“Move over Eric Berne’s Games People Play! Welcome to the first book in decades to put the day to day frustrations, arguments, power plays, and social manipulations to which we all are treated to by friends, lovers, bosses, and spouses, under a big magnifying lens. There, to our delight, they are ruthlessly dissected, while we say, 'Yes, yes; it’s true; it’s true!' How is it possible that we humans treat each other in such strange ways!”
—Allan Combs, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina
and author of The Radiance of Being
“Gerald Alper never writes dull books. A novelist and short story writer turned psychotherapist, he has one of the more creative analytic minds of his generation.”
—Jerome David Levin, Ph.D., Faculty Supervisor, Post-Graduate Center for Mental Health, New York, and author of The Clinton Syndrome
Like a Movie uses films as a stepping stone, window and metaphor to explore fundamental interpersonal issues. And what better metaphor than images over 60 feet high, elevated to the status of pop icon, that mirror and beckon us from every nook and cranny of our image-loving, surface worshiping culture?
CONTENTS
PrefaceCHAPTER 1
“In The Company Of Men”
“Leaving Las Vegas”
“Good Will Hunting”
The Sociopathic Lover
The Sociopath As Hero
The Magic of Soaps
CHAPTER 2
CONTROL GAMES
Everyday Examples
Getting Real
Taming of the Shrew
Being Stubborn
“I Have Something To Tell You”
Like It Is
Role Playing
Being Needy
“I’m Sorry”
“I Think, Therefore I am”
The Bell Curve
CHAPTER 3
POWER PLAYS
“You Have To Take Chances In the Street”
The Lion’s Share
You Can’t Fight City Hall
Dynamics of a Power Struggle
Relationship to the Democratic Way of Life
“I’m the Boss, I’m the Boss”
The Brush-Off
Marketing the Self
“Your Credentials are at the Bottom of the Totem Pole”
“Just Do It”
Psychology of a Threat
The Makings of a Good Enforcer
What is a Fair Use of Power?
The Dynamics of Humiliation
How to Humiliate the Other
Beating Someone to the Punch
“I’ve Gotta Be Me”
“I Get So Angry With You Because I Love and Trust You
So Much”
“The Fight For Meaning”
Tough Love
Intimate Giving
CHAPTER 4
POWER GAMES
Zero-Sum Relating
The Informer
Wrongfully Accused
By the Book
Counter Strategy
The Voice of Experience
“I Used To Be That Way”
Radio Relating
“I Have a Lot of Problems”
A Person and Their Psychic Pain Seen as an Internal
Object Relation
The Influence of Psychic Pain on the Other
One-Upmanship
Negative Closure
Conclusion
References
