Thursday 3 August 2017

Energy Games

The Games People Play by Dr Eric Berne

ISBN: 0-345-41003-3
Published by Grove Press

Transactional Analysis of Social Psychology

Dr Eric Berne teaches a very basic system for;

1 recognising: how people interact.
2 what happens when we do, in terms of ‘energy’ shifting from person to person.
3 establishing a perception from which we can observe that energy does shift between people, and that this phenomena forms a foundation of how people create and manipulate situations to enable them to shift energy in their own favour.

Games People Play was published in 1964 and is no less relevant today. The social focus has shifted, the jargon we use in 2017 is different to that used in 1964, and yet the situation is the same. The basic model created by Dr Berne is the same and is still highly useful in assessing interpersonal situations. The model reveals underlaying structures and dynamics of social scenarios.

I use its guidance often. Combined with my own experiences and the knowledge base from another book called The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield which teaches about what happens when people are low- and high- on energy, the different worlds we manifest, this forms the basis of my world view.

My specialist focus is on exposing abuse and establishing methods to deal with it holistically. This has made me both friends and enemies. There are two camps - those who work positively to create energy for the betterment of all (Service to Others) are those who fight for Humanitarian ideals, and those who exploit individuals for service to dysfunction (Service to Self) are those who abuse and permit abuse.  

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."


The rules of the boardgame Diplomacy are very similar to the basic interpersonal model by Dr Berne. They both operate a black/white step-by-step structural outline in minimalist terms to observe  the flow and exploitation of energy between people and groups of people, and how various strategies develop to manipulate this for personal gain and/or communal gain. The conclusion of Diplomacy is that alliances and stability are more important, desirable, successful than are power, control and domination. This is compatible with the conclusion of Games People Play which is that successful people do not play (energy control) games.


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