The Taproot Podcast - 📖What Happened to Transactional Analysis Book Review of The Games We Play by Eric Berne - www.GetTherapyBirmingham.com

Episode Date: March 27, 2022

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Hey guys, it's Joel with Taproot Therapy Collective and today I'm going to do a book review of Eric Burns transactional analysis book, The Games We Play. I don't know where my copy of this book is, it's somewhere around here or maybe one of the therapists at Taproot has borrowed it off the bookshelf to read it. But this book was an enormous hit throughout the 60s and the 70s, yet it's hard to find anybody that even remembers it now, which makes it kind of interesting to me. It started a movement called transactional analysis. The Byrne started the Transactional Analysis Institute. Right now, even though this was a pretty popular methodology at one point, there are 50, I

think 51, transactional analysis certified people still practicing in the world. So it hasn't lasted yet. It's kind of interesting. So The Games We Play is a book that has a lot of things going on in it. You have in that time period that it's in, of the Cold War, people getting interested in game theory. This is, if you've seen A Beautiful Mind, John Nash's theory that you have to strategically make these moves in order to trick the other person into making those moves. And all of that's kind of in the air in that period.

And you also have a whole lot of psychoanalytic theory. Byrne is kind of grabbing a lot of psychoanalytic thought and a lot of game theory to make this book. But one of the things that he does in the book is says that we have three ego states that we operate in. Child ego state, which is what we're doing, what we think feels good. The adult ego state, which is the best one, which is where we are doing something that is what we've learned is actually effective. And then the parentalized ego state where we're doing what we have been taught is right, the kind of traditional or authoritarian approach. And then the goal of therapy is to help patients operate in this adult ego state where I've learned that this is actually effective and what I want and that's what I'm going to do. But then a lot of times when we're operating in a complex or in neuroses, we kind of get pulled

into this place where we start doing things because we think they're right or we've been taught that they're right without bringing ourself into it or just because we feel like doing that even when we know it's not the right thing. And that when you have people who are operating in a parental or child ego state that you get these things that Byrne calls games. And so the games are common patterns of behavior that happen in society. So one of the most common games that happens is this game called It's Not For You, if it weren't for you. And so if it weren't for you is this, so say there's a woman who wants to, she's afraid of dancing. And she's like of a class where she's expected to dance, go out and dance or something, but she's afraid of it.

And so she marries a man who's an extreme homebody who is social anxiety and won't dance. So she gets to complain about him for her whole life and say, well, if it weren't for you, I would be dancing. And he gets to feel, you know, she gets to feel like she is justified and not afraid, but she's actually angry. And then he feels that, you know, there's kind of a game there. So those kind of things are what Byrne calls games, and he has a whole long list of games in the book. He says that we have to kind of analyze these things in order to overcome these blocked patterns in our lives. It's extremely popular. It gets criticized after it's published by therapists as being pop psychology because it breaks out of the clinical sphere into just the mainstream

culture. And there's, I don't use transactional analysis. I think the way Byrne is intending, but it's definitely a very interesting read. If you're a therapist, it's not a book that a lot of people have heard of that are younger, if they weren't around during that time. One of the things that I do take away from the book that I think is important to use as a therapist is that a lot of times when we are doing therapy, our patients change, right? They maybe have an unhealthy interaction with somebody where they're getting a reward or getting to avoid a fear by staying in this unhealthy relationship and then they learn with themselves and us and therapy that they can change and have this new perspective on things and then when that happens all of a sudden their relationships change the

relationships with family and their relationships with romantic partners and their relationships with friends and i think a lot partners and the relationships with friends. And I think a lot of times we just say, okay, that's a good boundary you have now, so you did a good job. You have this healthy boundary. We don't kind of explain the thing in terms of a system like Byrne is doing. And one of the takeaways that I have from the book that I use a lot is that you say, okay, look, you and your family have been playing this game for years. You're the parent. Your parents are the children. they get to do this, then you get to do

that. You feel responsible and put out and overwhelmed and overburdened, but the authority, and then they feel like they get to self-soothe because they never learned how to do this or whatever the game is. Now you're refusing to play. And what you're doing is you're not enabling them anymore. You're telling them you have to deal with your stuff. I'm not going to help you do this. And you're doing them a favor whether or not they want that gift right now. It's a gift that you're giving them because you're saying, you can look at this stuff about yourself that scares you,

and you can fix it if you want to change. And that's up to everybody if we do that or not. And that's what you're doing. And now your friends have the option of saying, oh, all this stuff you've been telling me to do, I guess I got to figure out how to do it because you're not enabling me anymore. Or they can say, this pisses me off. I don't like the fact that you asked me to look at things about me that scare me. I'm going to find somebody else to be around. But that's a way of conceptualization that I think is effective. And sometimes when you bring the environment into the therapy room in terms of a game or a systemic interaction,

that is one of the takeaways from transactional analysis that I do actually like. So if you have a question or a comment, let me know. And I will keep posting reviews because they seem to garner a lot of questions and interaction. I hope you all have a good day.