Attachments
Let us begin this discussion by first saying that by far and away the most important and powerful component of the Human Game is attachments. Attachments are not only the core of all Human Games, but they are foundation and basis of human psychology as well. If you want to know the 'why' of something someone does or is doing, all you have to do is locate the attachment.
For our purposes, attachments are the mental bonds we place upon something. Or, metaphorically speaking, when something catches our attention or our interest; like a frog's tongue flicking out after a fly, we snatch onto it and pull it in to our mind and take mental possession of it.
So what do we mean by an attachment?
Keeping in mind that when we were born, our mind was blank. We didn't know what color we are, what race, we had no friends because we didn't know anybody. We knew nothing about religion, politics, nationality, sexual preferences, money, or anything else. Everything we know came to us through information recieved from the time we were born until this moment.
As we recieved our information along the way, some of it we accepted as reality, or fact, or whatever; and made them a part of who we are. Things such as race, nationality, family, gender, beliefs, ideologies, and so on. Everything we kept and made as a part of who we are becomes an attachment in our minds. Some of these things, or attachments, we may eventually decide are very important to us and expand on it. For example, we may grow to be proud of our race and get involved in its history, or heritage, or choose to align ourselves with people of the same race. Which then of course, becomes a game.
Besides the basic information we hold on to that makes us who we are, other things may catch our interest that we put our focus on. Things such a person, or a car, or an activity, or job, etc. Whatever it is, once we place it in our mind, until we let it go, it becomes an attachment. It becomes OUR attachment. It is there because we put it there, and for one reason or another are choosing to hold on to it. In this we own and control that attachment.
With every attachment comes a feeling, an emotion. Depending on what the attachment is, and how important we decide to make it in our life, the emotions involved with them can become very powerful. We can really love someone, or really hate someone. We can love a car, or a sport, or our jobs. Then again, we can completely dislike these things too. We can become passionate about politics, or religion, or a cause, or whatever. We can become so attached to an outcome that we may be willing to do anything to make sure we get it. We can become so attached to someone that we may never stop grieving if something happens to them. Or if something 'traumatic' happens to us, we may keep that in our minds and never get over it.
Attachments have EVERYTHING to do with how we feel about things, what choices and decisions we make, our goals and desires, our emotions, our perceptions and realities, or even how we see ourselves as human beings. The Human Game thrives on, and is driven by attachments. And unless we know about, and are aware of our attachments, they will pretty much run quietly in the background on automatic. The strongest ones having the most control over us without us even being aware of it.
Attachment Psychology
In the beginning I stated that attachments are the foundation and basis of human psychology. The reason being unless something happened in the womb that may have freaked us out, when we are born we should have no attachments. Then as life begins jamming itself into our minds with its indoctrinations, brainwashings, personal experiences, and everything else that gets caught up in our mind; we eventually end up with a whole mind full of attachments. And of course, attachments have everything to do with everything we do.
Because every human is different, every human views life from a different perspective and reality. Thier ability to deal with and control thier emotional attachments vary from having great awareness and control over them; to living life on full automatic, thereby absorbing the full affect something life throws at them with little or no ability to control the emotion that goes with it. Which means they become so strongly in the grip of whatever emotional state they have attached to that they are unable to let it go. And the stronger the grip it has, the more it influences their thoughts and actions. Even possibly to the point of becoming deadly.
Most of us have experienced strong emotional attachments such as grief, broken hearts, anger, stress, depression, and the like; which have taken their own individual times to pass. Some being very difficult and quite painful during the process of it all. For some, however, getting over it may never happen. They may carry that attachment around for the rest of their life. Especially attachments such as a traumatic life experience, abuse, hate, loss of a child, or for some reason childhood issues quite often get carried over into adulthood and never released.
Where psychology comes into play (The Psychology Game) is when one does not know or understand that they are the ones controlling their own thoughts, attachments and emotions. This is absolutely not to judge someone who does not understand about controlling thier attachments. It's not their fault. They just don't know. Even if they are one of those who completely close their mind to the possibility that they can solve their own emotional dilema, they only do so because that is their reality and they know no better.
And how could they know? The reality within the Human Game begins so early and is so powerful that once it gets its grip on us our minds become set. To suggest to someone who is caught up in the Human Game and is stuck in a long term negative attachment that all they have to do to make it go away is to merely make the decision to let it go; is to risk insulting their intelligence and trigger a very negative reaction. Even to the point of becoming angry and adamantly oppose your claim. And to be sure, this is the normal reality for the vast majority of humans.
And let us be clear, letting go is not an easy process if you are not skilled at it. It takes either a very deep understanding of how to do it, or lots and lots of practice in order to be able to do it easily. However, the process becomes much easier once you fully understand the concept that you are a mind and you the one in control of your own thoughts. Having said this, if someone has no idea how to release an attachment, or to let go of an emotion, they may need 'therapy' to help them get over their 'problem'. Or in other words, someone to help theme release their attachment since they cannot do it themselves.
Psychologists (The Psychology Game) have evolved inside the Human Game to help those who haven't learned or can't figure out how to deal with out of control attachments or emotions. Rather than taking the "We are a mind' approach, the Psychology Game sees being caught up in an attachment as different types of 'conditions', and has all kinds of Human Game techniques to deal with them. Depending on what 'condition' you may have.
To be clear, psychologists are a very vital necessity to societal sanity because pretty much the whole of all humanity operates on automatic and accepts these 'conditions' as normal. Until the critical mass of Human Game reality changes, and the "We are the mind" concept becomes standard practice, Humans will continue on generation after generation as they always have. Living life on automatic. Living, reproducing, dying.