ABSTRACT
Alliance ruptures can be conceptualized in relational TA terms to signify the possibility of a game enactment between the therapist and client. Therapists who work relationally with the transference and countertransference as a major therapeutic tool do not consider the enactment of a game to be intrinsically bad, but rather an inevitable process whereby the client's unconscious process or core con¯ictual relationship theme (Luborsky, 1984) surfaces in the transactions and relationship with the therapist. Such a relational approach sees that it is not the enactment of a game which is problematic, but rather that the emergence and enactment of the game provides the therapeutic dyad with an excellent opportunity to re-work the underlying script or protocol issues which the game originates from.
