverse of "Wooden Leg" is "Rickshaw," with the thesis, "If they only had (rickshaws) 
(duckbill platypuses) (girls who spoke ancient Egyptian) around this town, I never would have got 
into this mess."