Playing games

The human race has played games since time immemorial. This week’s issue of Time magazine has looked deeply at sports and other games that bring people "togetherness" and help young ones in various countries transform their lives.

A fine read for those among us who make football and chess a passion.

Another superb read for me however, was a tiny little paper back that I had read with interest at age 25 and picked up again at the threshold of age 50 to re-read and get a clearer, different perspective.

I was not disappointed with Dr Eric Berne’s Games People Play which deals with the psychology of human relationships with an idea to live a life that is game free.

Dr Berne is quite clear on the significance of games and clearly explains that: Games are passed from generation to generation; raising children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play; games are sandwiched between pastimes and intimacy, and people pick as friends, associates and intimates, other people who play the same games.

Although this little gem deals with transactional analysis in psychotherapy, it has been written so that it can be read by you and me and clearly understood. In Part I of the book he provides an analysis of games while in Part II he provides a thesaurus of games which is an intricate investigation of life games, marital games, party games, sexual games and underworld games.

The second part is fun simply because as I read through, I could easily identify with the people that have touched my life and some that still do and the games we played because we did not know better.

In Part III, Dr Berne goes "beyond games" to help people get to the attainment of "autonomy" which is a life that is free of psychological games.

And that, the eminent doctor finally points out, is when people return to the innocence of the "natural child" before it was corrupted by the games passed on by parents, teachers and the societies we live in – a person capable of awareness, spontaneity and intimacy who decides on what is acceptable and what is not and questions everything.

That is a happy place to be, but, the unlearning of past lessons can make a challenging sport.

Nirmala Janssen
editor@alnisrmedia.com

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