Games People Play

This book exposes the hidden psychological games people use in everyday life — the mind tricks, power dances, emotional traps, and manipulative scripts that run underneath normal conversations. Berne was the father of Transactional Analysis, and he didn’t waste time sugarcoating how people behave:

most interactions are performances, not honesty.

He breaks it down into:

• “Life scripts” — the unconscious patterns that dictate how you act without realizing it.
• “Transactions” — the real meaning behind what people say versus what they actually want.
• “Games” — the manipulative, repetitive interactions people run to gain power, attention, or validation.

Some are destructive (“Why Does This Always Happen to Me?”),

some are seductive (“Let’s You and Him Fight”),

and some are straight-up toxic (“See What You Made Me Do”).

The brutal truth?

If you don’t understand these games, you are already a character in someone else’s script.

You think you’re communicating, but you’re actually reacting — being pulled, nudged, provoked, or guilt-tripped into predictable behavior.

This book teaches you to:

• see the hidden motives behind people’s words,
• refuse to play games that drain your energy,
• rewrite your own script so you stop repeating the same patterns,
• and finally operate from a place of awareness instead of emotional autopilot.

If you want to understand people, influence people, and stop being manipulated by their unconscious dramas, this book is the blueprint.