Life Scripts

A Transactional Analysis of Unconscious Relational Patterns

Richard G. Erskine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429915680
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Life Scripts: A Transactional Analysis of Unconscious Relational Patterns is an exciting collection of contemporary writings on Life Script theory and psychotherapeutic methods. Each chapter describes an evolution of Eric Berne's original theory and brings together a stimulating range of international perspectives, theoretical positions, clinical experiences and psychotherapy practices, as well as a psychotherapy story that illustrates the theory. The concept of Life Scripts has frequently been associated with the determinism represented in theoretical scripts, yet, this book offers some new and diverse perspectives. A few contributors address the significance of early childhood experiences in forming a Life Script, while others reflect the perspectives of post-modernism, constructivism, existential philosophy, neuroscience, developmental research, mythology and the importance of narrative.An illustrious group of authors has integrated a broad professional perspective into their understanding of a theory of mind, theories of personality and the methods of psychotherapy. Each chapter provides a unique theoretical perspective; some are provocative and challenge Berne's and others long held notions about Life Scripts.

Chapter One

Life scripts: unconscious relational patterns and psychotherapeutic involvement

Richard G. Erskine

Life scripts are a complex set of unconscious relational patterns based on physiological survival reactions, implicit experiential conclusions, explicit decisions, and/or self-regulating introjections, made under stress, at any developmental age, that inhibit spontaneity and limit flexibility in problem-solving, health maintenance, and in relationship with people (Erskine, 1980).

Scripts are often developed by infants, young children, adolescents, and even adults as a means of coping with disruptions in significant dependent relationships that repeatedly failed to satisfy crucial developmentally based needs. These unconscious script patterns most probably have been formulated, reinforced, and elaborated over a number of developmental ages as a result of repeated ruptures in relationships with significant others. Life scripts are a result of the cumulative failures in significant, dependent relationships! Such life scripts are unconscious systems of psychological organization and self-regulation primarily formed from implicit memories (Erskine, 2008; Fosshage, 2005) and expressed through physiological discomforts, escalations or minimizations of affect, and the transferences that occur in everyday life.

These unconscious relational patterns, schemata, or life plans influence the reactions and expectations that define for us the kind of world we live in, the people we are, and the quality of interpersonal relationships we will have with others. Encoded physiologically in body tissues and biochemical events, affectively as sub-cortical brain stimulation and cognitively in the form of beliefs, attitudes, and values, these responses form a blueprint that guides the way we live our lives. Such scripts involve a complex network of neural pathways formed as thoughts, affects, biochemical and physiological reactions, fantasy, relational patterns, and the important process of homeostatic self-regulation of the organism. Scripts formed from physiological survival reactions, implicit experiential conclusions, relational failures, prolonged misattunements and neglects, as well as chronic shock and acute trauma, all require a psychotherapy wherein the therapeutic relationship is central and is evident through the respect, reliability, and the dependability of a caringly, involved, skilled real person (Erskine, 1993).

Literature review

Eric Berne, in articulating the theory of transactional analysis, termed these unconscious patterns, schemata, or archaic blueprints a “script” (1961). Berne originally defined a script as an “extensive unconscious life plan” (ibid., p. 23) that reflects the “primal dramas of childhood”; they “are derivatives, or more precisely, adaptations of infantile reactions and experiences” (ibid., p. 116). Later, he referred to script as a “life plan based on decisions made in childhood, reinforced by parents, justified by subsequent events and culminating in a chosen alternative” (1972, p. 446).

Fritz Perls, who co-developed Gestalt therapy, also described such self-confirming, repetitive conclusions and patterns (1944) and called it a “life script” (Perls & Baumgardner, 1975) that was composed of both an “early scene” and a resulting “life plan” (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951, pp. 305–306). Alfred Adler referred to these patterns, or schemata, as “life style” (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956); Sigmund Freud used the term “repetition compulsion” to describe similar phenomena (1920g); and contemporary psychoanalytic writers have referred to a developmentally preformed pattern as “unconscious fantasy” (Arlow, 1969a, p. 8) and as “schemata” (Arlow, 1969b, p. 29; Slap, 1987). In psychoanalytic self-psychology the phrase “self system” is used to refer to recurring patterns of low self-esteem and self-defeating interactions (Basch, 1988, p. 100) that are the result of “unconscious organizing principles” termed “pre-reflexive unconscious” (Stolorow & Atwood, 1989, p. 373). In dynamic systems theory, the terms “preferred attractor states” is used to describe repetitive patterns of organizing affective and cognitive experiences and relating to others (Thelen & Smith, 1994).

John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) also wrote about unconscious relational patterns and described the biological imperative of prolonged physical and affective bonding in the creation of a visceral core from which all experiences of self and others emerge. Bowlby referred to these patterns as internal working models that are generalized from past experiences. Bowlby’s theory provides a model for understanding how an infant’s or young child’s physiological survival reactions and implicit experiential conclusions may form an “internal working model”, the antecedents of an unconscious life script.

The general psychology literature has described such schemata, unconscious plans, or life scripts as “cognitive structures” that reflect an individual’s organization of the world into a unified system of beliefs, concepts, attitudes, and expectations (Lewin, 1951); “personal constructs” (Kelly, 1955); “self-confirmation theory” (Andrews, 1988, 1989); “internalized relationship patterns” (Beit-man, 1992); and as a self-reinforcing system or “a self-protection plan” referred to as both the “racket system” (Erskine & Zalcman, 1979) and the “script system” (Erskine & Moursund, 1988).

Each of the authors cited above describes some aspect of unconscious relational patterns, or life scripts. Each author suggests a therapy that involves some combination of analysis, interpretation, explanation, interpersonal relatedness, or behavioural change. It is my opinion that in order to do a thorough “script cure”, it is necessary to provide a relational psychotherapy that integrates affective, behavioural, cognitive, and physiological dimensions of psychotherapy so that unconscious experience may become conscious (Erskine, 1980).

Unconscious processes

The purpose of a serious in-depth psychotherapy is the resolution of a client’s unconscious script inhibitions or compulsions in relationship with people, inflexibility in problem-solving, and deficiencies in health care. Such a “script cure” involves an internal reorganization and new integration of affective and cognitive structures, undoing physiological retroflections, decommissioning intro-jections, and consciously choosing behaviour that is meaningful and appropriate in the current relationship or task rather than behaviour that is determined by compulsion or fear or archaic coping reactions. The aim of an in-depth and integrative psychotherapy is to provide the quality of therapeutic relationship, understanding, and skill that facilitates the client becoming conscious of what was previously unconscious, so that he or she can be intimate with others, maintain good health, and engage in the tasks of everyday life without preformed restrictions.

What most people generally consider as “conscious memory” is usually composed of explicit memory—the type of memory that is described as symbolic: a photographic image, impressionistic painting, or audio recording of what was said in past events. Such explicit or declarative memory is usually anchored in the capacity to use social language and concepts to describe experience. Experience that is “unconscious” usually lacks explicit recall of an event because it is sub-symbolic, implicit, and without language. Sub-symbolic or implicit memories that are problematic or unresolved are potentially “felt” as physiological tensions, undifferentiated affect, longings, or repulsions, and pre-reflective relational and self-regulating patterns (Erskine, 2008; Fosshage, 2005; Kihlstrom, 1984). Bucci (2001) describes such physiological sensations as unconscious communication of emotional information processing. Such physiologically sensed affective memories are forms of experience that are neither linguistically descriptive nor verbally narrative. Physiological and affective experience may be revealed in body language that signals the person’s unconscious story.

I find it important to think in developmental terms and concepts, not only in terms of unconscious process as reflecting either trauma or repression. I generally conceptualize unconscious process (pre-symbolic, sub-symbolic, procedural, or implicit memory) as being composed of several developmental and experiential levels: pre-verbal; never conceptualized; never acknowledged within the family; the absence of memory because significant relational experiences never occurred; actively avoided verbalization as a result of punishment, guilt or shame; and pre-reflective patterns of self-in-relationship that are composed of attachment styles, strategies of self-regulation, relational-needs, script beliefs, and introjections (Erskine, 2008).

When we define script as a complex set of unconscious relational patterns based on physiological survival reactions, implicit experiential conclusions, explicit decisions, and/or self-regulating introjections, made under stress, we are including script patterns that are formed from explicit memory embedded in conscious or preconscious decisions of a previous developmental period. We are also describing the structured result of pre-symbolic and implicit memory, as well as unconscious procedural ways of relating to others, unconscious bodily processes, the unconscious aspects of acute trauma and dissociation, the unconscious effects of cumulative misattunement and neglect, unconscious introjection and/or pre-reflective unconscious organization of attachment styles, relational-needs, and self-regulation. Each of these antecedents of a life script requires a specific form of therapy to enable the unconscious experiences to become conscious and to facilitate the emergence of new patterns of thinking, feeling, body process, behaviour, and interpersonal contact.

Injunctions and decisions: explicit memory

Berne (1972), English (1972), Steiner (1971), Stuntz (1972), and Woolams (1973) have each described script as being formed by parental injunctions and a child’s acquiescence to the parents’ messages. Their ideas vary in how injunctions are communicated, the critical developmental periods when a child is most susceptible to such messages, and the psychological lethalness of both injunctions and the resulting compliance. Each of these theorists basically views script as an interaction of injunctions, counter-injunctions, compliance, and early developmental protocol. Generally, therapy of these script dynamics is described by these authors as consisting of explanation, illustration, confirmation, and interpretation.

Steiner (1971) put particular emphasis on the coercive power of the parents’ overt and ulterior messages to lethally shape a child’s life, while Bob and Mary Goulding (1978) described a list of such injunctions that formed the basis of a child making script decisions. Their examples of script decisions are examples of explicit memories wherein a scene from childhood is consciously remembered, a corresponding parental injunction is identified, and the child’s original decision to comply with the injunction is articulated. Because these memories and the resulting script decisions are explicit forms of memory, they may be amenable to a redecision therapy. As a result of this conscious awareness of how the script was originally decided, with an awareness of the lifelong consequences, and with the therapist’s support, a life changing redecision is possible (Erskine, 1974). Several examples of how redecisions are an effective form of script therapy when the script dynamics and decisions can be explicitly remembered are in Mary and Bob Goulding’s book Changing Lives Through Redecision Therapy (1979) and their videotape “Redecision therapy” (1987), as well as in Erskine and Moursund’s Integrative Psychotherapy in Action (1988).

Allen and Allen (1972) suggested that the therapists’ permissions to live differently than the parental injunctions dictate are an important element in counterbalancing or altering the effects of such script-forming memory because the permissions provide new explicit memories of an involved other person who is invested in the client’s welfare. In a 1980 article, I identified the behavioural, intrapsychic, and physiological dimensions of “script cure” and established the theoretical basis for the script system, originally referred to as the racket system (Erskine & Zalcman, 1979).

The script system provides a model of how a life script is formed from explicit decisions, implicit and pre-symbolic experiential conclusions, fixated patterns of self-regulation, and/or introjec-tions, and are actually lived out in current life, where they are expressed through behaviour, the quality of relationships, fantasy, internal physical sensations, and selected explicit memories (Erskine & Moursund, 1988). The script system describes how the life script is operational now as core beliefs about self, others, and the quality of life. The script system is composed of internal experience, perception, imagination, and conceptualization that are augmented by generalizations and elaborations that construct a “reality” of ourselves, others, and the quality of life. It leads us to be afraid of, or angry about, what may never occur, to be deeply hurt by our anticipations, and to suffer unnecessarily in current relationships because of the self-reinforcing nature of script beliefs. The chapter in this book entitled “The script system: the unconscious organization of experience” explains the components of the script system, provides a useful diagram, and illustrates, through a case example, how an unconscious script was operational in a client’s day-to-day life.

Implicit memory: cumulative misattunements and experiential conclusions

Not all life scripts are based on parental injunctions or script decisions, contrary to what is emphasized in much of the literature on script theory. Unconscious conclusions based on lived experience account for a major portion of life scripts. Implicit experiential conclusions are composed of unconscious affect, physical and relational reactions that are without concept, language, sequencing of events, or conscious thought. Implicit script conclusions may represent early childhood pre-verbal or never verbalized experiences that, because of the lack of relationship, concept, and adequate language, remain unconscious (Erskine, 2008). Later in life, these unconscious conclusions are experienced and expressed through a sense of unfulfilled longing or repulsion and unexpressed or undif-ferentiated affect. They may also be sensed as confusion, emptiness, uncomfortable body sensations, and/or a procedural knowledge for caution in relationships. These physiological sensations are sub-symbolic or pre-symbolic non-verbal affective memories.

In my clinical experience, many clients’ life scripts are an expression of procedural, sub-symbolic, and implicit memories of conditioned affective and sensorimotor responses, repetitive self-regulating behaviours, and preemptory, anticipatory, and inhibiting reactions that culminate in unconscious conclusions. Such implicit experiential conclusions provide a variety of psychological functions, such as orientation, self-protection, and a categorization of experiences. Implicit memory refers to the processing of subliminal stimuli, physiological sensations, and affect, as well as lived experience that, rather than becoming conscious as explicit memory, remains non-symbolized and therefore unconscious until there is an interested and involved other person who facilitates internal contact, concept formation, and linguistic expression.

Implicit script conclusions may unconsciously express developmental needs that were not satisfied, crucial relational interactions that never or seldom occurred, and the repeated failure of optimal responsiveness by primary care-takers. When primary care-takers are repeatedly distressed, anxious, or angry, crucial infancy and early childhood relational interactions may never have occurred. Examples of such crucial parent-child interactions are vital eye-to-eye contact, soothing touch, or the reflective mirroring on the parent’s face as the child is either delighted or distressed (Beebe, 2005; Field, Diego, Hernandez-Reif, Schanberg, Kuhn, & Yando, 2003; Weinberg & Tronick, 1998). Such repeated parental failure to attune and respond to the developmental needs of the young child constitutes psychological neglect. These failures are not necessar-ily—or even usually—the result of deliberate and conscious choices on the part of care-takers. They are more often caused by parental ignorance, fatigue, or preoccupation with other concerns; or the parents may be depressed and tangled in script patterns of their own that are incompatible with meeting the child’s needs. The child, however, is unlikely to understand adult preoccupation, depression, fatigue, or script manifestations and may well fantasize intentionality when none is present. “Mum has no time for me”; “I’m not important eno...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributor
• Foreword
• 1 Life scripts
• 2 The lived and narrated script
• 3 When parting is not such sweet sorrow
• 4 Script or scripture?
• 5 Whose body is it? Somatic relations in script and script protocol
• 6 The “three ways out”
• 7 From a child psychiatry practice
• 8 The individual in context
• 9 Scripts
• 10 It takes a lifetime to play out a script
• 11 Life scripts
• 12 Transgenerational scripts
• 13 The script system
• Index