Games People Play

The author of this book, Eric Berne (1910–1970), is one of the most outstanding psychologists and psychiatrists of the twentieth century. He created «Transactional Analysis», a study of a person’s behavior in their immediate environment—within the family, a group of coworkers, or an organization. Based on this analysis, he developed an effective group therapy method now used worldwide. The most important discovery of Dr. Berne is the structural description of layers of the human psyche, which he—using his simple and expressive language—called the Parent, the Adult, and the Child. This book, offered here for the first time in Russian in full, without cuts or distortions, not only explains the pathology of communication but also shows how to fight it. Unlike physical deficiencies, communication disorders are, as a rule, curable. For each game, the author provides its «antithesis»—a technique that destroys the game and frees communication from this parasitic overlay. Of course, a psychotherapist can do this best; originally the book was aimed at psychotherapists, but because of its accessible style it spread to a wider public and became a bestseller in the United States—something rare for scientific books.