Eric Berne

White gets an unbeatable hand, such as four aces. At this point, if he is a NIGYSOB player, he is more interested in the fact that Black is completely at his mercy than he is in good poker or making money.

both White and the plumber were playing games. In the course of their negotiations, they had recognized each other’s potentials. The plumber made his provocative move when he submitted his bill. Since White had the plumber’s word, the plumber was clearly in the wrong. White now felt justified in venting almost unlimited rage against him.

White took the opportunity to make extensive criticisms of the plumber’s whole way of living.

White was exploiting his trivial but socially defensible objection (position) to vent the pent-up furies of many years on his cozening opponent, just as his mother might have done in a similar situation. He quickly recognized his underlying attitude (NIGYSOB) and realized how secretly delighted he had been at the plumber’s provocation. He then recalled that ever since early childhood he had looked for similar injustices, received them with delight and exploited them with the same vigour. In many of the cases he recounted, he had forgotten the actual provocation, but remembered in great detail the course of the ensuing battle.

NIGYSOB is a two-handed game which must be distinguished from ‘Ain’t It Awful’ (AIA). In AIA the agent seeks injustices in order to complain about them to a third party, making a three-handed game: Aggressor, Victim, Confidant. AIA is played under the slogan ‘Misery Loves Company’.

procedures and rituals

These all have their analogues in conversation, so that it seems one might predict how an individual would handle a baby by listening to him talk.

One horn is the social, psychological and biological forces which stand in the way of continued physical intimacy in the infant style; the other is his perpetual striving for its attainment.

In order of complexity, these are: (1) Rituals; (2) Pastimes; (3) Games; (4) Intimacy; and (5) Activity, which may form a matrix for any of the others.

Translated into terms of social psychiatry, they may be stated as (1) the primary internal advantages; (2) the primary external advantages; (3) the secondary advantages; and (4) the existential advantages.