Actually, GM, I may be off on this, but I read and reread that section on stress recovery, and it doesn't say that<em>you</em>trying to recover your own stress in a Transition scene causes it to be stepped up if you fail.  The only place I read/saw that was when someone was trying to recover stress during an Action Scene, which requires an Ally if you don't have a stress recovery/elimination SFX.<br/><br/>Also, the effect die of the roll is compared to the Stress, so if it's higher than the rating, it automatically goes away.  If it's lower, then it steps down by 1.