By OxDrover
In the book Games People Play, by Dr. Erick Berne, M.D., he explains what he calls “strokes,” or social exchanges. It has long been known that people require social interaction with other people and that this is a biological requirement for life itself in some cases. In orphanages, children whose basic physical needs are met, but who are not held and cuddled, literally die from a condition called “failure to thrive.”
The term “stroke” can be used as a general term for any intimate physical contact, but in practice it may take many forms, including conversation and recognition of another’s presence. In Dr. Berne’s opinion, “any social intercourse (even negative intercourse) is better than no intercourse at all.” [Parenthetical explanation added.]
He says that in experiments with rats, it didn’t matter if they were handled gently or shocked with electric shocks, they received many benefits from the “strokes” over rats that were not “stroked” at all.
The purpose of social contact revolves around somatic and psychic equilibrium. It relieves tension, helps avoid noxious situations, procures strokes and maintains the established equilibrium.
We (humans) have a stimulus hunger and “strokes” help us avoid emotional starvation, which can lead to biological deterioration. Even the most hardened prisoners and convicts need strokes—they fear and dread the punishment of solitary confinement above all others.
In Games People Play, Dr. Berne explains the theory called “Transactional Analysis” which is used to visualize human interaction, both healthy and unhealthy interactions. This is represented by an “Internal Parent, an Internal Child, and an Internal Adult.” These are symbolized by P, A and C.
The P, or internal Parent, is composed of the “shoulds and should-nots” that you internalized from your primary caregiver as you grew up. The “tapes” inside the P can be both negative and positive, or nurturing and critical, such as, “You are so stupid” or “You are pretty.” These “tapes” are absorbed and believed without any “editing” by the internal Child.
The A, or internal Adult, is the rational part of you that says for example “two + two = four.” There are no emotional components to the internal Adult.
The C, or internal Child is made up, not of “childish” things, but is the part of you that is creative, loving, wondering and fun loving.
Our internal Child needs strokes and stimulation, and the job of the Adult is to meet those needs. Unfortunately, sometimes the Adult works on faulty information derived from the internal Parent. Therefore the Adult doesn’t do a good job of finding what the Child needs.
The Child may be continually punished or put down by the internal Parent, so is in continual pain or confusion about what he (or she) needs or wants to be happy.
If our upbringing has been nurturing, we will have a more nurturing Parent who will not continually “beat” our internal Child. We will have a nurturing Parent who will comfort our Child when it is scared, lonely, etc. If we have had a more Critical Parent implanted in our soul and mind, then our Child may feel that he is “Not OK” and continually seek ways to receive strokes that may be negative, but ”¦ better than no strokes at all.
Have you ever noticed that when you are around a two year old and you get on the telephone, the child immediately begins to try to get your attention? If pulling at your leg doesn’t work, or climbing in your lap, it won’t be long before a lamp goes over and breaks. The child has learned even by age two that they want attention and if “positive” behavior doesn’t get it, knocking over the lamp sure will. It may be negative behavior, but it does get your attention. Even negative strokes are better than no strokes.
Learning how to get positive strokes, and not resorting to negative stroke behavior, is a life-long learning process, especially if you grew up having difficulty receiving positive strokes from those closest to you.
Psychopaths learn how to give FAKE positive strokes to hook us in. Strokes that we accept at face value as positive, and come to depend on. Later, when we are addicted to the strokes from our own personal psychopath, the strokes turn negative and painful, but we are so addicted to receiving strokes from this “super stroker,” that, contrary to any messages from our internal Adult saying “Hey, there’s something wrong here,” we put tape over the mouth of the Adult to shut him up.
Or, our internal Parent, if it is more critical than nurturing, reminds us that we deserve these negative strokes because we are not worthwhile individuals worthy of respect.
Transactional Analysis also uses the “Triangle” of Rescuer-Persecutor-Victim. We and the psychopath learn to play the “triangle game,” changing chairs like a game of musical chairs. One day the psychopath is our Rescuer, and we are the Victim, then the next day we Persecute their role as Victim, and on the third day we Rescue their Victim, only to start and stop the “music” on an almost daily basis.
“Games” are unconscious maneuvers in which roles are accepted, the “triangle” is utilized, and there is a “pay off” at the end for all parties playing. Dr. Berne, in Games People Play, describes these “games.” He also shows us how we can stop playing “games,” which preclude intimacy, and get off the “triangle.” Some of the names of the various games are very descriptive, like, “Let’s you and him fight.” Other games are “Why don’t you, yes, but ”¦” “Alcoholic,” “Cops and robbers,” “Let’s pull a fast one on Joey,” “Look how hard I’ve tried,” and my all time psychopath’s favorite, “If it weren’t for you.”
Transactional Analysis may not explain everything about the human psyche, but it does go a great ways in making our inner and outer world understandable in a simple language. It gave me a way to think in an orderly fashion about the “internal dialog” between my Critical Parent tapes and my Child. It gave me a way to use my Adult to nurture the Child inside me and to hit the MUTE button on the critical Parental injunctions that kept me from insisting on respect and reasonable treatment from those closest to me. It helped me distinguish the fake positive strokes from the real positive strokes, and helped me to decide that I can stroke myself, and don’t have to depend on negative strokes to survive.
Books I would recommend for further reading are:
Games People Play by Dr. Erick Berne, M. D.,
I’m OK-You’re OK by Thomas Harris M. D.\
Scripts People Live, by Claude M. Steiner.
Good article OXY – You forgot to mention Cluster B – but like you say – don’t matter what we call them they are Toxic – I have been around the block and have encountered lot’s of weirdos in my life, I have had my heart broken and broke a few myself. Have encountered some bad people, survived a toxic N mother and a abusive father. But nothing has ever effected me the way the Sociopath has. And it was mostly after he was gone. Maybe some of us take and take so much until that last straw breaks our backs and we get one more chance to pick ourselves up and we have to turn the attention onto us, something I have not been comfortable with, but I have to work on me in order to avoid toxic ducks.
That is why I also see the concept of the “okay parent” or is it the “good enough parent”. The P (internal parent) in us gives or withhold the strokes for our C depending on these “tapes”. Both the A and P can work on these tapes and come to understand some of it as flawed or faulty information and must then be revised or as you stated “mute” the tape. I see the A P and C parts of us as a group of people in a room. If they aren’t connected or in some kind of agreement then we have a very chaotic room and confusion at best. But if we can get all three aligned or in some agreement then a type of harmony will exists within ourselves. This also goes with the theory of “your okay and I okay” principle. If one have a deeper understanding and acceptance about one’s self then we can extend this to other people who we come into contact with. We see the flaw in ourselves and with empathy can understand that same flaw in others. Of course in someone who is a s/p only see the flaws in others and denies it in themselves and believe in “I okay but your not okay” line of reasoning and relating to others. Anyway Oxy I am a very big supporter of Transactional Analysis and believe it as a helpful tool when trying to understand our inner self more and resolve conflicts within our self. Which in turn will help us resolve conflicts we have with other people.
Dear Healing heart,
That UNconditional love and approval I think may be exactly what they want! It is kind of funny, actually. A minister friend of our family corresponds with my P-son. After the initial attack none of us (even my mother) were writing to P son and he was DESPERATE to get information from us about WHAT had happened, so he could “fix it.” He wrote friends and got them to call us to “check and see how we are” and we gave them no informatin other than “We’re fine, thanks for calling” and hung up.
Anyway, he wrote this minister and was decrying that we were NOT CHRISTIANS because we were not giving him “UNCONDITIONAL LOVE” Of course he did not admit to the minister that he had tried to have me killed. LOL But,yes, I think they DO expect UNconditional acceptance and love no matter what they do.
Years ago after my divorce, which was pretty traumatic and involved my X-FIL who was a raging P, I took my children and went to counseling. My counselor introduced me to TA at that time and I read about TA and put it to work in my life in many ways, to a great deal of benefit both for myself and my kids, but like many people who go to AA a few times or for a year, I slowly fell “off the wagon” and slipped back into the the “Games People Play” again. It was easier to quit working so hard on staying “clean and sober” in my relationships because those old familiar patterns were so EASY and so FAMILIAR to me. I didn’t even have to think about them, they just were easy to do….much easier than working hard on maintaining my “sobriety” (game free life). I realize now that STAYING healthy in a life long problem, that it will require a LIFE LONG COMMITTMENT to take care of me and not fall back into those old patterns. Not slip back to reading lines from a SCRIPT that was written for me by my internal Parent.
While I am doing much much better today than I was a year ago, it has been a daily struggle to stay “sober.” Originally I wanted to “heal” and be “okay” and just stay that way without any further effort. Just like if I had a bad cut on my leg, and sewed it up, then it would heal and I would never again have to worry about it. NO SO with emotional healing, we have to keep MAINTAINING THAT HEALING on a daily basis.
If you throw a ball up in the air, as long as it is rising it continues to go up–but the second it STOPS going UP, it starts to fall back down. WE CANNOT STAND STILL or we will begin to FALL. I’ve thrown myself UP “a 1000 times” but because I didn’t keep the UP ENERGY going, I stood still and then began to fall again. That too has been a pattern in my life.
Just as an addict to alcohol or drugs craves that familiar “high” from their substance and has to fight that every day for the rest of their lives, I somehow “crave” that “high” I get, that “high” I learned to expect from the DRAMA of the script that was written for me….the moves and the dialog of the script are so memorized inside me that it is sooooo easy to slip back into the role and play it.
Making up my own words and new moves takes work, and I guess I am basicly lazy, and would like to just “coast” along without the effort of writing my own life-story rather than reading the words already written for me.
NO MORE, will I read that script, no more will I engage in that horrible drama of “American Family Tragedy” but day by day, I will write new words, and LIVE a life instead of go through the motions of ACTING like I am living when in truth I am only play acting a predesigned role.
Hey Oxy – this is all so helpful, thank you. I have studied “Internal Family Systems,” but not transactional analysis. It’s similar in some ways, but I think the specific Child, Adult, parent, parts of the personality are just so accurate in the S relationship.
Interesting what you said about your son trying to “figure out” what was wrong so that he could “fix it.”
After I started NC with my ex S and maintained it (much to his surprise), the ex S started reading all of our back emails from our relationship. For the first time, he commented on pain I had expressed 7-8 months prior in the D & D phase. He never cared at the time – was disdainful of the pain, and then indifferent. But suddenly was showing an interest, and seemed to muster up some attempts at empathy. It rang so hollow – and it seemed that he was becoming desperate (I was not behaving as if under his control for the first time) that he had gone back over our communications to “figure out” what had happened so that he could fix it. He didn’t care at all about my feelings at the time, or months after, but suddenly showed interest. And, like your P son, it seemed to be so that he could strategize.
I get so steamed about this.
I looked back over our emails during the D & D phase. IT looks like every few days he would send me a sappy “I love you so much, let’s make this work, I want to be with you forever” email. Meanwhile, he was abusive and cheating every day – his behavior was horrendous. But those emails kept me hopeful – I ate them up (much wanted strokes) and kept me in. It’s like he threw me a bone every few days. And email was the easiest, least effortful way to do that. He’d take five minutes to send me a “love you, let’s make this work,” email and then earn the ability to be abusive and philandering for another 3, 4, days before I would object. And then the cycle would continue. I was a junkie.
All this discovery makes me so mad. I guess that’s good. I SHOULD have been really mad at the time.
Dear HH,
Yep, that’s the way they do it. I actually read the letters my son wrote to folks, and the minister sent me a copy of the one he wrote to him, and how “justifiably angry” P son was because we didn’t give him the UN conditional “love” he DESERVED. DUH???? HUH??? LOL
They will use anything they can to hook us back and holding out that “I lvoe you” crap is just that—a HOOK. But in the past we always ate it up, so they expect that it will work. When we maintain NC it frustrates the heck out of them because they can’t tell if we are eating it up or not. THEY HAVE LOST CONTROL—that was another thing P-son said, “How can I fix it if you won’t correspond with me?”
My first cousin, who is my mom’s POA now is rather frustrated with me because I won’t talk to my mom, and maintain NC. He keeps saying “How can you work it out if you won’t talk?” I can’t get him to see that THERE IS NO WORKING IT OUT. He grew up the much abused son of my mother’s brother UNCLE MONSTER and he is an injured soul himself. A nice guy, but has all kinds of social anxiety, self esteem problems etc. A GREAT guy but not one that has it “together” emotionally, just a poor guy who is a “walking wounded” from a lifetime of abuse from his father. At least he is not an abuser himself, but I know he is not a happy person at all. He is not married, doesn’t have a relationship though he would love to have one, but just goes to work comes home and goes back to work. Not much of a life, really, but until HE decides he wants to work on healing, I can’t “fix” him. But, at the same time, I can’t get it across to him that there is NO fixing my relationship with my mother. I can’t fix her any more than I can fix him. AND, she is not about to fix herself or allow anyone else to guide or help her so so. She doesn’t see a need to be “fixed”—the problem is ME needing “fixing” so that I will continue to allow her to dictate to me and “pretend we’re a nice normal family.”
Yea, we do get steamed about all this, and steamed at them, and steamed at ourselves for allowing it. Getting over that “steamed” hurdle was very difficult for me, but I’m getting there, one step at a time.
I am at least realizing that MY reality is REAL and their reality is a FANTASY, and I’m tired of “playing “Let’s pretend.”
Oxy … you said something everyone should pay attention to … that your cousin can’t see that “there is no working it out”.
To work out anything from the negative to the positive … all parties involved have to acknowledge there is a negative situation going on. All parties WANT to work on building a positive out of a negative. But, anti-social personalities give everyone lip service … so there is no working it out. I say, we tattoo them all a slime green color and call it a day!
Yes to these past posts by Wini and Oxy – It was important for me to get to a place where I realized there was NO working anything out. Months after I threw him out he started saying “let’s go to couples therapy” and then became very angry that I wouldn’t.
Meanwhile – I had been trying to drag him to couples therapy for months when we were together. He would get so annoyed – beyond annoyed, when I said things like “we need to work on our relationship” when we were living together, but apparently now I’m a negative, pessimistic, unforgiving, person because I won’t go to couples therapy.
His hooks are good – I’ve got to give him that. I guess it makes sense that so many of his exes go back to him – he promises them the world. If it wasn’t for all the research I’ve done, and particularly all that I have learned on LF, I might fall for the hooks, too. They are masterful.
Do THEY know their hooks are hooks, or do they actually think they are true? I think if I set up couples therapy (don’t worry, not happening), he would go for a couple of sessions, lie lie lie, and then I’d say the couples therapy wasn’t going to work if he lied……he’d tell me I was totally uncooperative and wasn’t going to be in couples therapy with a liar who isn’t willing to do the work.
It was so important for me to realize that he was not going to get better. Ever. And that his promises are all lies. That his lipservice to being sorry for what he’s done is purely that – lipservice.
I like the idea of tattooing them all. Make them all wear permanent scarlett letters. THat wouldn’t stop them though, they’d sweet talk victims into pitying them for being “mislabled” and branded incorrectly.
Healing_Heart: I just remembered this joke that was sent to me sometime last year.
It was people walking … as they all carried their individual crosses.
One person decided he wasn’t going to be a chump and carry the huge cross like everyone else was carrying.
What did this character decide to do? Yup, he did a short cut in life and sawed the bottom half of his cross off.
Next frame of the cartoon is him with a big grin on his face laughing at everyone … as he walks with 3/4 of his cross while everyone is lugging their full crosses in life.
Next frame … they come to the edge of a cliff. They can see the other side of the opposing cliff. Everyone takes their full crosses off their backs and lay it down over the two cliffs. The full cross cover the gap between cliff … and those people used their crosses to get to the other side.
Not so with the 3/4 quarter cross guy … he stays behind and can not cross the gap.
Peace.
Oxy,
I recall sharing with a friend about the Bad Man when I first came back from Maui. My dear old friend, an older man I loved a long time ago, said, “Sometimes we just want attention, because it makes us feel alive… even negative attention.”
Sounds familiar.
Wow! I can;t believe one of THEM just came out and admitted it.
Oxy,
I’ve been thinking a lot about the strokes piece of your article. I think for me, strokes were so rare as a child (it was always about what I could do for my mother not what she could do for me-I was a tool), that as I grew up, I looked for someone that would give me what I needed, those missing strokes. My late husband adored me, I would’ve walked through fire for that man and did, in a lot of ways. But it was mutual and worked for us both.
When I first encountered my S, the strokes I got from him in the beginning were filling that need and when they started to disappear and were replaced by the D & D, I think I would’ve done just about anything to get them back. Luckily there was some measure of common sense on my part and i didn’t do some of the really crazy stuff he suggested but enough to knock me off center and throw me into a constant state of confusion and anxiety. He used that response and must have watched me like a lab rat to see what would trip my trigger. Then would do it again in a different, more subtle way the next time. He styled himself a profiler, someone who could read people well. It never occurred to me that he was setting me up to try to destroy me. The idea that this was all a big game to get as much money as he could from me and to try to take me out emotionally so i couldn’t respond or react when he was finished, never occurred to me! How could it? It was just so evil!
The challenge as I’m sure you’re aware will be to not only try to heal that wound, and address the wounds of that abandoned inner child, but what about the future? Will I be able to tell the difference between genuine strokes and strokes with a different agenda in the future? Allowing myself to even try to trust someone feels impossible. It’s going to be a very long lonely road. Not one that I am looking forward to, I must say. How do we learn to trust again? I foresee a different kind of conversation with my inner child, my internal parent and the adult in the future.
At my job, we are currently going through a culture shift. One of the new corporate guidelines involve something called “Woodstone Principles”. The basic premise being that you approach all interactions with the idea of positive intent. Meaning if someone comes at me with a protest, disagreement, or criticisim, I should assume their intent is positive even if their delivery is less than that. Having said that, after everything I have been through as of late, this has WARNING written all over it! This is going to require something entirely different from me. My radar is up, I look at my connections differently, less trusting, not taking anything at face value any more. Not wanting to reveal too much or give anyone (unless they are part of my inner circle) ammunition that might come back to bite me later. I had always been so trusting in the past, more of an “open book” type of person. This has really shaken me to the core and saddens me deeply. I don’t want to view the world thru these glasses, but maybe it’s necessary in order to protect myself in the future. How in the world I can take in these new “principles” under the circumstances, it feels insane at best! The last thing I want to do is create a personality split so I can continue to do my job (one I happen to love and excel at). Any suggestions?
Hi Blewmeaway: Hopefully, OxDrover will have a good answer for you. The “Woodstone Principle” does sound like a sociopath’s paradise to me!
There is a pretty new article in the upper left hand corner where the most recent commented articles are about “conditioning” and how it works. I found it very interesting and it could give you some extra insight about how to respond to someone who seems nice and gives what seem to be positive strokes and then suddenly does a change-up on you.
Maybe some of the suggestions in that article can help you watch out for yourself and have a plan ready if someone “Woodstones” you.