TA Game Theory

TA game theory explains the psychology of human relationships. Games are repeating patterns of interactions that show up in people who are adversely affected by script.  Games can be thought of as segments of script. That while life script is played over a life time, games are parts thereof which are played out in shorter periods of time. Games are also units of social time structuring. 

Games are sets of ulterior transactions, repetitive in nature, with a well-defined psychological payoff. 

Ulterior transactions - the persons pretend to be doing one thing while they are really doing something else. 

The payoff is described as being psychological. It means that it rewards a disturbed life - a psychologically, mentally, emotionally, socially disturbed life. The payoffs of games are racket feelings. 

Colloquially the payoff is called a trading stamp. Good feelings are gold trading stamps and distressing feelings are said to be brown or blue trading stamps. Grandiosity is a counterfeit gold trading stamp. 

Every game has a slogan such as I am only trying to help you. This slogan is colloquially called a sweatshirt. Usually the name of the game is taken from its slogan.

Games afford pseudo-intimacy. Persons free of game engagements have the capacity to establish authentic intimacy. Bilateral intimacy is defined as a candid game-free relationship, with mutual free giving and receiving and without exploitation. Intimacy can be one sided or both sided.

Games are one of the six types of social time structuring.  

There are good games too. It is doubtful if they strictly fulfil the requirements of a dynamic to qualify to be a game. Here are two excerpts from Clarke's Dictionary of Transactional Analysis. The first one lists them as constructive games citing TAB 1962:1(1)) At the first listed meeting of the San Francisco Social Psychiatry Seminars, on September 26, 1962, Dr. Berne presented on, what he called "... constructive sets of transactions which closely resemble games" For instance, Busman's Holiday (helping while on vacation); Cavalier (poetic non-sexual gallantry); Happy to Help (any time): Homely Sage; and They'll Be Glad They Knew Me (a 'good' version of I'll Show them). And citing  Zechnich, Good Games, TAJ 1973:3(1)52-56) A good game is one which:

1. Is genuinely enjoyed by both (or all) players. 

2. It does not hurt or damage anyone. 

3. It is optional

Zechnich lists four games which are good games. They are : Ain't it wonderful, Furthermore, If it weren't for You and Cops and Robbers. 

Are good games different from dysfunctional games. My take is that they surely are. I don't think they have a Cross-up and a payoff. People get into emotional hypes, blaming the other, justifying and downspin thinking when ferrying through cross-up. The payoffs of games are one on several racket feeling that Berne lists in his Hello Book. The payoffs of good games are none of those. Besides Berne insists that the progress of a game needs meet the elements of Formula G. If they don't it is not a game. Therefore good games are not games. 

A study of games gets us to understand how deep seated unresolved issues show up in interactions. In fact games are the medium through which the life plan - script, journeys us to achieve its payoff. The script payoff is our destiny.

Games are segments of script. This means that they are not different from script. They get the persons to play out the life plan in the short term. Games are the principal if not the only contributors that help to keep the script going. 

The progress of game is represented by Formula G. This is also called as the game formula. It is called a game formula because it lists the characteristic sequence of events in a game.

C + G = R -> S -> X -> P

Con + Gimmick = Response -> Switch -> Crossup -> Payoff

C + G means that the con hooks into a gimmick so that the respondent responds (R).  The player then pulls the switch (S) and that is followed by a moment of confusion, surprise called crossup (X) after which both players collect their payoff (P).

Whatever fits this formula is a game and whatever does not fit is not a game.

If interactions do not follow the formula they are called an operation or operations no matter how often they are repeated. 

If a client askes the therapist for a reassurance and receives it, it is not a game. However, upon receiving it, if the client uses it to make the therapist look stupid, that constitutes a game. When a game occurs the client's question hooks the therapist's sentimentality.

Games signal loss of social control. Social control is a capacity. This capacity enables persons to resist the manipulation by others of them in damaging or destructive ways, and also enable them to resist the urge to manipulate others in similar ways.

Games hijack player's capacity for conscious awareness and drags the person to function in accordance with the dictates of the person's script and deliver the person to the payoff to suffer the outcome of the dynamic. 

People get habituated to take recourse to  games because it is difficult for human beings to express themselves candidly, openly and honestly without threat or remorse. 

TA IS A META THEORY

TA qualifies to be a meta theory because it derives its theme content from the contributing theories. The subject matter of a meta theory is a theory itself. It aims to describe the theory in a systematic way using other component theories while doing so. 

TA is a derives its theme content from the contributing theories. TA theory is based on psychodynamic theory, humanistic psychology, behaviourism and cognitive psychology.

TA is a theory in itself. It is variously defined as a theory of personality, a theory of social action, a theory of time structuring, a theory of human behaviour, a theory of human interactions, a psychology of human relationships, a theory of life plans and life styles, a theory of human destiny, theory of psychological hungers, a theory that elaborates ego psychology, a theory that lays out group treatment, a theory that lays out a method of brief therapy, a systematic method to implement treatment in terms of Structural Analysis, TA Proper,  Game Analysis and Script Analysis, and a systematic method to practice one's profession in a constructive way. 

Berne writes about what transactional analysis is in the glossary of his book Principles of Group Treatment. He says that Transactional Analysis is :

1. A system of psychotherapy based on the analysis of transactions and chains of transactions as they actually occur during treatment sessions. 

2. A theory of personality based on the study of specific ego states.

3. A theory of social action based on the rigorous analysis of transactions in exhaustive but finite number of classes based on the specific ego states involved. 

4. The analysis of single transactions by means of transactional diagrams. This is transactional analysis proper.

TA endeavours to explain and describe the meaning of transactional analysis in terms of slogans that appear below the book titles as a Systematic Individual and Social Psychiatry, a Psychology of Human Relationships and a Psychology of Human Destiny.  It also does so by presenting the body of TA Theory in terms of five theories namely, TA Theory of Personality, TA Stroke Theory, TA Theory of Communication, TA Game Theory and TA Script Theory. 

The Game Theory is one of six theories of TA. The other five are - TA Theory of Personality, TA Stroke Theory, TA Proper, TA Racket Theory and TA Script Theory.

WHY PEOPLE PLAY GAMES

People play games. They are played energetically because they reward six benefits called advantages of games. They are :

1. Games help maintain the stability of script beliefs - this is the 'internal psychological advantage'.

2. They help avoid threat to one's frame of reference - this is the 'external psychological advantage'.

3. They provide pseudo-intimacy - this is the 'internal social advantage'.

4. They provide space for engaging in gossip as a pastime - this is the 'external social advantage'.

5. They yield a rich supply of strokes - this is the 'biological advantage'. 

6. They reinforce life position - this is the 'existential advantage'.

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF GAMES

1. The players have no clue about them before commencement of the dynamic. They take us by surprise.

2. They occur again and again. They make us fall in the same pit again and again.

3. They occur no matter how we decide to stay away.

4. They deliver one's favoured racket feelings.

5. They occur outside of Adult Conscious Awareness.

6. Each party holds the other participant responsible and is convinced that the person her/ himself is not the reason or cause. The person blames the other party for its occurrence.

7. Players are at their wits end to get rid of the racket feelings and downspin thinking that grip the victim's mind.

8. Players are unable to restore normalcy post occurrence.

9. Only mutuality can get the parties to return to peace.

10. They are repetitive.

CLASSIFICATION OF GAMES

Games can be classified in two ways. One in terms of popular literature and the other in a way Berne has mentioned about them.

Classification by Game Groupings and related games.

1. Life Games - Alcoholic, Debtor, Kick me, NIGYSOB 

2. Marital Games - Cornered, Court-room, Harried, Frigid, If it weren't for you, See how hard I tried. NIGYSOB

3. Party Games - Ain't it Awful, Blemish, Schlemiel, Why don't you Yes But

4. Sexual Games - Rapo, Uproar, Let's you and him fight

5. Under-world Games - Cops and Robbers, Let's pull a fast one, My time will also come, I will show you when my turn comes

6. Consulting Room Games - I'm only trying to help you, Psychiatry, Stupid, Wooden Leg, Poor Me

7. Money Games - Debtor, Creditor, NIGYSOB. Try and Get Away With It

8. Good Games - Happy to Help, They'll be glad / Happy. They know me

9. Others - Poor Me, Help-less, Guilty, Someone Help Me, It hurts

Berne has classified games on different lines.

1. Number of players : Two Handed (Frigid Woman), Three Handed (Lets You and Him Fight), Five Handed (Alcoholic) and Many-handed (Why Don't You, Yes But) Also  in terms of :

Flexibility - Some require specific currency, others use a variety of currencies.

Tenacity - Some give up their games easily usually when they wake up next day for another round just like the games of boxing and wrestling. and

Intensity - Some play in a relaxed manner, some others in a calculated way, some other still are tense and aggressive and do it with purpose to hurt deny, teach a lesson, mess up the other's life (Court Room).

2 Currency Used : Words (Psychiatry), Money (Debtor), Parts of Body (Polysurgery).

3. Clinical Types : Hysterical (Rapo), Obsessive Compulsive (Schlemiel) Paranoid (Why Does This Have to Happen to Me / With Me). Depressive/I cannot take it any more, Enough is Enough.

4. Zonal : Oral (Alcoholic) Anal (Schliemel), Phallic (Let's You and Him Fight). 

5. Psychodynamic : Counter-phobic (If it Weren't for You), Projective (PTA) Introjective (Psychiatry). 

6. Instinctual Masochistic (If it Weren't for You), Sadistic (Schlemiel), Fetishistic (Frigid).

DEGREES OF GAMES

Degrees point to the intensity of affect and social damage resulting from game play. 

Degrees of Games match the degrees of Script and also show up as the conviction with which people play them.

1. First Degree - Result in material discussed in social, official or club meetings.

2. Second Degree - They impact relationships. They are kept secret. They are not discussed. The parties are smarting in anger (and its variants - dislike, hate, resentment), hurt, pain, injury, insult but would not discuss them social circles. Only a few know about their existence.

3. Third Degree - They result in bodily, mental, psychological, emotional, relationship injury. Result in death, jail, sequestration, confinement in mental facility, becoming confined in a mental facility or becoming a runaway. 

IMPACT OF GAMES

The impact of games is most felt in matrimonial relationships and has a significant impact on the well being of children at home. Games 'add spice to life'. They are played akin to between meals snacking. 

WHY DO PEOPLE PLAY GAMES

A question arises why is it that we play games. They happen for the following reasons :

1. To service psychological hungers.

2. To structure time in the mid-term.

3. To generate rackets, stamps and sweatshirts.

4. As a contributor to protect the person's frame of reference.

5. To help maintain the inertia and stability of the script.

HOW TO END GAMES

Games can be ended by 

1. By using options. How

1.1 By returning to original topic at switch.

1.2 By establishing intimacy in thought and interactions. 

1.3 By rejecting justifying and protecting at crossup.

1.4 By walking out of payoff saying "Ye kya main phas gaya, Ye kya main phisal gaya. Oh. What the hell. I am trapped. I have slipped.

1.5 By becoming a 7 year old and establish old association again. 

2. By catching the Con and moving to discuss the original topic.

3. By noticing Driver Behaviour.

4. By moving to Intimacy at Switch.

5. By reminding self that person is lovable.

6. By noticing assumption of Drama Triangle Roles.

Here are some ways of getting rid of game traps on the way.

1. By having a prior contract with partner to take specific steps to walk out of its trap.

2. By discarding the Urge, Drive, Impulse by recognising that it is the system that is driving us and no we the person.

3. By discarding Transferential Relating,

4. By noticing Dysfunctional Thinking patterns.

5. By noticing Child Subjective Reasoning

6. By noticing the experiencing of feelings like Child or like Parent.

7. By noticing child like conclusions, fantasy, imaginative thinking, building stories to reason out.

8. By discarding planning in order to give back.

9. By becoming a seven year old and using the capacities of that age for forgiving and forgetting.

10. By forgetting the new story and reverting to the old story.

11. By not allowing our adverse views of the other to become permanent.

12. By knowing people are playing game in service of script and as character role of Aristotelian Tragic Drama. It is unfortunate that they have got trapped in the character role of the drama and are at their wits end to exit the drama as are we ourselves.

13. By realising that we are caught in the no exit  maze.

14. By becoming aware that the demon is at work to lead us down the dark alley to our doom.

15. By actively working to bring down the  frequency, intensity, impact and stuckness at and post cross-up.

THE DRAMA TRIANGLE

The Drama Triangle

The drama triangle is also known as Karpman's Triangle. It was contributed by Stephen Karpman. He was a enthusiastic field games spectator. He used to keep notes and logs of the games he watched. One day he showed his logs to Berne. Berne invited him to reduce the moves to a bare minimum and associate them with those in dramas. In dramas some characters shift roles. Thus the drama triangle was born. 

The drama triangle is an inverted equilateral triangle.

People engaged in games move to play three roles. These are those of Persecutor, of Rescuer and of Victim. These roles correspond to negative functional ego states CP-, NP- and AC-.  Their corresponding life positions are I+U-, I+U- and I-U+.

The roles are shown in the diagram by their abbreviated letters P, R and V.

People engaging in games shift roles on the drama triangle as they proceed in the game. These shift of roles are show by arrows in both directions as shown in the figure below.

The players enter into one role and exit through another these moves are marked by entry and exit arrows as shown in the figure below.

Games occur in pairs with the partners playing their own favoured games and therefore their related roles on the drama triangle.

The figure below shows two drama triangles in combination showing complementing roles of the game.

The drama triangle is an intelligently designed diagram on to which many patterns of interpersonal interactions (in particular games) are mapped. 

Role shifts in pairs of complementary games can be visualised in P-R-V formats. Here are examples of such combinations.

P -> V and V -> P

R -> V and V -> R

R -> P and P -> R

the games associated with each of them are listed here :

P -> V : Kick Me, Cops and Robbers, If it Weren't for You.

V -> P NIGYSOB, Yes But, Rapo, Wooden Leg, See what you make me do, Debtor

R  -> V Let me show you how, I'm only trying to help you, Yes But, Creditor

V -> R Let me help you, It's OK - I'm OK, What can you do now, Time is over 

R -> P How hard I have tried, NIGYSOB, Enough is enough

P -> R Sorry, I'm Sorry, Oh my God, What a mess I am, I'll put it all right

ANALYSIS OF GAMES

Analysis of games is the third stage in treatment. It helps the therapist to identify the significant transactional operations (manoeuvers) a person engages in relevant to the game that the client plays in life. It is also the therapist's job to get the client to understand what happens that causes most of the distressing situations in his life. Here is a case.

Ritu and her husband Rishi used to drive out of town twice a month to meet Rishi's mother. The whole journey used to go fine except for the last leg of 10-15 minutes. It used to go like this. At or near a signal some two kilometers from their house Ritu used to ask Rishi to be careful. She used to find him weaving through the traffic. Rishi then used to tell her to mind her own business and not spoil a good day. Then Ritu would say in reply: "What has happened to you? What have I done?" He would reply: "Why are you interfering in my driving. I know it well." Then after a few interactions there would be silence. It would last the rest of the day with Rishi being out of mood. Rishi used to blame her for starting the conversation. It continued for a while till they both attended a Games Workshop. Rishi got the insight that it was not his wife that was the cause. He himself was. His weaving through the traffic close to their house was a racket behaviour. That behaviour triggered the game.

Analysis of Games can be done in many ways. They are:

• John James Formula

• Drama Triangle

• Formal Analysis based on Advantages from Games

• Formula G

• Transactional Game Analysis, and

• Using Symbiosis Diagrams.

John James Formula : Games represent learnt patterns of behaviours that keep happening again and again. John James calls this the Game Plan. A person can discover the nature of his game by asking these questions:

1. What keeps happening over and over again;

2. How does it start?

3. What happens next?

4. And then what happens?

5. How does it end?

6. How do you feel after it ends?

7. How does the other feel when it ends?

We can use this formula to reveal the game of Rishi.

1. What keeps happening over and over again.

A good day is spoilt every single time I return home with my wife from a long drive.

2. How does it start?

My wife comments on my driving skills.

3. What happens next?

I defend asking her not to interfere.

4. And then what happens?

A discussion (actually an argument) ensues.

5. How does it end?

It ends with I asking my wife to mind her own business and not to interfere. A lull in our relationship lasts thereafter for the day.

6. How do you feel after it ends?

I feel angry for the rest of the day.

7. How does the other feel after it ends?

She feels a mixture of sad, angry, frustrated and stressed.

Drama Triangle

The drama triangle helps the therapist to map the moves people engage in. It is easy for the clients to understand without necessarily knowing TA. The complementary game Ritu and Rishi played is 'Here We Go Again'. Ritu plays 'I'm only trying to help you' and Rishi plays a variation of NIGYSOB.

Mapped on the drama triangle their moves are shown in the diagram in figure below :

Also

Game Analysis based on advantages for Rishi : Formal Game Analysis is carried out on the basis of the six advantages. They are :

Existential advantage: Reinforcing of one's life position. For Rishi it is I’m OK, You’re not OK.

Biological advantage: Game helps generate the favourite types of racket feelings - strokes. Rishi gets strokes for being angry.

Internal Psychological Advantage : Game reinforces one's script belief. Reinforcing the belief that people do not trust me though I am good in whatever I do.

External Psychological Advantage : By being angry Rishi avoids getting into a heated argument. Not expressing his feelings is also his racket.

Internal Social Advantage: It helps to avoid intimacy. Rishi and Ritu stay away from congeniality for a day or two.

External Social Advantage: It gives Rishi a topic to discuss when he speaks to folks who visit them.

Formula G

Con: Look you are weaving through the traffic.

Gimmick: My knowing how to drive well is challenged.

Switch: Don’t tell me how to do what I know well.

Cross-up: Ritu – He may hurt someone. Why does he feel offended? I only tried to help him. Rishi – Why does she interfere in my driving. I know what I’m doing.

Payoff: Ritu – sad because she is insulted and slighted though she tries to help. Rishi – angry because she cornered him.

Transactional Game Analysis

The interlocking games are shown before and after switch using Transactional Diagrams.

Using Symbiosis Diagrams

In symbiotic relationships or invitations for symbiotic relationships like the ones between game participants ego states are excluded. The corresponding ego states of the partner become used for maintaining stability of the script. This is shown in the figure appearing here.

SIMILARITIES GAMES BEAR TO GAMES AND SPORTS

Psychological games bear quite a few similarities games that are played in ordinary life as sport etcetera. 

1. In terms of key components

1.1 Both need to have participants.

1.2 Both need to have objectives for which they are played.

1.3 Both need to pose challenges to participants.

1.4 Both need to have a structure and rules that need to be followed.

1.5 Both are played for a reward which is received by winners at end of the game.

2. The word game is used in many parts of speech of which some match that of psychological games.

2.1 He is playing a game. Ignore him.

2.2 He is playing a game on us. Ignore him.

2.3 I am game. Let's go.

2.4 Come lets spend time playing a game of cards.

2.5 Chess and Expedition (called shatranj and chaupar in Hindi) are games persons of princely class used to play in former times. They learnt strategising by playing them.

2.6 Birds and animals are used as game to practice shooting.

Psychological games are similar to ordinary games for they are ordinarily a form of play or sport. It is an activity to have fun, entertainment, enjoy togetherness, to team up or for diversion to pass time. A game means offering oneself to be used, as in to be a game. Game is also a procedure or tactic for gaining an end.

Game is a shady scheme or racket. 

The word game is also used to mean an illegal or shady scheme trick or  racket.

We come across games in a variety of formats. They are listed in this picture.

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