Eric Berne Quotes

The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.

Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future.

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.

The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours

Beautiful friendships” are often based on the fact that the players complement each other with great economy and satisfaction, so that there is a maximum yield with a minimum effort from the games they play with each other.

A loser doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses but talks about what he’ll do if he wins and a winner doesn’t talk about what he’ll do if he wins but knows what he’ll do if he loses.

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

The destiny of every human being is decided by what goes on inside his skull when confronted by what goes on outside his skull.

The solitary individual can structure time in two ways: activity and fantasy.

Such a woman is called "Mother's FRIEND" always ready to give judicious Parental advice and living vicariously on the experience of others

Everyone carries his parents around inside of him.

we shared a common interest in how the past effects people—some let it decide who they are, while others make it part of what they will do.

To hurry is to neglect that environment and to be conscious only of something that is still out of sight down the road, or of mere obstacles, or solely of oneself.

For certain fortunate people there is something which transcends all classifications of behaviour, and that is awareness; something which rises above the programming of the past, and that is spontaneity; and something that is more rewarding than games, and that is intimacy.

The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours.

Salesman: ‘This one is better, but you can’t afford it.’ Housewife: ‘That’s the one I’ll take.

Parents, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, drink, feel and perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter.

If someone frankly asks for reassurance and gets it, that is an operation. If someone asks for reassurance, and after it is given turns it in some way to the disadvantage of the giver, that is a game.

Spontaneity means option, the freedom to choose and express one's feelings from the assortment available.

There is no hope for the human race, but there is hope for individual members of it.

The position is, then, that at any given moment each individual in a social aggregation will exhibit a Parental, Adult or Child ego state, and that individuals can shift with varying degrees of readiness from one ego state to another.

Despair is a concern of the Adult, while in depression it is the Child who has the executive power. Hopefulness, enthusiasm or a lively interest in one's surroundings is the opposite of depression; laughter is the opposite of despair.

In short, a diamond bracelet is a much more honest instrument of courtship than a perforated stomach. She has the option of throwing the jewelry back at him, but she cannot decently walk out on the ulcer. ("Look How Hard I've Been Trying")

the past effects people—some let it decide who they are, while others make it part of what they will do.

It is not difficult to deduce from an individual’s position the kind of childhood he must have had. Unless something or somebody intervenes, he spends the rest of his life stabilizing his position and dealing with situations that threaten it: by avoiding them, warding off certain elements or manipulating them provocatively so that they are transformed from threats into justifications.

Society frowns upon candidness, except in privacy; good sense knows that it can always be abused; and the Child fears it because of the unmasking which it involves. Hence in order to get away from the ennui of pastimes without exposing themselves to the dangers of intimacy, most people compromise for games when they are available, and these fill the major part of the more interesting hours of social intercourse. That is the social significance of games.

Cowboy: ‘Come and see the barn.’ Visitor: ‘I’ve loved barns ever since I was a little girl.

The essential and similar feature of both procedures and rituals is that they are stereotyped. Once the first transaction has been initiated, the whole series is predictable and follows a predetermined course to a foreordained conclusion unless special conditions arise.

At the end of the party, each person will have selected certain players he would like to see more of, while others he will discard, regardless of how skillfully or pleasantly they each engaged in the pastime. The ones he selects are those who seem the most likely candidates for more complex relationships—that is, games. This sorting system, however well rationalized, is actually largely unconscious and intuitive.

A game looks like a set of operations, but after the payoff it becomes apparent that these operations were really maneuvers; not honest requests but moves in the game.

As this is written, a sow bug crawls across a desk. If he is turned over on his back, one can observe the tremendous struggle he goes through to get on his feet again. During this interval he has a ‘purpose’ in his life. When he succeeds, one can almost see the look of victory on his face. Off he goes, and one can imagine him telling his tale at the next meeting of sow bugs, looked up to by the younger generation as an insect who has made it. And

Raising" children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play. Different cultures and different social classes favor different types of games, and various tribes and families favor different variations of these. That is the cultural significance of games.

Individuals who are not comfortable or adept with rituals sometimes evade them by substituting procedures. They can be found, for example, among people who like to help the hostess with preparing or serving food and drink at parties.

Einstein, like myself, found Bern pleasant but boring. And so I wonder: If the Swiss were more interesting, might he never have daydreamed as much as he did? Might he never have developed the Special Theory of Relativity? In other words, is there something to be said for boredom?

Game-free intimacy is or should be the most perfect form of human living. Because there is so little opportunity for intimacy in daily life, and because some forms of intimacy (especially if intense) are psychologically impossible for most people, the bulk of time in serious social life is taken up with playing games. Hence games are both necessary and desirable, and the only problem at issue is whether the games played by an individual offer the best yield for him. In this connexion it should be remembered that the essential feature of a game is its culmination, or payoff. The principal function of the preliminary moves is to set up the situation for this payoff, but they are always designed to harvest the maximum permissible satisfaction at each step as a secondary product. Games are passed on from generation to generation. The favoured game of any individual can be traced back to his parents and grandparents, and forward to his children. Raising children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play. Different cultures and different social classes favour different types of games. Many games are played most intensely by disturbed people, generally speaking, the more disturbed they are, the harder they play. The attainment of autonomy is manifested by the release or recovery of three capacities: awareness, spontaneity and intimacy. Parents, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, think and perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter, since they are deeply ingrained. First, the weight of a whole tribal or family historical tradition has to be lifted. The same must be done with the demands of contemporary society at large, and finally advantages derived from one's immediate social circle have to be partly or wholly sacrificed. Following this, the individual must attain personal and social control, so that all the classes of behaviour become free choices subject only to his will. He is then ready for game-free relationships.

But wether I am faking on a player piano, or striking the chords with the power of my own mind and hands, the song of my life is equally suspenseful and full of surprises as it rolls off the pulsating sounding board of destiny - a barcarole that either way will leave, I hope, happy echoes behind

A few people, however, can still see and hear in the old way. But most of the members of the human race have lost the capacity to he painters, poets or musicians, and are not left the option of seeing and hearing directly even if they can afford to; they must get it secondhand. The recovery of this ability is called here "awareness.

All men and all women have their secret gardens, whose gates they guard against the profane invasion of the vulgar crowd. These are visual pictures of what they would do if they could do as they pleased. The lucky ones find the right time, place, and person, and get to do it, while the rest must wander wistfully outside their own walls.

Father has good reasons on his side, since few people can afford to go through life listening to the birds sing, and the sooner the little boy starts his “education” the better.

Якщо вас не погладити, ваш спинний мозок почне всихати

If you take away the big words and the solemn face, there is still plenty left, so there is no need to be scared.

A game is played from a position, but a position or its corresponding attitude is not a game.

This group may be conveniently called Life Games. It includes “Alcoholic,” “Debtor,” “Kick Me,” “Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch,” “See What You Made Me Do” and their principal variants.

The essential characteristic of human play is not that the emotions are spurious, but that they are regulated. This is revealed when sanctions are imposed on an illegitimate emotional display. Play may be grimly serious, or even fatally serious, but the social sanctions are serious only if the rules are broken. Pastimes and games are substitutes for the real living of real intimacy.

It is not difficult to deduce from an individual's position the kind of childhood he must have had. Unless something or somebody intervenes, he spends the rest of his life stabilizing his position and dealing with situations that threaten it: by avoiding them, warding off certain elements or manipulating them provocatively so that they are transformed from threats into justifications.

The best way to tell a winner from a loser is this: A winner is a person who knows what he'll do next if he loses, but doesn't talk about it; a loser is one who doesn't know what he'll do if he loses, but talks about what he'll do if he wins.

Games are clearly differentiated from procedures, rituals, and pastimes by two chief characteristics: (1) their ulterior quality and (2) the payoff. Procedures may be successful, rituals effective, and pastimes profitable, but all of them are by definition candid; they may involve contest, but not conflict, and the ending may be sensational, but it is not dramatic. Every game, on the other hand, is basically dishonest, and the outcome has a dramatic, as distinct from merely exciting, quality.

It can be shown experimentally that eidetic perception evokes affection, and that candidness mobilizes positive feelings, so that there is even such a thing as "one-sided intimacy" - a phenomenon well known, although not by that name, to professional seducers, who are able to capture their partners without becoming involved themselves. This they do by encouraging the other person to look at them directly and to talk freely, while the male or female seducer makes only a well-guarded pretense of reciprocating.

Solitary confinement is one of the punishments most dreaded even by prisoners hardened to physical brutality, and is now a notorious procedure for inducing political compliance. (Conversely, the best of the known weapons against compliance is social organization.)

Intimacy begins when individual (usually instinctual) programing becomes more intense, and both social patterning and ulterior restrictions and motives begin to give way. It is the only completely satisfying answer to stimulus-hunger, recognition-hunger and structure-hunger.

Wasteful moves are eliminated, and more and more purpose is condensed into each move. “Beautiful friendships” are often based on the fact that the players complement each other with great economy and satisfaction, so that there is a maximum yield with a minimum effort from the games they play with each other.

The patient fights being a winner because he is not in treatment for that purpose, but only to be made into a braver loser. This is natural enough, since if he becomes a braver loser, he can follow his script more comfortably, whereas if he becomes a winner he has to throw away all or most of his script and start over, which most people are reluctant to do.

الدعوة إلي تقويم مسيرة الآخرين ، أو تمزيق أقنعتهم وإرغامهم علي مجابهة الحقيقة المكبوتة، إنما هي دعوة خطرة وهدامة. يحذر إيريك بيرن Eric Berne من خطر تحرير الناس من أوهامهم وإحتيالهم علي أنفسهم ، فقد يتعذر عليهم أن يتحملوا ذلك. لقد بحثوا عن دور يمثلونه، وطريقة يدافعون بها عن أنفسهم، وقناع يرتدونه، لأن ذلك يساعدهم علي التعايش مع واقعهم بطريقة مقبولة. علينا إذا أن ننتبه، وأن ننتبه جيداً ألا نتولي مسؤلية تعريف الآخرين علي حقيقة أوهامهم. لدي كل منا نزعة تدفع به الي تمزيق أقنعة الآخرين وتحطيم خطوط دفاعهم وتركهم عراة، تتسلط عليهم الأضواء الي انرناها. فنتائج ذلك قد تكون مأساوية. فإذا ما تفككت أوصالهم النفسية، من تراه يلملم شتاتها ويعيد التحام كل انسان مع نفسه من جديد؟ من سيفعل؟ أتراك تستطيع الي ذلك سبيلا؟! كتاب: لماذا اخشي ان اقول لك من انا.

[...] a sow bug crawls across a desk. If he is turned over on his back, one can observe the tremenous struggle he goes through to get on his feet again. During this interval he has 'purpose' in his life. When he succeeds, one can almost see the look of victory in his eyes. [...] And yet mixed with his smugness is a little disappointment. Now that he has come out on top, life seems aimless.

In technical language, an ego state may be described phenomenologically as a coherent system of feelings, and operationally as a set of coherent behavior patterns. In more practical terms, it is a system of feelings accompanied by a related set of behavior patterns. Each individual seems to have available a limited repertoire of such ego states, which are not roles but psychological realities.

Negatives are usually said loud and clear, with vigorous enforcement, while positives often fall like raindrops on the stream of life, making little sound and only small ripples. ‘Work hard!’ is found in copybooks, but ‘Stop loafing!’ is more likely to be heard in the home. ‘Always be on time’ is an instructive motto, but ‘Don’t be late!’ is heard more frequently in real life, and ‘Don’t be stupid!’ is more popular than ‘Be bright!

Eric Berne once described it . . . A little boy sees and hears birds with delight. Then the “good father” comes along and feels he should “share” the experience and help his son “develop.” He says: “That’s a jay, and this is a sparrow.” The moment the little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. He has to see and hear them the way the father wants him to. Father has good reasons on his side, since few people can go through life listening to the birds sing, and the sooner the boy starts his “education” the better. Maybe he will be an ornithologist when he grows up. A few people, however, can still see and hear in the old way. But most of the members of the human race have lost the capacity to be painters, poets, or musicians, and are not left the option of seeing and hearing directly even if they can afford to; they must get it secondhand.5

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.

The solitary individual can structure time in two ways: activity and fantasy. An individual can remain solitary even in the presence of others, as every schoolteacher knows. When one is a member of a social aggregation of two or more people, there are several options for structuring time. In order of complexity, these are: (1) Rituals; (2) Pastimes; (3) Games; (4) Intimacy; and (5) Activity, which may form a matrix for any of the others. The goal of each member of the aggregation is to obtain as many satisfactions as possible from his transactions with other members. The more accessible he is, the more satisfactions he can obtain. Most of the programming of his social operations is automatic. Since some of the ‘satisfactions’ obtained under this programming, such as self-destructive ones, are difficult to recognize in the usual sense of the word ‘satisfactions’, it would be better to substitute some more non-committal term, such as ‘gains’ or ‘advantages’.

a sow bug crawls across a desk. If he is turned over on his back, one can observe the tremendous struggle he goes through to get on his feet again. During this interval he has a “purpose” in his life. When he succeeds, one can almost see the look of victory on his face. Off he goes, and one can imagine him telling his tale at the next meeting of sow bugs, looked up to by the younger generation as an insect who has made it. And yet mixed with his smugness is a little disappointment. Now that he has come out on top, life seems aimless. Maybe he will return in the hope of repeating his triumph. It might be worth marking his back with ink, so as to recognize him if he risks it. A courageous animal, the sow bug. No wonder he has survived for millions of years.

Иногда в психотерапевтических группах встречается элегантный вариант игры в "Тупик", который можно назвать игрой типа Рассела–Уайтхеда. Блэк: "Ну, во всяком случае, когда мы молчим, никто не играет в игры". Уайт: "Молчание само по себе может быть игрой". Рэд: "Сегодня никто не играет в игры". Уайт: "Но не играть в игры тоже может быть игрой".

Freud’s discussions of “psychic energy” and “cathexis” (Besetzungsenergie) are among his most obscure. Some of the difficulties may reside with his translators.{18} Colby{19} has attempted to resolve some of these problems. The simplest course is to accept gratefully the concept of cathexis and attempt to correlate it with one’s own observations.

Games People Play by Eric Berne

Freud knew the answers. If you don't understand something about sex, don't say it's awful or mysterious. Look it up in Freud.

But many times the cage has an open door, and a man has only to walk out if he wishes. If he does not, it is usually his script which keeps him there. That is familiar and reassuring, and after looking out at the great world of freedom with all its joys and dangers, he turns back to the cage with its buttons and levers, knowing that if he keeps busy pushing them, and pushes the right one at the right time, he will be assured of food, drink, and an occasional thrill. But always, such a caged person hopes or fears that some force greater than himself, the Great Experimenter or the Great Computer, will change or end it all.

In short, ‘Be careful!’ too often means: ‘Make a mistake so I can tell you I told you to be careful,’ and that is the final display. ‘Be careful, ha ha!’ is even more of a provocation. As a straight Adult instruction ‘Be careful!’ may have some value, but Parental overconcern or a Child Ha Ha gives it a different turn.

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To hurry is to neglect that environment and to be conscious only of something that is still out of sight down the road, or of mere obstacles, or solely of oneself

Friendship is a vital part of what Eric Berne described as ‘recognition hunger’, ‘the quest for special kinds of sensations which can only be supplied by another human being, or in some cases, by other animals’ (Berne, 1972/75, page 41). This

Now, as your adult gives your wounded inner child permission to disobey your parents’ beliefs and rules, your inner child must believe that you have enough power to go against your parents. This power is what Eric Berne called potency,

Pastimes form the basis for the selection of acquaintances, and may lead to friendship. A party of women who drop in at each other’s houses every morning for coffee to play “Delinquent Husband” are likely to give a cool reception to a new neighbor who wants to play “Sunny Side Up.

Structural analysis leads to some surprising conclusions concerning “normal” people, which are nevertheless in accord with competent clinical judgment. In structural terms, a “happy” person is one in whom important aspects of the Parent, the Adult, and the Child are all syntonic with each other….The following anecdote illustrates the structure of the “happy” personality carried to its logical end: A young man came home one day and announced to his mother: “I’m so happy! I’ve just been promoted!” His mother congratulated him, and as she got out the bottle of wine she had been saving for such an occasion, she asked him what his new appointment was. ‘This morning,” said the young man, “I was only a guard at the concentration camp, but tonight I’m the new commandant!” “Very good, my son,” said his mother, “see how well I’ve brought you up!” In this case, Parent, Adult, and Child were all interested in and gratified by his career, so that he met the requirements for “happiness.” He fulfilled his mother’s ambitions for him with patriotic rationality while obtaining gratification of his archaic sadism. In this light, it is not so surprising that in real life many of these people were able to enjoy good music and literature in their leisure hours. This distasteful example raises some serious questions about certain naive attitudes concerning the relationship between happiness, virtue, and usefulness, including the Greek aspect of “good workmanship.” It is also an effective illustration for people who want to know “how to raise children” but cannot specify clearly what they want to raise them to be. It is not enough to want to raise them to be “happy.

Despair is a concern of the Adult, while in depression it is the Child who has the executive power.

As this is written, a sow bug crawls across a desk. If he is turned over on his back, one can observe the tremendous struggle he goes through to get on his feet again. During this interval he has a “purpose” in his life. When he succeeds, one can almost see the look of victory on his face. Off he goes, and one can imagine him telling his tale at the next meeting of sow bugs, looked up to by the younger generation as an insect who has made it. And yet mixed with his smugness is a little disappointment. Now that he has come out on top, life seems aimless. Maybe he will return in the hope of repeating his triumph. It might be worth marking his back with ink, so as to recognize him if he risks it. A courageous animal, the sow bug. No wonder he has survived for millions of years.

games are integral and dynamic components of the unconscious life-plan, or script, of each individual; they serve to fill in the time while he waits for the final fulfillment, simultaneously advancing the action.

The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours. In this existential sense, the function of all social living is to lend mutual assistance for this project. The operational aspect of time-structuring may be called programing. It has three aspects: material, social and individual. The most common, convenient, comfortable, and utilitarian method of structuring time is by a project designed to deal with the material of external reality: what is commonly known as work. Such a project is technically called an activity; the term “work” is unsuitable because a general theory of social psychiatry must recognize that social intercourse is also a form of work.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS TODAY More than 10,000 people around the world today define themselves as transactional analysts. There are formal regional groups in many countries, one international organization, and five multinational ones: The International Transactional Analysis Association, the Americas Transactional Analysis Association (ATAA), the Western Pacific Association of Transactional Association (WPATA), The Asociación Latinoamericana de Análysis Transaccional (ALAT), and the European Association of Transactional Analysis (EATA).

Because ‘achievers’ have to be ‘good,’ they tend to keep their feelings under careful control, and they often suffer from ulcers or high blood pressure.

A variant of "Psychiatry" is "Archaeology" (title by courtesy of Dr. Norman Reider of San Francisco), in which the patient takes the position that if she can only find out who had the button, so to speak, everything will suddenly be all right. This results in a continual rumination over childhood happenings.