The Book Games People Play, is groundbreaking  in that it introduce Games and Transactional Analysis to the world.  According to Dr. Berne, the author of the book, games are ritualistic transactions or behavior patterns between individuals that can indicate hidden feelings or emotions.A runaway success, Games People Play spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list in the mid 1960s - longer than any non-fiction book over the preceding decade.  Games People Play and Transactional Analysis have gone on to influence and inspire millions of people, including  Thomas A. Harris, author ofthe book I'm OK - You're OK,and Muriel James, author of Born to Win.

Five million copies later and nearly forty years after it first debuted, Games People Play remains popular and continues to sell across the world.  It has been translated into over 10 different languages, with millions of laypeople and trained psychotherapists employing Dr. Berne's techniques.

According to Berne, during a conversation or transaction, each one of us are transacting as a parent, child or adult to another person whom we may treat (consciously or unconsciously) as a parent, adult or a child. How the person respond (consciously or unconsciuosly) can also be categorised as a parent, adult or a child. It is fascinating is how we play the game in a transaction in our daily life. This gives rise to many pop psychology and many people were using that to anlayse themselves and others in how they make conversation and do everyday inter personal transactions.

This is a development of the Freudan concept of Id, Ego and Superego.

 According to Freud, the Id functions in the irrational and emotional part of the mind, the Ego functions as the rational part of the mind, and the Superego can be thought of as the moral part of the mind, a manifestation of societal or parental values.

But perhaps Freud's greatest contribution (and the one that influenced Berne) was the fact that the human personality is multi-faceted.  Regardless of the classification or name given to a particular area of personality (id, superego, etc.), each individual possesses factions that frequently collide with each other.  And it is these collisions and interactions between these personality factions that manifest themselves as an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 

It has been found that during a social transaction, we communicate as follows:

• Actual Words - 7%
• The Way words are delivered (tone, accents on certain words, etc.) - 38%
• Facial expressions - 55%

From this finding, a whole school of body language studies arose and it has been found that should we 'stroke' each other positively, be it verbal or non verbal, we develop more healthy relationship.

Those of you who are interested in the subject, get these two fascinating books for a start:

1. Berne, Eric. Games People Play.
2. Harris, Thomas A. I'm OK - You're OK.