Abstract
This article illustrates how confronting or aborting a patient's game is nontherapeutic. It suggests that game analysis proper actually consists of analyzing rather than confronting games. It defines the three-layered defensive structure of the neurotic condition and recommends analyzing the defensive function of the game as well as the encoded, unconscious communication contained within the manifest content of the conflicted speech comprising a game. Analysis of these unconscious communications is well within the province of the transactional analyst.