Transactional analysis ego state functioning, psychological distress, and client change.

Explored the construct validity of transactional analysis (TA) ego state concepts. Ego states are defined as coherent systems of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 65 university students seeking therapy and 95 university students not receiving therapy completed the Adjective Checklist (ACL) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Ego state scores from the ACL correlated with BSI psychological distress in predicted directions. Four of the 5 TA ego state scores differentiated Ss seeking therapy from Ss not seeking therapy. Furthermore, ego state scores changed over the course of therapy, indicating a reduction of distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)