Based on the Newyork times best seller " Games People Play" by Eric Berne

1. Game
Analysis
Presented by
Manu Melwin Joy

2. Typical features of games
• Games are repetitive.
• Games are played without
adult awareness.
• Games always end up with the
players experience racket
feeling.
• Games entail an exchange of
ulterior transactions between
the players.
• Games always include moment
of surprise and confusion.

3. Activity
Think of a painful interaction in your own
recent experience which fits this description
of a game.
Write down what the situation was. Check
that it had the five features we have given as
being typical of games.
Note too how you felt at the end of it. Is this a
familiar feeling of yours?

4. Sweat shirts
It is uncanny how people
manage to seek out
others who will play
games which interlock
with their own games. It
is as if each person were
wearing a sweatshirt with
her game invitation
printed on it.

5. Sweat shirts
The sweat shirt has a
motto on the front which
is the one we consciously
want the world to see. On
the back is the
psychological level secret
message. The message on
the back is he one that
actually determines
whom we pick for our
relationships.

6. Activity
Go back to your own game example. What do
you imagine was the motto on the front and
back of your sweatshirt?
What do you think were the front and back
messages on the sweatshirt of any other you
related to in that situation.

7. Group activity
• Get into subgroups of three.
• Using intuition, jot down the front and back
sweatshirt messages of the other members.
• Then share with each other what you wrote
down.

8. Different degrees of games
Games can be played at
different degrees of intensity.
First level game – it has an
outcome which the player is
willing to share with her
social circle. These make a
big proportion of the time
structuring at parties and
social gatherings.

9. Different degrees of games
Second degree game bring
heavier outcomes, of a kind
which the player would
rather not make public in
her social circle.
Third degree game, in
Berne’s words is one which
is played for keeps and
which ends in surgery, the
courtroom or the morgue.

10. Formula G
Berne discovered that every game goes through a
sequence of six stages.
Con + Gimmick = Response Switch Cross up Payoff
He called this sequence Formula G or Game formula.

11. Formula G
• Con – it is delivered non-verbally.
• Gimmick – It is a scripty weak spot that leads
someone to buy into someone else’s con.
• Response – This stage of a game consists of a
series of transactions. At social level, these
transactions seem like straight forward
exchange of information. But at psychological
level, they repeat the Con-Gimmick exchange
that opened the game.

12. Formula G
• Switch – It happens when one player changes
his role.
• Cross up – The confusion happening during
the change of role is cross up.
• Payoff – Both players collect their payoff of
racket feeling.

13. Drama Triangle
Stephen Karpman devised a simple yet
powerful diagram for analyzing games, the
drama triangle. He suggested that whenever
people play games, they are stepping into one
of three script roles: Persecutor, Rescuer or
Victim.

14. Drama Triangle
Persecutor – He is someone who puts other
people down and belittles them. The persecutor
views others as being one down and not ok.
Rescuer – He sees others as being not OK and
one down. But the rescuer responds by offering
help from a one up position.
Victim – He is himself one down and not OK.
Sometimes, the victim will seek a persecutor to
put him down and push him around or the
victim may be in search of a rescuer who will
offer help and confirm the victim’s belief “I can’t
cope on my own”.

15. Drama Triangle
Every one of the drama triangle roles entails a
discount. Both persecutor and rescuer discount
others.
The persecutor discounts other’s value and
dignity. Extreme persecutor may discount other
people’s right to life and physical health.
The rescuer discounts others abilities to think for
themselves and act on their own initiative.
A victim discounts himself.

17. Activity
Take one minute to write down all the words
you can think of that might be applied to a
persecutor.
Do the same for a Rescuer and for a victim.

18. Drama Triangle
All three drama triangle roles are inauthentic.
When people are in one of these roles, they are
responding to the past rather than to the here
and now. They are using old scripty strategies
they decided upon as children or took on board
from their parents. To signal the inauthenticity
of the triangle roles, the words Persecutor,
Rescuer and Victim are spelled with initial
capitals. If we spell the words beginning with
small letters, we mean real life persecutors,
rescuers or victims.

19. Activity
Can you think of a real life persecutor who
would not also be a persecutor.
What would be examples of the difference
between an authentic rescuer and a person
playing the role of Rescuer.
Would you say it is possible for anyone to be a
victim without also being a Victim.

20. Drama Triangle
Usually, someone who is playing a game will
start at one of the positions and then will switch
to another. This switch in Drama Triangle
positions takes place at the moment of the
Switch in the Game formula.

21. Activity
What drama triangle switched did you make in
your own personal game example.

22. Transactional analysis of games
Another way to analyze games is to use a
transactional diagram. This is specially useful in
bringing out the ulterior transactions between
the players.

23. Berne’s transactional game diagram
Ss - I did like to get to know you better.
Rs – Yes, I did like that too.
Sp – Kick me, Please.
Rp – I will get you, you SOB
Small S denotes social level and small p denotes psychological level.

24. Goulding Kupfer diagram
Bob Goulding and David Kupfer developed a
different version of the transactional game.
For them, games have five required features.

25. Goulding Kupfer diagram
1. First comes the Social level opener of the
game (Ss). Goulding and Kupfer call in the
ostensible straight stimulus.
2. The second element of the game is the
simultaneous psychological level message
(Sp) which is the game of the con. It is called
secret message and include a scripty
statement about self.

26. Goulding Kupfer diagram
3. As always, the outcome is determined at the
psychological level. In the Goulding Kupfer
sequence, this is the “response to the secret
message.”
4. Both players end up experiencing racket
feelings, the bad feeling payoff.
5. The entire series of ulterior transactions stays
outside the adult awareness of the players.

27. Goulding Kupfer diagram
The Gouldings point out that if anyone had
enough investment in getting into his favorite
game, he can twist the actual responses he is
getting from the other person so as to read
the game response into them. Thus he can get
his racket payoff even if the other person’s
responses were not gamey.

28. Activity
Use Berne’s transactional game diagram and
the Goulding Kupfer diagram to analyze you
own personal game example.

29. Game plan
John James has developed a set of questions
which give us another way of understanding
the progress of a game. He calls it the Game
plan.

30. Activity
This activity use the game plan that includes
two additional “mysterious questions”. It was
devised by Laurence Collinson. You can use
the game plan questions to analyze the
personal game example which you have
already noted or you can use it to examine a
different gamey situation which you recognize
in your life.

31. Activity
Note down the answer to the following questions as they
apply to your chosen example.
1. What keeps happening to me over and over again.
2. How does it start?
3. What happens next?
4.
5. And then?
6.
7. How does it end?
8a. How do I feel?
8b. How do I think the other person feels?
What is my secret message to the other person?
What is the other person’s secret message to me?

32. Interpretation
The sequence of answers to the game plan
questions should show you the drama triangle
switches and formula G stages of the game.
The feeling you listed at question 8a and 8b are
both likely to be racket feelings of yours. If may
be that you recognize the feeling at 8a as being
familiar, but are surprised to think that the one
named at 8b is also your own racket. If this is
true, check with someone who knows you well.

33. Interpretation
The answers to the two mystery questions are
the psychological level messages of the
transactional games. However, Lawrence
Collinsion suggests that both these statement are
also likely to be messages which your parents
conveyed to you while you were a young child.
Check whether it is true for you.
A second possibility is that one or both of the
mystery questions answers may be message
which you conveyed to your parents when you
were very young.

34. Definition of game
Berne defined games differently at
different stages of his thinking.
“What ever fits the Formula G is a
game and whatever does not fit is
not a game.” - What do you say
after you say hello.
“ A game is a series of ulterior
transactions with a gimmick ,
leading to a usually well concealed
but well defined payoff.” –
Principles of group treatment.

35. Definition of game
According to Ian Stewart and
Vann Jones,
“ A game includes those
sequences that follow all
stages of Formula G,
including the switch of roles
and moment of confusion
represented by switch and
cross up.”

36. Racketeering and games
According to Fanita English, Racketeers resemble
game players in that they exchange ulterior
messages, taking racket feeling payoffs at the
same time. But in Racketeering, not switch is
pulled. The parties may keep on racketeering as
long as they both want or have energy to , and
then simply stop or do something different. It is
only if one of the parties does pull a switch that
the racketeering exchange is transformed into a
game.

37. Definition of game
In simple language,
“A game is a process of doing something with an
ulterior motive that:
– Is outside adult awareness.
– Does not become explicit until the participants
switch the way they are behaving and
– Results in everyone feeling confused,
misunderstood and wanting to blame the other
person.

38. Why people play games?

39. Why people play games?
• In playing games, we are following outdated
strategies.
• Game playing was one of the devices we
adopted as young children to get what we
wanted from the world.
• But in adult life, we have other, more effective
options.

40. Why people play games?
• People play games to further
their life script.
• Berne suggested the sequence
by which we achieve this.
• At the payoff of every game,
the player experiences a racket
feeling.
• Each time he does this, he can
store the feeling away as a
stamp.

41. Why people play games?
• When the game player has built up a big enough
collection of stamps, he feels justified in cashing it
in for whatever negative script payoff he decided
upon as a child.
• Thus each person chooses her games to yield the
kind of stamps that will advance her towards the
script ending she has decided upon.
• As usual with scripts, the script story may be
played through in miniature many times during
the players life.
• People chose the degree of their games to suit the
degree of their script payoff.

42. Activity
• Look back at your own
example.
• What feeling stamp did
you save?
• How might you have
been saving up these
stamps for a new script
payoff?

43. Why people play games?
• Each time we play a game, we use the payoff
to reinforce our script beliefs.
• We can also use games to confirm our basic
life position.
• Games are played in order to justify what the
players are already feeling and believing and to
shift the responsibility on to someone or
something else. Each time a person does this,
he reinforces and furthers his script.

44. Activity
• In your own game example, what script
beliefs about self, others and the world might
you have been reinforcing at the payoff?
• Which of the life positions do these belief
fits?
• Does that check with the basic life position
you saw yourself in when you were learning
about the OK corral?

45. Game and symbiosis
• The Schiffs suggests that games result from
unresolved symbiotic relationships, in which each
player discounts both himself and the other.
• The players maintain a grandiose beliefs in order
to justify the symbiosis, such as “I can’t do
anything” (Child) or “ I only live for you, dear”
(Parent).
• Thus every game is either an attempt to maintain
an unhealthy symbiosis, or an angry reaction
against that symbiosis.
• At the switch, symbiotic positions gets switched.

46. Activity
• Find what symbiotic
position you took up at
the beginning of the
game in your own
personal example, and
what position you moved
into as the switch.
• Do you identify what
childhood symbiosis you
were replaying or
reacting against.

47. Game and strokes
• Child needs strokes for survival.
• Games are a reliable way of getting a supply of intense
strokes.
• The stroke exchanged in the opening stages of the
game may be positive or negative, depending on the
game.
• At the switch, each player gets or gives intense negative
strokes.
• Whether positive or negative, every stroke exchange
during a game entails a discount.
• Fanita English suggests that people begin seeking game
strokes when their strokes from racketeering are in
danger of running out.

48. Activity
• What strokes are you getting and giving at
each stage of your own game example.
• Did you get into the game when racketeering
strokes were in danger of running out?

49. Advantages of Game playing
In Games people play, Eric Berne listed six
advantages of game playing.
– Internal psychological advantage – maintain
stability of my set of script beliefs.
– External psychological advantage – Avoid
situations that would challenge my frame of
reference.
– Internal social advantage –Games offer a
framework for pseudo intimate socializing indoors
or in privacy.

50. Advantages of Game playing
– External social advantage – Gaming gives us a
theme for gossiping in our wider social circle.
– Biological advantage – It satisfy structure and
stroke hunger.
– Existential advantage – This is the function of the
game in confirming life position.

51. Activity
• What were the six advantages in your own
game example?

52. Positive payoff of games
• John James has developed the idea that games
have real advantages as well as scripty ones.
• He points out that every game brings a
positive payoff as well as a negative payoff.
• A game represents the child’s best strategy to
getting something from the world. When we
play games in adulthood, we are attempting to
meet a genuine child need. It is just that the
means of satisfying that need are outdated
and manipulative.

53. Activity
• What positive payoff did you get at the close
of your own game example?
• You may realize the answer immediately or it
may take you some time and thought.

54. Prepared by
Manu Melwin Joy
Research Scholar
SMS, CUSAT, Kerala
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com