ABSTRACT
The TA concept of social diagnosis provides the therapist with a rudimentary framework for beginning to think about transference and countertransference. The therapist needs to pay attention to their own internal flow and their own ego state shifts on a moment-to-moment basis in the room with their client. In practice, transference tends to operate at this psychological level. Reflection upon a therapy session and the types of ulterior transactions taking place can give the therapist a rich sense of the transference and its manifestations in the therapeutic relationship. The ‘gimmicks’, or vulnerabilities, that trigger the response to the game invitation are also based on an individual's script. Games also include elements of projective identification as the projector will behave and relate to the recipient of their projections in ways which provoke, or invite the recipient to act out the sought-out response.
