Following on from my last blog about games reminded me that several years ago I renamed some games to get away from the negative connotations that would not have been recognised in Eric Berne’s time.

It seemed to me that we should not be referring to names such as Rapo, Now I’ve Got You, you Son of a Bitch, and Wooden Leg - for reasons that are obvious now.

Hence, I suggested that we changed them as follows:

Rapo became Rebuff (Hay, 1993), which still captures the same essence of appearing to offer something and then reacting negatively when someone begins to take what they think has been offered – but without restricting this to sexual activities and without any implied suggestion that rape victims somehow ‘invite’ what happens to them.

Rebuff can be illustrated with examples such as Person A within an organisation who points out that someone could avoid paying an external printer if they use the printing machine in Person A’s office – but then when Person B arrives to do that Person A complains that they are much too busy printing their own work. The domestic example might be that someone offers to babysit any time but then gets angry when they are asked to do so and says they are much too busy and would have needed far more warning.

NIGYSOB (using the initials only as if it is a word does not change the fact that it involves referring to someone as a bitch) became Gotcha (Hay, 1993) – the same dynamic is suggested without the politically incorrect insult.

Wooden Leg became Millstone (Hay, 1995), using the metaphor of ‘having a millstone around my neck’ and hence avoiding reference to a real physical disability.

Before the changes above, I had already renamed Argentina as Can You Guess – or CYG -(Hay, 1992) because I found that people struggled with the name as the theme was not clear. The new name captures the same dynamic, whereby the teacher asks the class for an answer and then keeps telling them they have the wrong answer before triumphantly announcing the correct answer. In Berne’s case he used pampas grass as the correct answer to what is Argentina famous for, and trainers often do something similar when they think they are getting participant involvement but they already have in mind what answer they want.  They fail to realise that it is obvious to the students – especially when the teacher then uncovers something they have already written on the board or shows their pre-prepared PowerPoint or otherwise uses something that they prepared earlier.

How long will it go on?

As I write this blog, I am shocked to realise that it is now over 20 years since I suggested that we should pay attention to the language we use within the TA community – and yet still many authors continue to use the original terms. It is difficult enough to have to explain to people that the early TA literature was written in line with the culture at the time, when awareness of discriminatory language was not developed. It is not helpful when we continue to use the same outdated terminology. I am sure that if Berne had lived longer, he would have been changing his own material, and I invite you to help me by using the new names in your own TA work.

And let me know if you think there are any other game names that need the same kind of attention.

References

Hay, Julie (1992) Transactional Analysis for Trainers London: McGraw-Hill

Hay, Julie (1993) Working it Out at Work Watford: Sherwood Publishing

Hay, Julie (1995) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA Watford: Sherwood Publishing


​© 2018 Julie Hay​
 
​Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her.
​

In Hay (1995) I introduced the idea of using Velcro to illustrate games. My thinking was that we engage in games because we have the relevant ‘hooks’ that will connect with the ‘hooks’ of whoever is our game-playing partner at the time. Rather than wonder about the differences between what Berne (1972) called the con and the gimmick, I prefer to think of it as being like what happens when we close two sides of Velcro together – the ‘hooks’ connect to each other very tightly and it is difficult to pull them apart. The way in which they suddenly come apart, with an interesting sound effect, also seems to me to be a useful metaphor for what happens as the players take their payoffs from the game.

Also in 1995, I drew a cartwheel to illustrate the ongoing nature of games. This was based on an article by Jenni Hine (1990) in which she described how the end of the game often tended to be the beginning of the next game – when asking a couple how their game had started, each one blamed the other for something that had happened previously, until they had more or less arrived back at their honeymoon.

This prompted me to use the metaphor of imagining that each of us is a cartwheel, and we are rolling around until we come into contact with another cartwheel. On the surface of each cartwheel are various hooks depending on the particular games we have learned to play as we were growing up. These hooks can be thought of as different colours of Velcro (to make this metaphor work, please ignore the fact that you know that all Velcro is formed in the same way regardless of the colour 😉)

If we come into contact with a cartwheel that has no hooks that correspond to our own, we will not engage in game playing with that person. We are unconsciously seeking those who have the matching hooks, especially when we are desperately in need of strokes and are unknowingly going to settle for negatives because they are easier to generate than positive strokes.

This metaphor can also be useful when someone decides that they will stop playing games. Having identified again that they now realise they have been playing, it is still not easy to simply stop. This is because the other person – the other cartwheel – has become accustomed to the fact that we have the right hooks, or Velcro, so there will be an automatic connection whenever our cartwheels come close enough to each other.

​Metaphorically, when we decide to stop playing a game, it is not enough to do the equivalent of fixing Sellotape over the Velcro.  That will work for anyone that we are meeting for the first time because they will not then recognise that we have those hooks. However, for someone who already knows us, they expect the hooks to be there. When the connection does not happen, they will escalate the game. What this means metaphorically is that they will move back slightly and then roll their cartwheel even more forcefully towards us – and the extra momentum will probably mean that they burst through our Sellotape and connect with our hooks - in other words, we may play an even harder version of the game.  This is why we may need to avoid our familiar game-playing partners for a while when we decide to stop playing a game. We need enough time for us to remove our Velcro so that we will be presenting a ‘clean’ area of cartwheel.
​

​References

Berne, Eric. (1972) What Do You Say After You Say Hello? New York: Grove Press

Hay, Julie (1995) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA Watford: Sherwood Publishing

Hay, Julie (2012) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA 2nd edit Hertford: Sherwood Publishing

Hine, Jenni (1990) The Bilateral and Ongoing Nature of Games Transactional Analysis Journal 20:1 28-39
​

​© 2018 Julie Hay​
 
​Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her.
​

​If you’re interested in learning more TA, Julie runs regular workshops and webinars –  we currently have an offer of a free place on one of our webinars. You can use these toward your CPD and as credit hours in pursuing professional TA qualification

​In Hay (1995, 2012) I wrote about how there were stories in the early TA literature that were metaphors intended to help people shift out of script. My descriptions of the stories are below. I followed them with a story that I had invented when I realised that the ‘monkey story’ will appeal to someone who processes kinaesthetically, the ‘parrot story’ would work for someone who processes through the auditory representational system, and there was nothing directly targeted at anyone who processes visually. Obviously, all of us can hear the various stories and imagine using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic channels but it seemed to me that it would be good if we had a story that was written to prompt visual processing.

M&Ms were suggested by me as an alternative to the ubiquitous SMART, often presented as standing for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-based, seemed to me to include duplication - how is specific different to measurable, and how is achievable different to realistic?
​
As an alternative, I stayed with the idea of the small sweets but shifted them from Smarties to M&Ms on the basis also that M&Ms can be lined up with ego states. As with Smarties, it is possible to buy small bags of M&Ms that can be given to participants – if you do this, avoid the ones with peanuts in case any of your participants have a nut allergy. And have supply of some other sweets just in case any of your participants do not eat chocolate.

​What I wrote to explain the connection with action planning and ego states was:

I also explained that the M&Ms manufacturers also make plastic dolls, hats and other merchandise with the letter M on the front.  These can often be found for purchase at airports. They make a fun ‘prop’ for training courses.  I have used the baseball caps to wear a series of three as I explain what each letter M stands for.  Alternatively, a set of three of the small figures can be used. The manufacturers also make larger figures with a movable arm; as you pump the arm up and down the other hand gives out small quantities of the sweets. This can be great fun as participants line up to get their reward for having written their action plan using the M&M guidelines – I often add to the fun by insisting that another participant must have checked out their action plan and confirmed that it really is worded to fit MMM.

References

Hay, Julie (1993) Eselsbrücken INTAD Newsletter 1:4 3

Hay, Julie (1995) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA Watford: Sherwood Publishing

Hay, Julie (2012) Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA 2nd edit Hertford: Sherwood Publishing

© 2018 Julie Hay​
 
​Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her.
​

In Blogs 21 and 22 I wrote about multi-party contracting.  In this blog I am writing about the different levels at which we might think about contracting (Hay, 1995, 2012), and how we might link these in to the well-known 3Ps (Crossman, 1966: Steiner, 1968).
​
Contracting is a basic principle in TA - if no contract has been established we are not truly applying TA.  Contracts may or may not be written down.  A verbal contract is still a contract.  The main point is that we discuss and agree why we are interacting when we plan to use TA to help someone grow.
​
I first introduced the following ideas in the first edition of my book entitled Donkey Bridges for Developmental TA; below is how I have developed the ideas a bit further for the second edition of that book which came out in 2012.