transactional analysis

n. (TA) An approach to psychology that characterized ego states as like those of a child, a parent, or an adult which tended to play roles in interactions associated with each ego state. The adult ego state is associated with introjections of our parents and other authority figures from our childhood, which role we tend to act out in the parent ego state. The child ego state is feeling and perspectives from our own childhood, which we act out in that ego state. The adult state is a reasonable and effective state dealing with present situations. Each person has a plan for his/her life which is called a life script and involves a succession of social roles. A game is a repeated behavior pattern of adopting a child or parent ego state and behaving in that role largely outside the awareness of the adult ego state. In the game of Rapo, for instance, a client, Anika, may enter a child state, run her hand up her therapists pant leg and fondle him, later claim that she was innocent of any sexual motivation, then switch to a parent role and blame the therapist for being seductive without her adult ego state realizing she has been playing a game.