Games People Play: the Psychology of Human Relationships: Eric Berne

Extract

Games People Play is the second of four major books written by Berne describing his theory of psychotherapy, which is called transactional analysis. The other three are Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (1961), Principles of Group Treatment (1966), and What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1972). Berne himself was an American psychiatrist, who although he was trained as a psychoanalyst was never accepted as one. Since his death in 1970, transactional analysis, or TA as it is colloquially called, has continued to flourish with its own organisation, the International Transactional Analysis Association, and quarterly periodical, the Transactional Analysis Journal. There is usually a chapter devoted to it in most textbooks of psychotherapy, such as Corsini's (1973) exemplary Current Psychotherapies. Consequently, it is important to bear in mind that this book is part of a corpus of ideas and of a movement that seems to be maintaining its influence. However, as a theory it appears as yet to have generated very little empirical research concerned with testing its underlying assumptions.