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Article review 11 March 2026

Дмитрий Гончаров: Негласный контракт, или Во что играют терапевты

Dmitry Goncharov: The Unspoken Contract, or What Therapists Are Playing At

Dmitri Goncharov: El contrato implícito, o a qué juegan los terapeutas

In professional circles, therapy boundaries are usually discussed in formal terms: time, payment, and confidentiality. Psychologist Dmitry Goncharov, however, invites us to look at the part of clinical work that remains behind these formal agreements — the unspoken (psychological) contract.

Drawing on transactional analysis, he shows how therapy reaches a dead end when the therapist’s blind spots align with the client’s hidden script. The symptom a person brings is often an attempt to get what they want through a familiar covert route. If a therapist gets pulled into this game because of their own unconscious countertransference, three types of “dishonest” contracts emerge:

“Rescuer — Victim”: The client presents helplessness, and the therapist with an inner script of “I must be needed” unconsciously agrees to become an all-knowing guru. On the surface they work on separation, but in reality dependency is reinforced.

“We both won’t touch the pain”: The client asks for personal growth while avoiding trauma. The therapist, who has their own “zone of silence,” unconsciously supports this pact, replacing deep work with positive-psychology talk.

“You are my pride”: A narcissistic capture in which the client’s recovery becomes proof of the therapist’s professional worth. The therapist starts manipulating the process for the sake of outcome, ignoring the client’s resistance.

Markers that a therapist has entered an unspoken contract include bodily reactions and setting breakdowns: sudden exhaustion after sessions, violating one’s own rules (special discounts, overtime “just for this client”), or unusually intense sympathy toward the client.

As a way out of this therapeutic game, the author points to the therapist’s return to the Adult ego state through awareness of personal motives: understanding why it is so important for the specialist that this specific client recover quickly or acknowledge the therapist’s rightness.

Originally published on b17.ru
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Дмитрий Гончаров

Psychologist

Psychologist focused on therapeutic relationship dynamics and clinician self-reflection.

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