Life Scripts: Definitions and Points of View Richard G. Erskine (Editor), Maria Teresa Tosi, Marye O’Reilly-Knapp, Rosemary Napper, Fanita English, and Jo Stuthridge Abstract The concept of life scripts is but one example The European Association for Transactional of our innovative and evolving theory. The Analysis (EATA) Conference in Prague, the theory of life scripts has fascinated me since I Czech Republic, included a roundtable on first heard about it in 1967 in a training work- “Life Scripts” presented on 9 July 2010. The shop with Fritz Perls. He had borrowed the idea roundtable was preceded by introductory from Eric Berne, but neither Berne nor Perls speeches given by Richard G. Erskine (con- wrote about its psychotherapeutic applications. vener), Maria Teresa (Resi) Tosi, Marye Prior to his untimely death, Berne collected O’Reilly-Knapp, and Jo Stuthridge. The notes and vignettes about various influences in roundtable discussion also included comments the formation of scripts. Those uncorrelated from Rosemary Napper and Fanita English. notes and his ideas about human destiny were This article presents edited excerpts from published as the book What Do You Say After three of the introductory speeches and some You Say Hello? (Berne, 1972). Berne did not of the following discussion. (Jo Stuthridge live long enough to fully develop the concept asked that her speech not be included be- of life scripts; he wrote only an outline of the cause it duplicates material already in print.) theory and did not address how to treat life ______ script issues in psychotherapy. He left it to fu- ture generations, to you, my colleagues here on Richard Erskine, Introduction the roundtable, to me—to all of us—to develop As transactional analysts we have a profound and refine the concepts and methods of work- set of theories that have endured the test of time. ing with life scripts. The core theories of transactional analysis in- In the book that has just been published by clude the human need for relationships and Karnac entitled Life Scripts; A Transactional strokes, the complexity of ego states, the dis- Analysis of Unconscious Relational Patterns tinction of transference from ordinary transact- (Erskine, 2010), 14 transactional analysts have ions, and the overarching concept of life scripts. written about how they have developed, ad- Each of these specific concepts, as well as the vanced, and refined Berne’s rudimentary ideas. combination of all the subconcepts, provides a Some of the authors are here in Prague for this rich repertoire of theory that is uniquely trans- European Association for Transactional Analy- actional analysis. sis psychotherapy and counseling symposium. For 50 years transitional analysis has devel- Those present today are Maria Teresa (Resi) oped, survived, and endured clinical tests. Our Tosi (Italy), Mary O’Reilly-Knapp (USA), Jo theory has been refined through our increasing Stuthridge (New Zealand), Rosemary Napper experience, experimentation, collegial confron- (UK), and Fanita English (citizen of the world). tations of each other, and continuous feedback In this symposium, via the introductory speech- from our clients. As transactional analysts we es and the roundtable discussion, you will hear are grounded in the theories developed by Eric about a combination of traditional concepts, Berne and the members of his seminars, and we innovative perspectives, and some radical ideas. are innovative because we listen to the experi- As a group of authors, we have written about life ences and needs of our clients. Both our theo- scripts being composed of subsymbolic and ries and methods evolve because we are willing procedural memory, implicit experiential con- to learn from our clients while also utilizing clusions, and self-regulating patterns. Some of what we already know about human dynamics. these authors view life scripts as existential Vol. 41, No. 3, July 2011 255 R.G. ERSKINE (EDITOR), M. T. TOSI, M. O’REILLY-KNAPP, R. NAPPER, F. ENGLISH, AND J. STUTHRIDGE positions or dilemmas that need to be valued probably say I felt “validated”: what I felt and and embraced whereas others define them as thought could be recognized and valued (Ers- embedded within the body or a result of lethal kine &Trautmann, 1996). Now I think that in parental injunctions. As a group, though, we those days, 30 years ago, I was starting to form have written about unconscious relational pat- my first narrative of what psychotherapy is: an terns that have their origin in early childhood empathic relationship in which a client can give needs for attachment and in the protocol of pri- meaning to her own experience and start to mary relationships within the family. form new images of herself, others, and life. I want to begin this symposium by sharing How many “first” experiences and images do my personal perspective on life scripts. In care- each of us have? The first day in school, the fully reading Berne’s writings, it is clear to me first time we made love, the first pregnancy, the that the concept of script refers to that which first time a loved one died. How many intense inhibits spontaneity and limits flexibility in and deeply provoking moments of change in problem solving, health maintenance, and rela- relationship to others—what Stern (2003) called tionships with people. The definition of life present moments—have we experienced in life? scripts on which I base my psychotherapy and How many traumas do we still need to integrate teaching is this: “Life scripts are a complex set in our memories? How many plots or life of unconscious relational patterns based on phy- themes have we developed and favored in our siological survival reactions, implicit experien- life? Which plots or themes are still there, as if tial conclusions, explicit decisions and/or self- they are waiting their turn, or which ones do we regulating introjections” (Erskine, 2010, p. 1). still not know? I personally believe that to achieve effective In his definitions of script, Berne (1972) change in a client’s life script, it may be neces- underscored that the script is an ongoing pro- sary for the psychotherapist to focus the thera- gram, developed in early childhood under par- peutic work on four major areas: ental influence, that directs the individual’s be- 1. Being aware of the client’s bodily reac- havior in the most important parts of her life tions and uncovering the unconscious emo- and is based on archaic decisions and conclu- tional story embedded within his or her sions. The protocol, the script, and the adap- body tation are three steps in script formation that go 2. Providing an ongoing relational psycho- from an archaic, unconscious drama to a pre- therapy to rectify implicit experiential con- conscious story formed through daily relation- clusions and fixated self-regulating accom- ships. Very creatively, Berne proposed that modations some people—or maybe all of us—develop a 3. Engaging in in-depth therapy of the Par- story that limits their identity by forming self- ent ego states to decommission introjec- repeating patterns, a story that needs to be re- tions and parental injunctions decided in order to reach autonomy. 4. Facilitating the client in making redeci- After Berne, a wide consensus has developed sions related to explicit experiences around the idea that we need a story, in any The more areas of this complex set of uncon- case, if we want to shape our identity. This scious relational patterns that we attend to in concept was anticipated by Bill Cornell (1988) our psychotherapy, the more we will achieve and Fanita English (1988) at the end of the script cure (Erskine, 1980). 1980s. Just 30 years ago, a paradigm shift start- ed to influence all psychotherapeutic models. Maria Teresa (Resi) Tosi on “The This narrative revolution altered the vision of Challenges of the Narrative Script” the self per se and fostered the concept of a When I remember my first psychotherapy narrator self. session as a client, I can still feel the sense of Basically, the narrative vision suggests that being deeply understood and respected by my the person needs a story to define her own psychotherapist while he was mirroring my identity. Life is constructed and reconstructed feelings and thoughts. Richard Erskine would through the stories we tell about ourselves and 256 Transactional Analysis Journal LIFE SCRIPTS: DEFINITIONS AND POINTS OF VIEW our relationships. Stories help people integrate is activated, there is a specific nonrelational and make sense of their experiences. Stories self linked to it (Andersen & Chen, 2002). The provide personal and cultural meanings to attributes given to the self (e.g., “I’m too fat”) relational experiences. When people tell stories appear to be related to the procedural experi- they are always doing so with a listener— ence of being with others (e.g., “If I am thin, internal or external, in actuality or in fantasy— then I can be admired”) (Baldwyn, 1997). who influences the development of that story. Modern psychosocial research hypothesizes Narrative approaches can be differentiated that the personality system consists of media- into two major streams. In one, some authors tional affective-cognitive unities that are organ- studied the content of clients’ spontaneous stor- ized in specific relational networks (Mischel & ies and showed that they are of great value in Shoda, 1995). This means that there is growing accessing hidden psychological processes (e.g., consensus among psychosocial researchers that see Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1990). Ac- the theory of traits is inadequate to diagnose a cording to a second stream, the so-called post- client (e.g., “she is extroverted”). On the con- psychological perspective, the concept of nar- trary, it is important to acknowledge both the rative is central because it brings together cru- variability of one person in different contexts cial aspects of the psychotherapeutic process.