Is Adolescent Suicide a Third Degree Game and Who is the Real Victim

This article proposes that suicide is a third-degree game according to Berne's classic definition, i.e., a game that “is played for keeps and ends in the surgery, courtroom or morgue” (1964, p. 64). An individual resorts to a third-degree game when first- and second-degree games do not reap the needed benefits and script payoffs. Berne saw third-degree games as magnifications of inflexible, tenacious, and intense game patterns which constitute mental disturbances.In order to suggest what drives an adolescent to consider suicide the only way to meet his/her needs, the predominant transactional patterns in families of suicidal adolescents are examined. Primary messages are identified and related to overall script beliefs. Finally, Berne's game thesis and Karpman's Drama Triangle (1968) are used to hypothesize the identity of the true victim of this deadly game

Adolescent suicide · Aesthetics · Drama · Medical emergency · Poison control · Suicide prevention · Transactional analysis · Medicine · Personality Disorders and Psychopathology · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Psychology · Suicide and Self-Harm Studies

• Transactional Analysis in American College Psychology Textbooks

  Howard J Douglass•Transactional Analysis Journal•1990

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