This article examines the similarities and differences between games, enactments, and reenactments. The author explores how the multiple definitions of each of these constructs make comparisons between them difficult and concludes that, despite possible theoretical similarities, there are important clinical reasons for seeing them as separate. These reasons are discussed and explored using case vignettes.
AronL. (2003). The paradoxical place of enactment in psychoanalysis: Introduction. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 13, 623–631.
2.
BacalH. (2011). Specificity theory: The evolution of a process theory of psychoanalytic treatment. American Imago, 68, 267–285.
3.
BassA. (2003). “E” enactments in psychoanalysis: Another medium, another message. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 13, 657–675.
4.
BerneE. (1964). Games people play: The psychology of human relationships. New York, NY: Grove Press.
5.
BerneE. (1970). Sex in human loving. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
6.
BrombergP. (2000). Bringing in the dreamer: Some reflections on dreamwork, surprise, and analytic process. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 36, 685–705.
7.
BrombergP. (2006). Awakening the dreamer: Clinical journeys. Mahwah, NJ: The Analytic Press.
8.
CaizziC. (2012). Embodied trauma: Using the subsymbolic mode to access and change script protocol in traumatized adults. Transactional Analysis Journal, 42, 165–175.
9.
ChusedJ. F. (2003). The role of enactments. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 13, 677–687.
10.
ChusedJ. F.EllmanS. J.RenikO.RothsteinA. (1999). Four aspects of the enactment concept: Definitions, therapeutic effects, dangers, history. Journal of Clinical Psychoanalysis, 8, 9–61.
11.
CornellW. F. (2008). What do you say if you don’t say “unconscious”?: Dilemmas created for transactional analysts by Berne’s shift away from the language of unconscious experience. Transactional Analysis Journal, 38, 93–100.
12.
CornellW. F.OlioK. A. (1992). Consequences of childhood bodily abuse: A clinical model for affective interventions. Transactional Analysis Journal, 22, 131–143.
13.
DaviesJ. (1997). Dissociation, therapeutic enactment, and transference-countertransference processes: A discussion of papers on childhood sexual abuse by S. Grand and J. Sarnat. Gender and Psychoanalysis, 2, 241–257.
14.
EigenM. (1993). The psychotic core. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
15.
EnglishF. (1977). Let’s not claim it’s script when it ain’t. Transactional Analysis Journal, 7, 130–138.
16.
ErskineR. G. (1993). Inquiry, attunement, and involvement in the psychotherapy of dissociation. Transactional Analysis Journal, 23, 184–190.
17.
FosshageJ. (2011). How do we “know” what we “know?” And change what we “know?”Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 21(1), 55–74.
18.
GreenbergJ.MitchellS. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
19.
HargadenH.SillsC. (2002). Transactional analysis: A relational approach. London, England: Brunner-Routledge.
20.
JacobsT. (1986). On countertransference and enactments. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 34, 289–302.
21.
JoinesV. (1982). Similarities and differences in rackets and games. Transactional Analysis Journal, 12, 280–283.
22.
KarpmanS. B. (2009). Sex games people play: Intimacy blocks, games, and scripts. Transactional Analysis Journal, 39, 103–116.
23.
LeDouxJ. (1996). The emotional brain. New York, NY: Touchstone Books.
24.
LittleR. (2006). Ego state relational units and resistance to change. Transactional Analysis Journal, 36, 7–19.
25.
MasseyR. (1990). The structural bases of games. Transactional Analysis Journal, 20, 20–27.
26.
McLaughlinJ. T. (2005). The healer’s bent: Solitude and dialogue in the clinical encounter (CornellW. F. Ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.
27.
MillerA. (1984). Thou shalt not be aware: Society’s betrayal of the child. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
28.
MinuchinS. (1974). Families and family therapy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
29.
NovakE. (2013). Combining traditional ego state theory and relational approaches to transactional analysis in working with trauma and dissociation. Transactional Analysis Journal, 43, 186–196.
30.
OatesS. (2012). Who decides and what can be changed?Transactional Analysis Journal, 42, 176–182.
31.
SchwartzH. L. (2000). Dialogues with forgotten voices: Relational perspectives on child abuse trauma and treatment of dissociative disorders. New York, NY: Basic Books.
32.
SothM. (2013). We are all relational, but are some more relational than others?: Completing the paradigm shift toward relationality. Transactional Analysis Journal, 43, 122–137.
33.
StarkM. (1999). Modes of therapeutic interaction: Enhancement of knowledge, provision of experience, and engagement in relationship. North Bergen, NJ: Book-mart Press.
34.
SternD. B. (2003). Unformulated experience: From dissociation to imagination in psychoanalysis. New York, NY: Routledge.
35.
SternD. B. (2010). Partners in thought: Working with unformulated experience, dissociation, and enactment. New York, NY: Routledge.
36.
StuthridgeJ. (2006). Inside out: A transactional analysis model of trauma. Transactional Analysis Journal, 36, 270–283.
37.
StuthridgeJ. (2012). Traversing the fault lines: Trauma and enactment. Transactional Analysis Journal, 42, 238–251.
38.
SummertonO. (1993). Games in organizations. Transactional Analysis Journal, 23, 87–103.
39.
van der HartO.NijenhuisE.SteeleK. (2006). The haunted self: Structural dissociation and the treatment of chronic traumatization. New York, NY: Norton.
40.
van der KolkB. A.McFarlaneA.WeisaethL. (Eds.). (1996). Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
41.
van der KolkB. A.van der HartO.MarmarC. (1996). Dissociation and information processing in posttraumatic stress disorder. In van der KolkB. A.McFarlaneA.WeisaethL. (Eds.), Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society (pp. 303–327). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
42.
WoodsK. (2002). Primary and secondary gains from games. Transactional Analysis Journal, 32, 190–192.
43.
ZalcmanM. (1990). Game analysis and racket analysis: Overview, critique, and future developments. Transactional Analysis Journal, 20, 4–19.
