Games People Play

procedures and rituals

NIGYSOB is a two-handed game which must be distinguished from ‘Ain’t It Awful’ (AIA). In AIA the agent seeks injustices in order to complain about them to a third party, making a three-handed game: Aggressor, Victim, Confidant. AIA is played under the slogan ‘Misery Loves Company’.

White was exploiting his trivial but socially defensible objection (position) to vent the pent-up furies of many years on his cozening opponent, just as his mother might have done in a similar situation. He quickly recognized his underlying attitude (NIGYSOB) and realized how secretly delighted he had been at the plumber’s provocation. He then recalled that ever since early childhood he had looked for similar injustices, received them with delight and exploited them with the same vigour. In many of the cases he recounted, he had forgotten the actual provocation, but remembered in great detail the course of the ensuing battle.

White took the opportunity to make extensive criticisms of the plumber’s whole way of living.

both White and the plumber were playing games. In the course of their negotiations, they had recognized each other’s potentials. The plumber made his provocative move when he submitted his bill. Since White had the plumber’s word, the plumber was clearly in the wrong. White now felt justified in venting almost unlimited rage against him.

White gets an unbeatable hand, such as four aces. At this point, if he is a NIGYSOB player, he is more interested in the fact that Black is completely at his mercy than he is in good poker or making money.

Pastimes and games are substitutes for the real living of real intimacy.

they have a ‘purpose’ in life. The big celebration, the wedding or housewarming, takes place not when the debt is discharged, but when it is undertaken. What is emphasized on TV, for example, is not the middle-aged man who has finally paid off his mortgage, but the young man who moves into his new home with his family, proudly waving the papers he has just signed and which will bind him for most of his productive years. After he has paid his debts – the mortgage, the college expenses for his children and his insurance – he is regarded as a problem, a ‘senior citizen’ for whom society must provide not only material comforts but a new ‘purpose

children of alcoholics, often go through many of the manoeuvres characteristic of the Alcoholic. ‘See if you can stop me’, which involves lying, hiding things, seeking derogatory comments, looking for helpful people, finding a benevolent neighbour who will give free handouts, etc.

correct therapeutic procedure from a transactional point of view is, after careful preliminary groundwork, to take an Adult contractual position and refuse to play any of the roles, hoping that the patient will be able to tolerate not only abstinence from drinking but also from playing his game. If he cannot, he is best referred to a Rescuer.
Antithesis is particularly difficult, because the heavy drinker is highly regarded in most Western countries as a desirable object for censure, concern or generosity, and someone who refuses to play any of these roles tends to arouse public indignation. A rational approach may be even more alarming to the Rescuers than to the Alcoholic, sometimes with unfortunate consequences to the therapy. In one clinical situation a group of workers were seriously interested in the game ‘Alcoholic’ and were attempting to effect real cures by breaking up the game rather than merely rescuing the patients. As soon as this became apparent, they were frozen out by the lay committee which was backing the clinic, and none of them was ever again called on to assist in treating these patients.