Power Games Why Winners Win and Losers Lose

by Alper, Gerald

• ISBN13: 9781573093972
• ISBN10: 1573093971
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-20
• Publisher: International Scholars Publications

Summary

Power Games is a brilliant exploration of the psychodynamic strategies unconsciously enacted to spare the person the imagined pain and frustration of an authentic encounter. Although such strategic power operations can be characterological, they do not have to be: all people, even those rare individuals who are capable of ongoing intimacy, are forced at moments of fraility or interpersonal indecisiveness to play power games, and certainly the culture at large pervasively sponsors the enactment of opportunistic interpersonal strategies. In this new book, Gerald Alper, whose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patientwas called by the New England Review of Books "one of the most important modern studies of the psyche of the creative personality that we have," continues his profound examination of the obstacles that stand in the path of the true intimacy.

Table of Contents

Preface	x
Zero-Sum Relating	1	(100)
The Informer	2	(5)
Wrongfully Accused	7	(10)
By The Book	17	(10)
Counter Strategy	25	(2)
The Voice Of Experience	27	(3)
``I Used To Be That Way''	30	(1)
Radio Relating	31	(4)
``I Have A Lot Of Problems''	35	(4)
A Person And Their Psychic Pain Seen As An Internal Object Relation	39	(1)
The Influence Of Psychic Pain On The Other	39	(1)
``Let Us Pray''	40	(13)
One-Upmanship	53	(10)
Negative Closure	63	(3)
Being Impossible	66	(4)
Being Critical	70	(3)
Being Anxious	73	(12)
Getting In The Last Word	85	(1)
The Power Of Contempt	86	(4)
Relationship To One's Contempt	89	(1)
The Denial Of A Relationship	90	(1)
``I'M Bored''	91	(4)
Using Boredom As A Ploy	94	(1)
Being Condescending	95	(6)
Who Wins, Who Loses	101	(32)
Dynamics Of Power Games	101	(1)
Worshipping The Power God Within	102	(1)
Strategies For Winning	103	(1)
Dropping The Information Bomb	103	(3)
Providing Useless Information	106	(4)
Muting The Other	110	(2)
The Dynamics	112	(4)
Deadpan	116	(2)
Being The Straight Man	118	(2)
The Denial Of Meaning	120	(1)
Holding On	121	(1)
Payback	122	(4)
Dueling Narcissists	126	(2)
``Just The Facts''	128	(5)
When Therapy Becomes a Power Struggle	133	(12)
``Its For Your Own Good''	133	(4)
``I Used To Be Just Like You''	137	(2)
``I'M Not Getting Any Better''	139	(2)
Using The Therapist	141	(4)
Conclusion	145	(2)
References	147	(2)
Index	149