Impasse and Intimacy: Applying Berne's Concept of Script Protocol

Abstract

The concept of impasse was first conceptualized in the transactional literature as an intrapsychic process that inhibited or blocked internal communication among states of the ego. The authors present an understanding of impasse as an interpersonal process that disrupts the work of the professional dyad in promoting self-understanding and development. As the working relationship deepens, it develops an unavoidable intimacy or closeness, with many of the same pleasures and problems that attend any close relationship. In this often turbulent interpersonal field, points of impasse result from the mutual evocation of each person's unconscious relational patterns, which Berne called protocols. The character of any impasse is, therefore, unique to each therapeutic couple and operates principally at an unworded, body level. Once an impasse has developed, resuming productive work depends on realizing what each person does, what each avoids, and how each becomes stuck when addressing the vulnerabilities and intimacies of this work. These concepts are illustrated with material from a clinical case.