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."
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