Passive Mastery of Helplessness in Games*

As an object of psychoanalytic study, the act of playing a game is of special interest for several reasons: The gross perceptual and judgmental distortions which regularly occur; the over-valuation placed on the outcome; the profound affective involvement that commonly accompanies the play; and the obvious intensity of fantasy and motor activity by both participants and onlookers. Although normal regressions in the service of the ego have been described in many areas of daily living, it is to be doubted whether there is another activity in civilized life where the alteration or suspension of ego and, in particular, superego functioning is so extensive. As one form of recreation in our increasingly leisure-oriented society, games have a significant economic impact.** Game playing may also appear in psychoanalytic treatment as a form of transference resistance. It may also become the basis of the individuals' attempts to come to terms with the contradictions of contemporary life, as well as the nucleus of characterological problems and chronically maladaptive interpersonal relations.2 The treatment of a patient in whom games were of central pathological