written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Saturday 24 October 2015

Mind Games People Play

In a week of rushing and deadlines, I've not had a lot of time to think nor prepare for this blog (on the theme of Games People Play) so please excuse a brief excursion into the realms of Transactional Analysis and the resurrection (or should that be resuscitation?) of something that's the best part of forty years old, written when I was both an English teacher, an occasional smoker and a fledgling poet.

'Games People Play: the Psychology of Human Relationships' was a best-selling treatise (5 million copies sold) written in 1964 by Eric Berne, a Canadian-born psychiatrist and the man credited with formulating Transactional Analysis and coining the concept of mind games. TA is one of the most popular threads of modern psychological theory. T-groups were very fashionable in the '70s as we all earnestly searched after knowing ourselves; (I can't believe I just wrote that, but it was true). Eric Berne postulated that there are 3 ego-states: Parent, Child, Adult - and we are each a combination of the 3 in varying degrees.

Parent is the 'taught' mode: angry or impatient body-language, finger-pointing, patronising, critical, judgmental and posturing
Child is the 'felt' mode: emotionally expressive, impulsive, teasing, given to extremes, deferential, approval-seeking
Adult is the 'thought' mode: attentive, interested, non-threatened and non-threatening, comparative and reasoned
I am told (and like to believe) that I am largely Adult with a healthy streak of Child. I don't like playing mind games. You may beg to differ.
In analysing interpersonal transactions, Berne believed that only 7% of the import is in the actual words used; 38% is paralingual - in the way the words are said; 55% is visual (facial and bodily expressions). Please bear those percentages in mind when you read my poem....



let's get some sleep now - a poem for joni
post-coital pall malls
glow
in the night
from your face
in the cigarettes' light
i interpret loneliness
you say
"we're so near and yet so far"
and how i react to that
knowing it for a fact
is to hold you close
more eloquent than words
you say
"i've lived too many fakes
to lay pretence on you"
i smile
for i know this to be true
not touching souls
we stub symbolic in the dark
and kiss entwined
in a fumbling happiness

Thanks for reading. Have a good week, S ;-)

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

"a fumbling happiness" is very good.

Anonymous said...

Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
The text in your post seem to be running off the screen in Chrome.
I'm not sure if this is a format issue or something to do
with web browser compatibility but I thought I'd post to let you know.
The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue resolved soon.
Cheers

Anonymous said...

Is this poem really about Joni Mitchell? (Her line was "Love is touching souls").

Steve Rowland said...

Hello anon: no, not about Joni Mitchell (who I've never met) but about another young lady of my acquaintance circa 1977. By the way, that line 'Love is touching souls' is originally Leonard Cohen's as told by LC to JM during their brief mid-sixties romance.

Anonymous said...

Love this poem man.

Anonymous said...

A great little blog, informative and touching.

Anonymous said...

Love the poem.

Jade Keillor said...

Very interesting. Nice poem.

Stu Hodges said...

I'm slowly checking out your 'back catalogue'. I particularly like this poem. 👍

Lesley Harrison said...

Excellent reading.

Anonymous said...

So fluently written - great blog :)

Brian Cassell said...

Very good.

Joan Ottwell said...

Is that poem about you and me??? Joan Ottwell (Chandler as was).

Steve Rowland said...

I'm staggered that a blog I wrote over 4 years ago (October 2015) is suddenly trending as the 'most read' in the first week of June 2020 - 250 views and it's only Tuesday. I've no way of explaining its seemingly random resurgence at this time. (I haven't re-posted it anywhere.) I've only looked at it myself again because it hit that trending list - and so I've spotted the comment from Joan Chandler (as I knew you) above. What a strange co-incidence seeing as we haven't been in touch for decades. I hope you're well and happy in your life, if you're reading my reply, but no the poem wasn't about you and me.

Rochelle said...

I enjoyed that Steve - one from the days before I was following your blogs judging by the dates of the early comments - and that lovely poem,from an earlier age still. We too tried TA in the 1980s, didn't really stick for long.

Anonymous said...

Love the poem - particularly "to hold you close/ more eloquent than words" is beautiful.

Penny Lockhart said...

I found this a fascinating blog, lots to think about, and the poem is lovely.

Walt McMillan said...

Oh dear! I suspect I've got a lot of parent in me - though I thought your poem was good, so there's hope for me yet!

Ben Templeton said...

I love the poem. Don't know why I've not seen this blog before, but some of the comments are pretty old, 2016, so maybe that's before I got hooked in.

Anonymous said...

Most poetic 👍

Jazmeen said...

A fascinating blog and lovely, sad poem.

Gemma Gray said...

There's a real honesty and tenderness about your poem. Not every relationship discovers love.

Bridget Durkin said...

I joined a T Group briefly in the 80s, left it when the leader tried to come on to me. Your poem is lovely.