Games
Every one of us must have
been in the situation where we have said, "Why does this always keep
happening to me" or "I always keep meeting people who hurt me and then go
off and leave me". Sometimes it may be that we like to help people and
then it goes wrong as the person we were trying to help says that we
didn't do it well enough or that we got it wrong. We might think "Well, I
was only trying to help" and then feel got at. When similar situations keep
happening over and over again then the term TA uses for this is a game. A
game is a familiar pattern of behaviour with a predictable outcome. Games
are played outside Adult awareness and they are our best attempt to get
our needs met - although in reality we will not meet them by playing a game. Games are learned patterns of
behaviour, and most people play a small number of favourite games with a
range of different people and in varying intensities.
First Degree games are played in social circles generally lead to mild
upsets not major traumas.
Second Degree games occur when the stakes may be higher. This usually
occurs in more intimate circles, and ends up with an even greater negative
payoff.
Third Degree games involve tissue damage and may end up in the jail,
hospital or morgue.
Chris Davidson (2002) has argued that world politics can involve
Fourth Degree games - where the outcomes
involve whole communities, countries or even the world. Games vary in the
length of time that passes while they are being played. Some can take
seconds or minutes while others take weeks months or even years.
People play games for these
reasons:
- To structure time
- To acquire strokes
- To maintain the substitute feeling and the system of thinking, beliefs and actions that go with it.
- To confirm parental injunctions and further the life script
- To maintain the person's life position by "proving" that self/others are not OK.
- To provide a high level of stroke exchange while blocking intimacy and maintaining distance.
- To make people predictable.
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