The premise of Games People Play by Eric Berne is that human beings as children are imbued with certain rituals, needs, desires, and thoughts by their parents and by their society. As they become adults, they do not fully transition from child to adult. Their relationships with others, characterized by the scripts they are willing to engage in, are not fully autonomous.
A part of the adult’s psyche is a child who has unmet needs. For example, the boy that was neglected by his mother because she was preoccupied with other things, like taking care of his siblings, will feel a certain subconscious resentment to his mother even in adulthood.
This man’s ideal of woman was desecrated by the natural processes of life, and so he grows up to dislike women, even though he might be a serial womanizer (a Don Juan). The opposite is true for women, for them it is an emotional gap that exists in their relationships with their fathers. And when these women have adult relationships, their partner should tread carefully lest he be labelled as being “just like her father.”
Games are different from rituals, they are patterns of behavior that have a payoff in the end. We subconsciously engage in these games for several reasons, including the dominance of the child personality within us, but also because games are somewhat predictable and help us avoid intimacy that is sometimes inappropriate or uncomfortable in social settings. It is better not to discuss the meaning of life with a group of strangers you have just been introduced to. Instead, it is safer socially to engage in conversational games where the same types of topics are discussed. Men like to discuss sports or cars, for example, while women will discuss wardrobe ideas. These socially acceptable patterns allow individuals to relax their anxieties and take part in an act that keeps their emotional vulnerabilities at bay.
But games are not restricted to social settings, there are all kinds of games, from sexual to marital to family etc… Some are life games. One described in the book is the one between the domineering husband and submissive wife. The husband tells his wife to take care of the home, while the wife blames him for not allowing her to fulfill her potential or be happier – this game is called IWFY (If it wasn’t for you) – the author provides us with creative acronyms to describe typical behavioural patterns. The wife complains to her friends about her terrible husband who prevents her from having fun, but really what’s going on is that the children within them are talking to each other subconsciously and meeting their unspoken emotional needs.
On the surface, it seems the husband is the adult and the woman is the child (the husband is telling the woman what to do) but psychologically, what’s going on is different. The husband really is saying “I cannot bear to endure abandonment, I need you at home at all times” while the wife is saying “I will do that if you protect me from my phobias.”
Another example can be found with gamblers. Some are motivated by the adult urge to win, in which case they may operate a casino where they can’t lose, while only occasionally engaging in gambles that they are likely to lose (the Child urge). While others are controlled by the child, and spend their time engaged in the kind of gambling that will almost certainly cause them to lose.
The purpose of knowing about these games is to free oneself of parental conditioning, but it is a constant struggle because it requires a series of decisions to be made that are reversible. It is a constant effort. The final goal is to enter relationships where games do not exist, where the personality is not a pathological mix of adult and child but is now wholly an adult one. This requires a friendly divorce from the parents in that they are no longer dominant but are visited occasionally.
The easier solution is to congregate. There is safety in numbers and in groups even if the individual members are plagued by pathologies. It is difficult to look for intimacy and find something that is more valuable than games, to reject your past programming by embracing spontaneity, or by choosing to become aware and transcending all behavioural patterns. By engaging in popular social action, you may safely isolate yourself from these challenges, and it is tempting for most people. For that reason, there is probably no hope for the human race, but there may be hope for the individual.