Article: Discounting - When We Pull the Wool Over Our Own Eyes by Patrick Brook, TSTA (P)

Reflections on intervention, position, and the space between noticing and naming

It was a pleasure to present at CPD Sussex recently, and to see so many colleagues in the room for a conversation about something I have been turning over for a long time. The topic was discounting, though what I wanted to explore was not what discounting is (though that was part of it), but what happens in the relational space when we, as practitioners, attempt to do something about it.

The architecture of discounting

Mellor and Schiff (1975, p. 295) defined discounting as an ‘internal mechanism’ in which the person ‘believes or acts as though some aspect of the self, other people, or reality is less significant than it actually is.’ The treatment they described is oriented towards helping the person ‘become aware of things as they are’ (p. 295), language that places discounting firmly in the territory of the unconscious, a form of what Anna Freud (1936) would have described as denial. The broader Cathexis school literature reinforces this, describing discounting as the act of unawarely minimising, maximising, ignoring, or distorting aspects of reality (Schiff et al., 1975).

The classical framework identified three domains in which discounting can occur (self, others, and the reality of a situation) and four levels at which it operates (Mellor & Schiff, 1975, pp. 295–298). At the most fundamental level, we may fail to register a stimulus at all. At the next, we register something but minimise its significance. Beyond that, we may acknowledge significance but discount the possibility of change. And at the fourth level, we may accept that change is possible in principle but discount our own capacity to bring it about. These levels are not discrete categories so much as gradations of awareness, each representing a different point at which the filtering mechanism intervenes.

This framework remains clinically useful. But in preparing for the workshop, I found myself pressing a question that I think receives too little attention: why do we discount? The original literature describes what discounting is, how it manifests, and what to do about it in treatment, yet the question of what makes the filtering feel necessary is largely taken as self-evident: it serves the symbiosis, it maintains the frame of reference (Schiff & Schiff, 1971; Mellor & Schiff, 1975). The levels tell us how someone is filtering their awareness, but not what makes doing so feel necessary. In the workshop, I proposed six broad reasons: to avoid having to act; to avoid feeling something unbearable; to avoid grieving; to maintain a relationship; to avoid change itself; and to protect a cherished self-image.

Each carries a different clinical flavour and manifests differently in the room. The ‘why’ is not independent of the three domains: a person discounting some aspect of self, perhaps to protect a cherished self-image, inhabits a different internal landscape from someone discounting some aspect of an other to maintain a relationship they depend on, or someone discounting the reality of a situation to avoid having to act when action feels overwhelming. The domain shapes the stakes; the stakes shape the defence. Recognising which kind of discounting is at work, and in which domain, matters, because it shapes what kind of therapeutic response is likely to be received rather than deflected.

It is also worth noting that discounting is not inherently always problematic. We are constantly bombarded with stimuli, and the capacity to filter, to choose what we attend to, is essential. The question is whether that filtering remains flexible, temporary, and responsive to new information, or whether it has become rigid, persistent, and maintained in the face of contradictory evidence.

The problem with pointing it out

This brings me to the heart of the talk. I am, by nature, a pragmatist. Though I love to reflect on abstract ideas, I am always drawn to the question of utility, more often than not to what actually comes out of a someone’s mouth in the form of an intervention. What I have observed is a certain tradition of directness around discounting that I think deserves greater scrutiny.

When someone identifies a discount directly, the intention may be entirely good, and there are certainly contexts in which directness is appropriate. But the act of pointing out a discount carries an implicit relational claim: I can see something you cannot. However carefully it is delivered, it risks positioning the person doing the pointing out as one with clearer sight and might actually be inadvertently colonising an aspect of someone else’s mind and experience — a concept Karen Minikin (2020) has explored with precision in her work on colonisation of mind.

I do not think this directness necessarily constitutes an I’m OK, You’re not OK position. It implies, rather, something subtler: an I’m slightly more OK than you and the question then becomes: how do we share thoughts that draw attention to an aspect of someone’s minimisation or exaggeration in a way that does not, at worst, invoke a shame state, or at the very least, leave the other person feeling corrected? The answer, I think, lies in attending carefully to what Berne (1961) called the psychological level of the transaction, the message beneath the message.

Every communication carries both a social-level message, what is overtly said, and a psychological-level message, which conveys something about the relational positions of the people involved. In Berne’s account of the ulterior transaction, where the social and psychological levels diverge, it is the psychological level that determines the outcome. This is as true when the therapist speaks as when the client does. An intervention that is socially framed as a reflection or observation may carry a psychological-level message that says: I know your experience better than you do. The words may be collaborative; the music may not be.

What I am advocating for, then, is not a particular formula for intervening, but a habit of self-scrutiny: before I speak, what is the psychological-level message I am about to send? In saying what I am about to say, am I maintaining a position of being slightly more OK than you?

Offer, frame, and imposition

To give this self-scrutiny some structure, I proposed in the talk a simple three part distinction. When we intervene around a possible discount, we are always doing something to the relational and psychological space. The question is whether what we are doing constitutes an offer, a frame, or an imposition. Each represents a different epistemic act on the part of the therapist, and each leaves a different amount of space for the client’s own meaning-making.

An offer is grounded in noticing. The therapist has observed something and makes that observation available to the client without having already decided what it means. The client retains the full interpretive space; they may take it up, set it aside, or arrive somewhere the therapist had not anticipated. The psychological-level message is: there may be something here, and you are the one who gets to decide.

A frame moves beyond noticing into construing. The therapist has not only observed something but has formed a reading of it; they have processed the material through their own lens and are offering it back with a direction already built in. We might say they have construed a meaning from what they have noticed. This is not inherently problematic (a good reading can help a client reorganise their experience) but it is a different act from simply drawing attention. The interpretive space narrows: it is now shaped by the therapist’s understanding. The psychological-level message shifts: I have a reading of this, and I’m inviting you to see it my way.

An imposition moves further still, from construing into knowing. The therapist has not only formed a reading but has arrived at a conclusion they feel certain enough about to present as the reality of the situation. The client’s own meaning-making is no longer being invited; it is being pre-empted. The interpretive space is, in effect, occupied. The psychological-level message becomes: I know what this means, and I need you to know it too.

The gradient, then, is from noticing to construing to knowing, and this gives us a practical question we can ask ourselves in the moment: am I noticing right now, construing, or knowing?

Consider a client who mentions briefly that they have been having trouble sleeping, then moves quickly on to talk about work. The therapist notices a possible discount at the level of significance. How they respond matters:

As an offer (noticing): ‘You mentioned the sleep; I noticed we moved on quite quickly. Did you notice that?’

As a frame (construing): ‘It sounds like you’re minimising the sleep difficulties. That kind of thing is often more significant than we give it credit for.’

As an imposition (knowing): ‘The sleep is significant; it’s telling you something your body knows even if your mind wants to move on. I think we should stay with that.’

Each responds to the same moment, but the relational position, and the space left for the client’s own meaning-making, shifts with each one. The social-level content may be similar; the psychological-level message is not.

In the workshop, one participant made a great observation that has stayed with me: that a frame can sometimes be a disguised offer, a ‘construing that cloaks itself as noticing’. The therapist may believe they are simply drawing attention to something, when in fact they have already formed a reading and are presenting it as if it were neutral. This is, in my opinion, why the distinction matters: the positions are not always as clean as they appear, and the discipline lies in being willing to ask ourselves which one we are actually occupying.

What this opens up

I want to be clear about what I am and am not advocating. I am not suggesting that offers are always ‘right’ and impositions always ‘wrong’. There are clinical moments that call for directness, and a well-timed frame, a good reading offered at the right moment, can be precisely what a client needs. Nor am I proposing a rigid protocol. What I am proposing is a discipline of attention, a willingness to ask, in the moment before we speak: whose meaning is being centred here, mine or my client’s? What is the psychological message embedded in this moment of apparent helpfulness? The Offer–Frame–Imposition distinction applies to our internal dialogue as much as to our clinical work. When I notice something uncomfortable in myself, do I offer it to my own awareness with curiosity, construe it in a way that keeps it manageable, or impose a quick resolution that forecloses the discomfort? Most of us, if we are honest, default to the latter more often than we would like to admit. The quick internal reframe — ‘that’s just tiredness’, ‘it doesn’t matter’ — can be its own form of self-imposed discounting, and recognising it is part of the same discipline I am advocating for in our work with clients.

Berne’s great contribution was to give us a language for the transactions that shape human relating. What I tried to do in the CPD Sussex talk, and in this article, is to turn that language back on ourselves as practitioners, to ask not only what our clients are discounting, but what psychological-level messages we are sending when we try to help them see it. The quality of our attention to that question may be as important as any intervention we make.

References

Berne, E. (1961).Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy.  New York: Grove Press.

Freud, A. (1936). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. London: Hogarth Press.

Mellor, K. & Schiff, E. (1975). Discounting. Transactional Analysis Journal, 5(3), 295–302.

Minikin, K. (2020). Alienation: Radical and Relational Perspectives in TA Psychotherapy. London: Routledge.

Schiff, A.W. & Schiff, J.L. (1971). Passivity. Transactional Analysis Journal, 1(1), 71–78.

Schiff, J.L., Schiff, A.W., Mellor, K., Schiff, E., Schiff, S., Richman, D., Fishman, J., Wolz, L., Fishman, C. & Momb, D. (1975). Cathexis Reader: Transactional Analysis Treatment of Psychosis. New York: Harper & Row.