Games People Play

Antithesis
. Anti-"Wooden Leg" is not difficult if the therapist can distinguish clearly between his 
own Parent and Adult, and if the therapeutic aim is explicitly understood 
by both parties. 
On the Parental side, he can be either a "good" Parent or a "harsh" one. As a "good" Parent he can 
accept the patient's plea, especially if it fits in with his own viewpoints, perhaps with the 
rationalization that people are not responsible for their actions until they have completed their 
therapy. As a "harsh" Parent he can reject the plea and engage in a contest of wills with the patient. 
Both of these attitudes are already Familiar to the "Wooden Leg" player, and he knows how to 
extract the maximum satisfactions from each of them. 
As an Adult, the therapist declines both of these opportunities. When the patient asks, "What do 
you expect of a neurotic?" (or whatever plea he is using at the moment) the reply is, "I don't expect 
anything. The question is, what do you expect of yourself?" The only demand he makes is that the 
patient give a serious answer to this question, and the only concession he makes is to allow the 
patient a reasonable length of time to answer it: anywhere from six weeks to six months, depending 
on the relationship between them and the patient's previous preparation. 
REFERENCE 
1. Berne, E. "The Cultural Problem: Psychopathology in Tahiti." American Journal of Psychiatry. 
116: 1076-1081, 1960. 
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CHAPTER TWELVE 
Good Games 
THE psychiatrist, who is in the best and perhaps the only position to study games adequately, 
unfortunately deals almost entirely with people whose games have led them into difficulties. This 
means that die games which are offered for clinical investigation are all in some sense "bad" ones. 
And since by definition games are based on ulterior transactions, they must all have some element 
of exploitation. For these two reasons, practical on the one hand and theoretical on the other, the 
search for "good" games becomes a difficult quest. A "good" game might be described as one 
whose social contribution outweighs the complexity of its motivations, particularly if the player has 
come to terms with those motivations without futility or cynicism. That is, a "good" game would be 
one which contributes both to the well-being of the other players and to the unfolding of the one 
who is "it." Since even under the best forms of social action and organization a large proportion of 
time has to be spent in playing games, the search for "good" ones must be assiduously pursued. 
Several examples are offered here, but they are admittedly deficient in both number and quality. 
They include "Busman's Holiday," "Cavalier," "Happy to Help," "Homely Sage" and "They'll Be 
Glad They Knew Me."