Games People Play_ The Psychology of Human Relationships - Eric Berne [44]
White: ‘My husband always insists on doing our own repairs, and he never builds anything right.’
Black: ‘Why doesn’t he take a course in carpentry?’
White: ‘Yes, but he doesn’t have time.’
Blue: ‘Why don’t you buy him some good tools?’
White: ‘Yes, but he doesn’t know how to use them.’
Red: ‘Why don’t you have your building done by a carpenter?’
White: ‘Yes, but that would cost too much.’
Brown: ‘Why don’t you just accept what he does the way he does it?’
White: ‘Yes, but the whole thing might fall down.’
Such an exchange is typically followed by a silence. It is eventually broken by Green, who may say something like, ‘That’s men for you, aways trying to show how efficient they are.’
YDYB can be played by any number. The agent presents a problem. The others start to present solutions, each beginning with ‘Why don’t you …?’ To each of these White objects with a ‘Yes, but …’ A good player can stand off the others indefinitely until they all give up, whereupon White wins. In many situations she might have to handle a dozen or more solutions to engineer the crestfallen silence which signifies her victory, and which leaves the field open for the next game in the above paradigm, Green switching into ‘PTA’, Delinquent Husband Type.
Since the solutions are, with rare exceptions, rejected, it is apparent that this game must serve some ulterior purpose. YDYB is not played for its ostensible purpose (an Adult quest for information or solutions), but to reassure and gratify the Child. A bare transcript may sound Adult, but in the living tissue it can be observed that White presents herself as a Child inadequate to meet the situation; whereupon the others become transformed into sage Parents anxious to dispense their wisdom for her benefit.
Figure 8. Why Don’t You – Yes But
This is illustrated in Figure 8. The game can proceed because at the social level both stimulus and response are Adult to Adult, and at the psychological level they are also complementary, with Parent to Child stimulus (‘Why don’t you …’) eliciting Child to Parent response (‘Yes, but …’). The psychological level is usually unconscious on both sides, but the shifts in ego state (Adult to ‘inadequate’ Child on White’s part, Adult to ‘wise’ Parent by the others) can often be detected by an alert observer from changes in posture, muscular tone, voice and vocabulary.
In order to illustrate the implications, it is instructive to follow through on the example given above.
Therapist: ‘Did anyone suggest anything you hadn’t thought of yourself?’
White: ‘No, they didn’t. As a matter of fact, I’ve actually tried almost everything they suggested. I did buy my husband some tools, and he did take a course in carpentry.’
Here White demonstrates two of the reasons why the proceedings should not be taken at face value. First, in the majority of cases White is as intelligent as anyone else in the company, and it is very unlikely that others will suggest any solution that she has not thought of herself. If someone does happen to come up with an original suggestion, White will accept it gratefully if she is playing fair; that is, her ‘inadequate’ Child will give way if anyone present has an idea ingenious enough to stimulate her Adult. But habitual YDYB players, such as White above, seldom play fair. On the other hand, a too ready acceptance of suggestions raises the question of whether the YDYB is not masking an underlying game of ‘Stupid’.
The example given is particularly dramatic, because it clearly illustrates the second point. Even if White has actually tried some of the solutions presented, she will still object to them. The purpose of the game is not to get suggestions, but to reject them.
While almost anyone will play this game under proper circumstances because of its time-structuring