Games People Play_ The Psychology of Human Relationships - Eric Berne [38]
If she is actually playing a game of ‘Harried’, however, it will be very difficult for her to adhere to this principle. In that case the husband is carefully chosen; he is an otherwise reasonable man who will criticize his wife if she is not as efficient as he thinks his mother was. In effect, she marries his fantasy of his mother as perpetuated in his Parent, which is similar to her fantasy of her mother or grandmother. Having found a suitable partner, her Child can now settle into the harassed role necessary to maintain her psychic balance, and which she will not readily give up. The more occupational responsibility the husband has, the easier it is for both of them to find Adult reasons to preserve the unhealthy aspects of their relationship.
When the position becomes untenable, often because of official school intervention on behalf of the unhappy offspring, the psychiatrist is called in to make it a three-handed game. Either the husband wants him to do an overhaul job on the wife, or the wife wants him as an ally against the husband. The ensuing proceedings depend on the skill and alertness of the psychiatrist. Usually the first phase, the alleviation of the wife’s depression, will proceed smoothly. The second phase, in which she will give up playing ‘Harried’ in favour of playing ‘Psychiatry’, is the decisive one. It tends to arouse increasing opposition from both spouses. Sometimes this is well concealed and then explodes suddenly, though not unexpectedly. If this stage is weathered, then the real work of game analysis can proceed.
It is necessary to recognize that the real culprit is the wife’s Parent, her mother or grandmother; the husband is to some extent only a lay figure chosen to play his role in the game. The therapist has to fight not only this Parent and the husband, who has a heavy investment in playing his end, but also the social environment, which encourages the wife’s compliance. The week after the article appears about the many roles a housewife has to play, there is a How’m I Doing? in the Sunday paper: a ten-item test to determine ‘How Good A Hostess (Wife) (Mother) (Housekeeper) (Budgeteer) Are You?’ For the housewife who plays ‘Harried’, that is the equivalent of the little leaflet that comes with children’s games, stating the rules. It may help to speed up the evolution of ‘Harried’, which, if not checked, may end in a game of ‘State Hospital’ (‘The last thing I want is to be sent to a hospital’).
One practical difficulty with such couples is that the husband tends to avoid personal involvement with the treatment beyond playing ‘Look How Hard I’m Trying’, because he is usually more disturbed than he cares to admit. Instead he may send indirect messages to the therapist, through temper outbursts which he knows will be reported by the wife. Hence ‘Harried’ easily progresses to a third-degree life-death-divorce struggle. The psychiatrist is almost alone on the side of life, assisted only by the harried Adult of the patient which is locked in combat that may prove mortal against all three aspects of the husband, allied with her own inner Parent and Child. It is a dramatic battle, with odds of two against five, which tries the skill of the most game-free and professional therapist. If he quails, he can take the easy way out and offer his patient on the altar of the divorce court, which is equivalent to saying ‘I surrender – Let’s you and him fight.’
5 · IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU
Thesis. The detailed analysis of this game has already been given in Chapter 5. It was historically the second game uncovered, after ‘Why Don’t You – Yes But’, which up to that point had been regarded merely as an interesting phenomenon. With the additional discovery of IWFY, it became clear that there must be a whole department of social action based on ulterior transactions. This led to a more active search for such goings-on, and the present collection is one outcome.
Briefly, a woman marries a domineering man so that he will