Eric Berne Quotes

Якщо вас не погладити, ваш спинний мозок почне всихати

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.