The Script We Chose
Why do people come to therapy?
The answer to this question will be different for every individual who walks through the therapy room door. There are an infinite number of reasons that people will attend therapy.
Mostly of their own accord, a person will seek therapy because they are experiencing a thought, feeling or behaviour that is troubling them and that they would benefit from changing.
Whether a client knows exactly what they want to change or not (a recurring behavioural pattern such as addiction, or just a feeling of being stuck), it is the therapist’s role to help the client understand why they think, feel and behave the way they do and to identify ways in which they can improve their quality of life.
Change is a core part of therapy, and contracting for change is a core principle of Transactional Analysis.
It is one thing to be aware of the need for change, even to identify which thought, feeling or behaviour needs to change, but in order to make effective and lasting change it is critical to understand how we got here in the first place.
We are all born into this world with a clean slate. It is mostly environmental factors and how we interpret them that influence the way our personalities develop. From birth, an infant is in a constant state of threat. To survive, it is critical that they develop strategies to get their needs met. It is through the way these needs are met that the infant figures out the best to survive. This is the very beginning of script formation.
Script, as a TA concept, is an unconscious life plan developed in infancy and reinforced by evidence from events occurring in our lives.
Initially Script is formed in relation to verbal and non-verbal messages, commands and attributions and injunctions and permissions, and physical interactions from primary caregivers. How the child interprets these stimuli will determine the decisions they form about themselves and the strategies they employ to best get through life.
These decisions have been defined as conclusions regarding self, self in relation to others, others or quality of life, adopted during childhood as the best means of surviving and getting needs met within the constraints of the child’s ways of feeling and reality testing.
The problems start when these decisions become outdated. When we start to react to stimuli in a way which no longer works in our favour. What worked as a child to survive, does not necessarily work as an adult.
This is where historical enquiry becomes a crucial element of any psychodynamic therapeutic approach.
Where these historical stimuli and decisions can be identified (a recurring phrase heard in childhood like ‘children should be seen and not heard’, ‘it’s like talking to a wall’, being praised for being tidy or chastised for being 'silly', or any individual or recurring event that led to you as a child coming to a concrete conclusion) they can be revisited and the Child decision about the phrase or event can be re-made using all the information and power we have as adults. These re-decisions can be put to practice in the here and now, within the safety of the therapeutic relationship.
Where these decisions cannot be identified (they were made pre-verbally), a therapist will work on a relational level, providing a different experience of self in relation to others, working at changing child perceptions and decisions at a subconscious level.
All of human behaviour is determined by our unique, deeply held and subconscious beliefs about ourselves, the world and our relationship with it, but the good news is that we are not stuck with this forever. With the right help, unhelpful, outdated decisions and beliefs can be identified, re-made, reintegrated, and a whole new show can be put on the road.
