Games People Play

This is the classic book on "mind-games" by the great Eric Berne. This really opened up a window to me on how people manipulate others – and how I had done this to other people, too.

Although its tone is a bit dated and can be irritating, the material remains as relevant and insightful as ever.

In Games People Play, Eric Berne points out the way we can have three major roles in our lives, depending upon who we are communicating with and how we are speaking to them. This can include adult to adult, where communication is direct and factual or it can be parent to child (authoritarian), child to parent (I want or rebellious (I don’t want). In all these cases it is emotional, unlike adult to adult.

Wittgenstein said language was meaningful through use and consisted of word games, unlike Berne who saw them as political/psychological games and not linguistic ones alone,… show more.