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Article

Game Analysis in Two Planes

Pages 210-215
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
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Berne's (1958) transactional analysis of games consisted of comparing the ego states of two players and identifying two levels of communication (overt and covert). This analysis emphasized the social psychiatry of games. When Goulding and Kupfer (Goulding, 1972) later developed an individual psychiatric approach in their diagram of games, Berne originally refused to accept it as game analysis. Once a game had been dealt with at the social level, Berne believed that individual psychiatry should be restricted to structural analysis and decontamination of ego states. This article suggests that viewing the Goulding (intrapsychic) model as one plane and the Berne (transactional) model as another–with the individual operating in both–offers the most effective means of helping people reclaim their power to be game free and to find options for healthy living.

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Author information

Oswald Summerton

Oswald Summerton, S.J., is a Clinical Training and Supervising Transactional Analyst, a Clinical Teaching Member of TASI (TA Society of India) and currently its President, and Co-Director of TACET (Transactional Analytic Center for Education, Research and Training) in New Delhi, India. His address is: 4 Raj Niwas Marg, Delhi-110054, India.