Psychodynamic TA

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Italian psychodynamic school of TA. The main sources are Michele Novellino's The Transactional Analyst in Action: Clinical Seminars (2012), whose final chapter is "The psychodynamic approach", and Carlo Moiso's (1985) structural model of transference, as presented by Miglionico in his account of psychodynamic TA. Berne's (1966) eight therapeutic operations make up the technical core. Primary texts are only partly drawn on (publisher descriptions, journal contents, abstract fragments). Section 4 marks what comes from them and what is reconstructed.

What it is. Psychodynamic TA is a school or orientation within transactional analysis, not a separate manualised therapy. Carlo Moiso and Michele Novellino developed it in Italy in the 1980s. They published companion papers in the same 1985 issue of the Transactional Analysis Journal: Moiso's "Ego States and Transference" and Novellino's "Redecision Analysis of Transference: A TA Approach to Transference Neurosis". Novellino later called the approach "transactional psychoanalysis". He presents TA as a phenomenological branch of modern relational psychoanalysis and re-reads transference and countertransference from Berne's point of view. [source: SAGE TAJ 15(3) contents; Routledge/Karnac book pages; Miglionico]
How change happens. The client's script is not only talked about. It is re-enacted inside the therapist–client system as transference, and the therapist's own script responds as countertransference. Change comes from a working alliance that holds this re-enactment, followed by analysis that first frees the Adult (decontamination) and then resolves archaic Child experience and introjected parental images (deconfusion). The relationship is the main agent. Miglionico quotes Moiso's position that what cures the script is the relationship, not the technique used. The approach also restores the unconscious dimension to TA: the transaction is treated as the bridge between intrapsychic and interpersonal life. [source: Miglionico; Novellino 2012 description]

2. Framework

The school keeps Berne's treatment sequence and reads each phase through transference. Novellino names four strategic phases. [source: Novellino 2012, publisher description; Miglionico] He also distinguishes method, methodology, therapeutic plan, strategy and technique. In practice: the phase is the strategy, and the operation you choose in a given minute is the technique. [source: Novellino 2012 description; the practical gloss is synthesis]

Phase	Goal	Main tools	Criteria for moving on
0. First interview, contract, setting	Assess; agree a contract and a stable setting; form a first hypothesis about the script and the likely transference	Novellino's "six steps" first-interview framework (steps [uncertain]); interrogation and specification; contract	Contract agreed with the Adult; frame accepted; no unmanaged risk
1. Alliance	Build mutual trust. Berne drew on Kupfer's three alliance stages: (1) the client's Child sizes up the therapist's Adult as a possible Parent; (2) the Child separates from its own Parent and accepts the therapist's Adult as a substitute; (3) the client's own Adult takes over as guide.	Empathic enquiry; watching for pseudoalliance (suggestion, games, seduction)	Client brings real material, tolerates confrontation, keeps the frame. Stages 1–2 are reached; stage 3 is the goal of the whole therapy [source: Miglionico]
2. Decontamination	Strengthen the Adult: separate here-and-now reality from Parent prejudices and Child delusions. Work with P2 (parental) transference.	Operations 1–6: interrogation, specification, confrontation, explanation, illustration, confirmation	Client can name contaminations and P2 projections on their own and test them against current reality [mapping to Moiso's types: inference, uncertain]
3. Deconfusion	Resolve archaic Child experience and P1 (archaic, Child-internal parental) transference. Bring unconscious material into awareness.	Interpretation (operation 7); transference and countertransference analysis; regression analysis; dream work; two- and three-chair work; redecision	Archaic feelings and decisions are re-experienced and resolved. The transference is understood and loses its compulsive pull. New decisions are made [source: White 2021 on deconfusion; Novellino 2012]
4. Relearning / reorientation	Consolidate: the client's own Adult guides life without the therapist; new patterns are practised	Crystallisation (operation 8); behavioural contracts; review of script change; ending	Kupfer stage 3 reached (own Adult as guide); script change holds outside therapy; termination worked through

Format and length. The sources give no fixed session count. The approach is open-ended, analytic-style psychotherapy within an explicit setting and contract, usually long-term, in individual and/or group format. Berne's own psychoanalytic-TA setting combined weekly groups with individual sessions. [source: Filanti & Attanasio Romanini 2016 preface, on Berne's setting; the length for this school is uncertain]
Phases overlap. Transference work starts at the first contact, and relational TA writers argue that the decontamination/deconfusion split is partly artificial. Treat the table as an emphasis sequence, not a set of locked steps. [source: White 2021, on Hargaden & Sills; synthesis]
Cosmetic change. Watch for change that is only a "counter-script cure" (Clarkson). Clients may stop at it because the therapist and client have tacitly agreed on a limit. [source: Miglionico]

3. Guiding principles

[source: Miglionico; Novellino 2012 description; White 2021. Practical glosses are synthesis]

The relationship cures; technique serves it. Choose techniques by what they do to the relationship and the transference, not by protocol.
The unconscious is real in TA. Listen for meaning that is unconscious and implicit, as well as for observable transactions; treat stories about others as possible comments on the relationship with you.
Setting as container. Keep the frame stable (time, fee, place, roles, contract). Miglionico compares it to the temenos of ancient healing. The frame is the place where scripts in action become visible, so each breach of it is material.
Two scripts in the room. Analyse the client's script and your own together, continuously and in circular fashion. Ask yourself, often, what role you have in the client's script and what role the client has in yours.
Spot transference and countertransference early. Miglionico calls early recognition key. Do not wait for transference to become florid.
The alliance is a process, not an event. Assess it again every session. It is built, tested and repaired, and it depends on both people.
Distrust easy harmony. Pseudoalliance (built on suggestion, a game, persuasion or seduction) looks like an alliance but works differently, and Miglionico calls it the hidden enemy of the system. Smooth, pleasing sessions without change call for scrutiny.
Contract openly, look for the anticontract. Every contract can hide a secret pact between the two Child ego states ("we won't go too far"). Name it when you can; in long training contracts it can be discussed openly.
Adult first, Child later. Follow Berne's order of operations: decontamination operations (1–6) before interpretation (7). Interpreting to an uncontaminated Adult works; interpreting into a contaminated or confused state tends to be heard as attack or as magic.
The therapist as wounded healer. Your own woundedness is a resource and a risk. Know what draws you to this client. Personal therapy and supervision are part of the method.
Phenomenological stance. Novellino places TA in relational psychoanalysis as a phenomenological branch. Stay close to the client's lived experience and observable transactions before theorising.
Ego-state language as the shared code. Formulate transference, resistance and change in ego-state and script terms the client can learn. This keeps the Adult engaged even in deep work. [synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

Novellino lists the toolkit as: Berne's eight therapeutic operations, two-chair and three-chair work, the redecision technique and dream work. He adds a theory of unconscious communication and a "six steps" first-interview framework. [source: Novellino 2012, Routledge/Karnac pages] Moiso adds the structural analysis of two types of transference. Miglionico adds the pseudoalliance and anticontract analysis. Step-by-step wording is my reconstruction unless cited. All example language is illustrative.

A. Frame and alliance

4.1 First interview (Novellino's six-step framework)

Purpose: Structure the first contact so that assessment, a first script hypothesis and a first reading of the relationship happen together.
Status: Novellino describes a "six steps" framework for the first interview, but its steps are [uncertain]. Do not attribute the outline below to him. It is a generic psychodynamic-TA first interview [synthesis].
Steps (synthesis): (1) Let the client open freely; note the first transactions, how they enter, who "sent" them, and their first expectations of you. (2) Clarify the presenting problem by interrogation and specification. (3) Take a script-oriented history: parental messages, early decisions, repeating patterns. (4) Notice your own reactions in the session: the role you are being invited into, and the role you feel like taking. (5) Form a working hypothesis about the script and the likely transference: is it P2-type (replay of real parental patterns) or P1-type (archaic, Child-internal parental images)? (6) Propose the setting and an initial contract, or a contract to assess.
Example language (illustrative): "Before we talk about what to change, I'd like to hear how this started, and also what you're hoping I'll be like as your therapist."
Watch for: Early idealisation or early devaluation of the therapist; urgency that pushes you to skip contracting; a sense of being recruited into a familiar role.

4.2 Contract and setting

Purpose: Create the container. The setting holds the re-enactment, and the contract engages the Adult.
Steps: (1) Agree on time, frequency, fee, cancellations, contact between sessions, and individual and/or group format. (2) Make a treatment contract with the Adult: what change, and how both of you will know it has happened. (3) Treat later frame breaches (lateness, fee problems, requests to change times) as material to explore before you accommodate or refuse. [source: Novellino 2012 chapters "The setting" and "The therapeutic contract" (titles only); procedural detail is synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "So our agreement is to understand why you keep ending up the one who does everything, and to change that. Does that fit for you, or is something missing?"
Watch for: Contracts the client agrees to too quickly, or that only please you. These suggest pseudoalliance.

4.3 Checking for the secret pact / anticontract

Purpose: Find the unspoken limit that the client's Child and the therapist's Child may agree from the first meeting (for example, "we won't go too far into script analysis"). This limit works as an anticontract inside the contract. [source: Miglionico]
Steps: (1) After the first few sessions, ask yourself what you are avoiding with this client and what the client steers away from. (2) Note topics, feelings or ego states that neither of you raises. (3) Test the limit in supervision. (4) When the alliance can hold it, name the limit as a shared avoidance, not as the client's fault. In long training contracts it can be named openly. [steps 1–4 synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "I've noticed we both slip away from your father whenever he comes up. I'm part of that too. What do you think we're protecting?"
Watch for: Plateaus of pleasant sessions; cosmetic or counter-script change; a feeling of relief when certain material does not come up.

4.4 Building and monitoring the working alliance (Kupfer's stages)

Purpose: Move the client from testing you as a possible Parent (stage 1), to using your Adult as a temporary substitute (stage 2), to relying on their own Adult (stage 3). [source: Miglionico, citing Berne and Kupfer]
Steps: (1) Stage 1: be reliable, consistent and Adult-led, and keep the frame. (2) Stage 2: lend your Adult openly. Think aloud with the client, and model checking facts and naming feelings. (3) Stage 3: hand the work back step by step. Ask the client to analyse first, and confirm or add afterwards. (4) Re-assess the stage after ruptures. [steps synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): Stage 2: "Let's look at this together. What actually happened, and what did you conclude from it?" Stage 3: "You've seen this pattern before. What do you make of it this time?"
Watch for: Stalling at stage 2, where the client depends on your Adult indefinitely. This is a sign of P1 transference or of a game.

B. Berne's eight therapeutic operations

Order and function follow Berne (1966). Operations 1–6 strengthen the Adult (decontamination). Operation 7 (interpretation) deconfuses the Child. Operation 8 (crystallisation) belongs to the end phase. [source: White 2021, summarising Berne 1966; Novellino 2012] Berne's own detailed definitions are not drawn on directly. The descriptions below paraphrase the standard TA account [uncertain on fine detail].

4.5 Interrogation

Purpose: Gather the facts the Adult needs and test whether the Adult is available to answer.
Steps: Ask factual questions aimed at the Adult. Note which ego state answers. If the Child or Parent answers, note it but do not interpret yet.
Example language (illustrative): "How many times did this happen last week?"
Watch for: Over-questioning turns into an interrogation game. Stop when the facts are clear.

4.6 Specification

Purpose: Fix a piece of information in place, labelling it in ego-state or script terms so that it can be referred to later.
Steps: Summarise what the client has said and name the ego state or pattern. Get agreement before going on.
Example language (illustrative): "So when your boss frowns, a part of you feels about seven and scared. Can we call that your Child getting frightened?"
Watch for: The client agreeing in order to please (Adapted Child) rather than out of Adult recognition.

4.7 Confrontation

Purpose: Use specified material to point out an inconsistency, so that contamination or a defence is disturbed and the Adult is re-engaged.
Steps: (1) Only after specification. (2) Set two things the client said or did side by side without judging. (3) Wait for the response and note which ego state takes it up.
Example language (illustrative): "You've said you don't care what she thinks, and you've spent most of our hour on what she thinks."
Watch for: Confrontation heard as Critical Parent leads to shame or withdrawal; treat that reaction as transference material. Keep confrontations strictly Adult in tone.

4.8 Explanation

Purpose: Give the Adult a model of what is happening (ego states, games, script), so the client can observe it.
Steps: Give a brief, concrete Adult-to-Adult explanation, tied to the client's own material, and check understanding.
Example language (illustrative): "Here's one way to see it: when you feel criticised you switch into a very old position, and from there everyone looks like your mother."
Watch for: Intellectualisation, where explanation replaces feeling; or the client turning into a TA "student" to avoid the Child.

4.9 Illustration

Purpose: Strengthen an explanation through an anecdote, image, comparison or light humour that reaches both the Adult and the Child.
Steps: Use it straight after a successful explanation, keep it short, and check how the Child received it.
Example language (illustrative): "It's a bit like wearing glasses your father prescribed thirty years ago and wondering why everything looks blurred."
Watch for: Humour that wounds, or that the client hears as being laughed at. Avoid it in fragile or shame-prone states.

4.10 Confirmation

Purpose: Reinforce a pattern once the client brings new evidence of it themselves, so that the Adult's insight becomes stable.
Steps: Wait until the client spontaneously reports the pattern again, then confirm it and link it to the earlier specification or explanation.
Example language (illustrative): "Yes, that's the same switch we noticed with your boss, and now you spotted it yourself."
Watch for: Confirming too early, or confirming your own theory rather than the client's discovery.

4.11 Interpretation

Purpose: Deconfuse the Child by linking present experience (including toward the therapist) to archaic experience, decisions and introjected figures. This is the psychodynamic core of the school. [source: White 2021 on Berne; Novellino 2012]
Steps: (1) Use it only when the Adult is decontaminated enough to receive it (after operations 1–6). (2) Collect the evidence: repeated patterns, transference reactions, dreams, slips. (3) Offer it tentatively, as a hypothesis that links the here-and-now with the past and, where relevant, with the relationship with you. (4) Watch the response: new memories, affect and associations suggest it fits. Flat agreement or argument suggests it does not, or that it came too early. (5) Repeat it in new contexts (working through).
Example language (illustrative): "I wonder if, when I went quiet just now, I became the father who withdrew when you needed him, and the little girl decided again that needing is dangerous."
Watch for: Interpretations heard as Parental pronouncements, which feed P1 transference or compliance. Interpretation used to avoid the relationship.

4.12 Crystallisation

Purpose: In the final phase, a summarising statement to the client's Adult that they now have a choice, and are free to stop playing the game or living the script.
Steps: Use it only when change is evident outside therapy. State the choice plainly, from Adult to Adult, and link it to planning the ending.
Example language (illustrative): "You now know exactly how you set yourself up to be dropped, and you've stopped doing it. What you do from here is your choice."
Watch for: Premature crystallisation, where you announce a freedom that does not yet exist. That brings flight into health or a counter-script cure.

4.13 Parental interventions and the limits of persuasion

Purpose: Berne also described Parent-based interventions for specific situations (for example support, reassurance, persuasion, exhortation) as distinct from the eight operations. Miglionico notes that persuasion from the Parent is a Bernean operation rarely used in therapy, and that persuasion from the therapist's Child is a problematic message. [source: Miglionico; the full Bernean list is not drawn on, uncertain]
Steps: Use these only for clear protection needs (crisis, safety) and briefly. Afterwards, analyse their effect on the transference.
Example language (illustrative): "Right now I want you to keep that appointment with your doctor. We'll look later at what made it hard."
Watch for: Parental interventions turning into a standing Parent–Child relationship, or into a source of pseudoalliance through suggestion.

C. Transference and countertransference work

4.14 Structural analysis of transference: P2 vs P1 (Moiso)

Purpose: Decide what kind of transference is active, because the type determines the work. Moiso (1985) gives a structural analysis of two types of transference, with clinical examples. P2 transference is a replay of interpersonal patterns the client had with their parents, as the client perceived and recorded them. [source: Moiso 1985 abstract fragment, SAGE] The second type, P1 transference, involves the Parent in the Child: archaic, magical, often split (idealised or persecutory) images the Child built, not recordings of real parents. [uncertain: the abstract was truncated, so this description of P1 comes from the wider TA literature and was not verified in Moiso's text]
Steps: (1) Notice the client's expectation of you: what they fear you will do, or hope you will be. (2) Ask whether it resembles a real parent's actual behaviour, specific and remembered (suggests P2), or something larger than life, all-good or all-bad, fused with the client's own needs (suggests P1). (3) P2: work mainly with Adult operations. Specify the pattern, confront it against how you actually behave, and explain the replay [synthesis]. (4) P1: avoid early confrontation, which will be felt as the persecutor or as loss of the ideal. Hold the projection, keep the frame, and move to interpretation and deconfusion once the alliance can bear it [synthesis; uncertain whether Moiso prescribes exactly this].
Example language (illustrative): P2: "You expected me to tell you off for being late, the way your father did. What did I actually do?" P1: "It sounds as if, for a moment, I became someone who could either save you or destroy you. Let's slow down and look at that together."
Watch for: Rapid swings between idealisation and devaluation (P1). Persistent misreading of your real behaviour despite clear evidence (contamination plus transference). Your own wish to live up to the ideal.

4.15 Identification analysis: alternating, complementary, concordant, collusion

Purpose: Read the transference–countertransference pairing by identification type. [source: Miglionico, drawing on Racker]
Types: Alternating identification (transference): the client projects onto you the opposite pole of their internal Parent–Child dialogue. Complementary identification (countertransference): you take up and act from that projected role. Concordant identification: you resonate with the same ego state the client is in (they are depressed, you feel bad). Collusion: a double contamination in which therapist and client share matching experiences. In all of these the internal dialogue tends to turn persecutory and not-OK.
Steps (synthesis): (1) After a charged exchange, note what you felt and what you felt pulled to do. (2) Classify it: am I being cast as their Parent (alternating/complementary), or am I feeling what they feel (concordant)? (3) If complementary, stop acting the role and use the information. If concordant, use it as empathy and separate yourself from it. If collusive, take it to supervision. (4) Turn it into an intervention when it is timely (see 4.11).
Example language (illustrative): "I noticed I started lecturing you just now. I think that may be a role you know very well. Did it feel familiar?"
Watch for: Shared hopelessness, shared certainty about a third party, or comfortable agreement. These are signs of collusion.

4.16 Self-analysis of countertransference

Purpose: Use your reactions as data about the client's unconscious script, and keep your own script out of the treatment. Novellino wrote on self-analysis of countertransference within TA [uncertain: that paper is not drawn on]. Miglionico gives reflective questions for therapists.
Steps: Regularly (after each session with charged clients) ask yourself [questions paraphrased from Miglionico]: (1) What role am I playing in this client's script? (2) What role is the client playing in mine? (3) What makes me a wounded healer with this client: which of my own hurts is touched here? Then (4) separate what comes from the client (induced) from what is your own (your script), and (5) decide whether to use it, contain it, or take it to supervision or your own therapy. [steps 4–5 synthesis]
Example language: Mostly internal. If you disclose (illustrative): "I find myself wanting to rescue you right now, and I suspect others have felt that too. Can we look at what happens when people rescue you?"
Watch for: Disclosure that serves you rather than the client. Chronic boredom, irritation or sexual feelings left unexamined.

4.17 Detecting and resolving pseudoalliance

Purpose: Identify a relationship that looks like a working alliance but rests on suggestion (the therapist's countertransference starts a game), a game (the therapist accepts the client's invitation), persuasion, or seduction. [source: Miglionico]
Seduction channels (Miglionico): Seduction runs through ulterior messages: from Child (seeking approval), Adult (urgency), Parent (paternal trust) or erotic Child-to-Child. He uses Kahler's communication channels to show how OK and not-OK messages build or undermine the alliance.
Steps (synthesis): (1) Watch for warning signs: the client always agrees, brings what you like, praises you, or creates urgency, and nothing changes. (2) Identify the channel or ulterior message. (3) Find your part (suggestion or game acceptance) through 4.16. (4) Address the overt level first by reviewing the contract and the real progress; take up the ulterior level when the alliance can hold it. (5) Re-contract.
Example language (illustrative): "Our sessions feel good, and I'm also noticing that the things you came for haven't moved much. I wonder whether we've both been keeping things comfortable."
Watch for: The client leaving or the therapy turning into pseudotherapy. Miglionico names these as the two outcomes of unresolved pseudoalliance.

4.18 Redecision analysis of transference (Novellino 1985)

Purpose: Bring Goulding-style redecision work to the transference neurosis, so that the script decision re-enacted with the therapist can be redecided. [source: title of Novellino 1985, SAGE contents. The paper's procedure is not drawn on; the steps below are an inferred integration, uncertain]
Steps (synthesis): (1) Identify a clear transference scene: what you, as the projected figure, are expected to do. (2) Trace it back to an early scene with the original figure (regression or memory). (3) Put that figure in the empty chair (see 4.19). (4) Let the Child express the old feelings and needs, and find the early decision. (5) Support a new decision from the Child, with the Adult's agreement. (6) Return to the relationship with the therapist: how is it different now?
Example language (illustrative): "You've been waiting for me to say you're too much. Who first gave you that message? Put her in this chair and tell her what it was like."
Watch for: Redecision carried out in a pseudoalliance (pleasing the therapist). A redecision that does not change the transference afterwards.

4.19 Two-chair and three-chair work

Purpose: Externalise an internal dialogue (Parent–Child, or two conflicting parts) so that it can be experienced and resolved. Three-chair work adds a position, such as an Adult observer chair, or two parental figures. [source: Novellino 2012 lists two- and three-chair work; the procedural detail is the standard redecision approach, synthesis]
Steps: (1) Contract for the exercise and explain it briefly. (2) Client speaks from one chair to the imagined other. (3) Client switches chairs and answers, taking on the other's posture and voice. (4) Keep switching, following the energy; the therapist shuttles and amplifies. (5) In a three-chair version, have the client step into a third, observing (Adult) chair to comment. (6) Close with a debrief from the Adult.
Example language (illustrative): "Sit over here and be your mother for a moment. What does she say when you tell her you're leaving?" "Now come back. How do you answer her?"
Watch for: Flooding or dissociation (stop, ground, and return to Adult). Performance for the therapist. In clients with strong P1 transference, the empty chair can become the therapist.

4.20 Redecision technique

Purpose: Allow the Child to make a new decision that replaces an early script decision. Novellino places this among the post-Bernean tactics in TA's psychodynamic toolkit. [source: Novellino 2012, chapter "Post-Bernean re-decision tactics"; the procedure follows the general Goulding & Goulding redecision model, synthesis]
Steps: (1) Work contract for this piece of work. (2) Identify the current stuck feeling or behaviour. (3) Move to an early scene, in the present tense and in the first person. (4) Bring out the injunction and the early decision. (5) Dialogue, often with chairs. (6) The Child makes a new decision; the therapist checks it is Child-owned and Adult-endorsed. (7) Anchor it with a behavioural plan.
Example language (illustrative): "You're six, at the kitchen table. What are you deciding about yourself right now?" "What do you decide now, as you are today?"
Watch for: Decisions made to please. Redeciding while the transference is unexamined, so the decision can be undone in the next session.

4.21 Regression analysis

Purpose: Berne's method for activating and decontaminating the Child. The client re-experiences childhood states in the present, often with the therapist taking a role. Berne called it an elective method that remained at the prototype stage, and Novellino's "psychodynamic approach" chapter begins from it. [source: T&F chapter abstract, Novellino 2012 ch. 9; White 2021 quoting Berne 1966]
Steps (outline only; the original procedure is not drawn on [uncertain]): (1) Only with a solid alliance and a clear contract. (2) Invite the client to speak as their child self at a specific age, in the present tense. (3) The therapist responds in a containing role. (4) Explore feelings and early conclusions. (5) Bring the client back to Adult and debrief.
Example language (illustrative): "Let yourself be eight again. Where are you, and what's happening?"
Watch for: Disorganisation or loss of the observing Adult. Not for clients with psychosis or unstable dissociation [synthesis].

4.22 Dream work

Purpose: Use dreams as material from the unconscious to reach the script, ego-state conflicts and the transference. [source: Novellino 2012 lists dream work. The school's specific method is not drawn on, uncertain; Berne used dream interpretation in his early setting per Filanti & Attanasio Romanini 2016]
Steps (synthesis): (1) Ask for the dream in the present tense. (2) Gather associations to each element. (3) Note dream figures that may stand for you or for parental figures, or that are ego-state representations. (4) Optionally use chairs to let elements speak. (5) Link it to the current script theme and the relationship with you. (6) Offer an interpretation tentatively.
Example language (illustrative): "You dreamt of a teacher who forgot your name, the night after I changed our session time. What comes to mind?"
Watch for: Interpretation imposed from your own theory. Dreams brought to please the therapist.

4.23 Listening for unconscious communication

Purpose: Novellino proposes a theory of unconscious communication. [source: Novellino 2012 description] Its content is not drawn on. Using it means treating what the client narrates about others as possible encoded commentary on the therapy relationship. [uncertain: an inference from the concept; possible links to psychoanalytic communicative approaches are not verified]
Steps (synthesis): (1) After any change to the frame or a notable intervention, listen to the stories that follow. (2) Ask whether a story about someone "who doesn't listen" or "who is unreliable" could also be about you. (3) Check your own behaviour. (4) If it fits, offer the link tentatively, and repair if needed.
Example language (illustrative): "You've told me twice about people who cancel on you. I did cancel last week. I wonder if part of this is about us."
Watch for: Forcing every story into the transference. The client's real-world problems also matter.

4.24 Relearning and ending

Purpose: Consolidate change and hand guidance over to the client's Adult (Kupfer stage 3), then end. [source: Novellino 2012 phases; Miglionico; procedure synthesis]
Steps (synthesis): (1) Set behavioural contracts to practise new choices. (2) Review script change against the original contract. (3) Crystallise (4.12). (4) Agree an ending date in advance, and work through the transference meaning of the ending (loss, abandonment, freedom).
Example language (illustrative): "As we come to an end, I'm curious what it means to you to leave me, compared with how you've left, or been left, before."
Watch for: Old symptoms returning as the ending approaches. Usually this is transference to the ending; work it through rather than extending automatically.

5. Handling problems

Novellino has a chapter on defence and resistance, but its content is not drawn on [uncertain]. Material from Miglionico is cited. Everything else is [synthesis].

Stuck client / plateau. First suspect the secret pact or anticontract and pseudoalliance [source: Miglionico]. Run 4.3 and 4.17, review the contract against actual change, and ask yourself what you are both avoiding. If the plateau follows a redecision, check whether the transference has changed; if not, go back to transference analysis. [synthesis]
Resistance. Read it as the script defending itself in the relationship, not as opposition. Specify it ("each time we get close to your brother, you change the subject") rather than overriding it. Then explore what danger the Child expects from you if it goes further, and treat the answer as transference. [synthesis]
Overwhelm during deconfusion (chair work, regression, interpretation). Stop the deep work. Move to Adult with present-tense orienting (where are you, what day is it) and slow breathing. Return to decontamination operations. Re-contract before resuming at a lower intensity. Assess for dissociation and trauma history before more regressive work. [synthesis]
Idealisation (P1). Do not confront it early, and do not enjoy it. Hold the frame, stay consistently Adult, and interpret once the alliance and the Adult can receive it. Expect a devaluing swing and prepare for it. [synthesis, building on Moiso's P1/P2 distinction; uncertain]
Devaluation or hostile transference. Do not defend yourself or retaliate (avoid complementary identification). Specify what the client sees in you, check for any real lapse on your part and own it, then explore whom you have become. [synthesis; concept source Miglionico]
Non-adherence to homework or behavioural contracts. Treat the broken contract as a transaction: which ego state agreed and which refused? Check whether the contract came from your Parent rather than the client's Adult (a contract made by persuasion). Renegotiate a smaller one. [synthesis; source Miglionico on persuasion]
Ruptures. Name the rupture, take your share (countertransference self-analysis, 4.16), and explore the client's experience before explaining your own. Link it to the script when it helps. A repaired rupture is often the key deconfusion event in this approach. [synthesis]
Seduction or erotic transference. Identify the channel (Child approval, Adult urgency, Parent trust, or erotic Child-to-Child) [source: Miglionico]. Keep boundaries absolutely firm. Explore the meaning without acting on it or shaming, and seek supervision. [synthesis]
Collusion (shared contamination or matching scripts). You will not see it from inside, so use supervision and/or your own therapy. Warning signs are agreement about villains in the client's life, shared pessimism, or avoidance of the same topics in both of you. [source: Miglionico on collusion; responses synthesis]
Therapist's own script activated. Expect it, given the wounded-healer framing [source: Miglionico]. Personal therapy and regular supervision are part of the method, not optional. [synthesis]
Client who wants practical help only. Contract honestly for decontamination-level work (operations 1–6, behavioural contracts) and do not push deep transference work. You can offer deeper work later as a separate contract. [synthesis]
Unsuitable or high-risk presentations (acute psychosis, active suicidality, severe dissociation, crisis). Postpone interpretive and regressive work. Prioritise safety planning and standard risk assessment. Use Parental protective interventions sparingly and explicitly, with collaborative management of lethal means where indicated, and liaise with medical or psychiatric care. Return to analytic work once the client is stable. [synthesis]
Over-interpreting. If every statement becomes "about us", the client's real life is neglected, and the client may feel unheard or manipulated. Balance interpretation with work on the here-and-now outside the room. [synthesis]

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