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Life Scripts: a cool idea to improve your psychoanalyses

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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I recently came across the idea of Life Scripts in Transactional Psychology. Berne, i.e., Wikipedia, describes a Life Script as:

  • Script is a life plan, directed to a reward.
  • Script is decisional and responsive; i.e., decided upon in childhood in response to perceptions of the world and as a means of living with and making sense of the world. It is not just thrust upon a person by external forces.
  • Script is reinforced by parents (or other influential figures and experiences).
  • Script is for the most part outside awareness.
  • Script is how we navigate and what we look for, the rest of reality is redefined (distorted) to match our filters.
Each culture, country and people in the world has a Mythos, that is, a legend explaining its origins, core beliefs and purpose. According to TA, so do individual people. A person begins writing his/her own life story (script) at a young age, as he/she tries to make sense of the world and his place within it. Although it is revised throughout life, the core story is selected and decided upon typically by age 7. As adults it passes out of awareness. A life script might be "to be hurt many times, and suffer and make others feel bad when I die", and could result in a person indeed setting himself up for this, by adopting behaviours in childhood that produce exactly this effect. Though Berne identified several dozen common scripts, there are a practically infinite number of them. Though often largely destructive, scripts could as easily be mostly positive or beneficial.

Dr. Phil (boo!) adds:

Our fixed beliefs define the roles we play in life and have a lot to do with the scripts that are running them. Just as actors follow a play's script for lines, actions and attitude, we follow life scripts according to what our fixed beliefs tell us. Are you telling yourself that you are a tragic character or heroic character? Are you playing the loving mother, abusive husband, frustrated artist or successful businessman?

Edahn adds:

I have some of my own ideas about Life Scripts based on what I've seen. I think people have certain expectations for how events will play out in their life. For instance, someone (e.g., me) might believe that they are destined to be unhappy in their job or unhappy in their relationship. This story leads them to recreate the situation they expect. When faced with an option to either improve their situation against the story, or sabotage it in conformity with the story, they will choose to sabotage. In these cases, sabotage will feel more natural and will produce less stress, ironically. Another life script is: "I'll be nervous in front of the opposite sex" or "I'll never be successful" or "my relationship will have drama in it" or "strangers are untrustworthy."

I think what gets encoded in the person's memory is a specific feeling. Rather than just "fear" or "anger" or "disappointment" the feeling gets fine-tuned based on the situation it arises in. For example, the feeling of "disappointment with loved ones" gets encoded (and later recreated) rather than just plain "disappointment."

It's easy to see a script in other people when you're aware that it might be there. It helps explain a lot of repetitive patterns in relationships and whatnot. Once you identify it, you can edit it. There are a couple ways to edit these things. I haven't read much about it yet, but I can intuit that visualizing results against the Life Script would have a really powerful effect, in that you would essentially be writing a new script and replacing the new script with the old one.

Anyway, thought I'd share. Cool, no?
 

Apollanaut

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Very cool! And also highly accurate: this is, indeed, how most people operate. It's also good news, because a script can be re-written or edited to better serve the current needs of that person. This usually requires the assistance of an appropriately skilled therapist of life-coach.

Elements of a person's Life Script are fairly easy to pick up once you've tuned in to listen for them. We all drop little hints or tell stories which are based on those scripts. For example, here are some of the things you are likely to hear me say, which probably give some clues as to my own Life-Script:

"I'm always lucky with the weather."
"Things have a way of working out for me."
"I find it hard to get respect."
"I'm always nice to people"
"I wish I didn't procrastinate so much"
"I need lots of sleep"
 

Quinlan

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This makes absolutely no sense to me.
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Okay, what part? Are you open to the idea at all, or have you already assumed that the idea is not worth real consideration because it has been posted on the Internet by someone without authority?
 

Quinlan

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Okay, what part? Are you open to the idea at all, or have you already assumed that the idea is not worth real consideration because it has been posted on the Internet by someone without authority?

I understand that we experience the world through filters but beyond that I don't see how it applies, sounds too much like fate. I haven't noticed any themes or the like throughout my life, usually just stuff happens for no good reason and that's that, loose ends areeverywhere, if it is a script then it's a poorly written and disjointed one. :D

"I'm always lucky with the weather."
"Things have a way of working out for me."
"I find it hard to get respect."
"I'm always nice to people"
"I wish I didn't procrastinate so much"
"I need lots of sleep"

These don't really apply to a here and now attitude.
 

wolfy

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They are talking about mental models that reside in your subconscious right?
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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I understand that we experience the world through filters but beyond that I don't see how it applies, sounds too much like fate.

It doesn't really have anything to do with fate. Even the idea of filters is not really it.

The idea is, you have certain subconscious story about how life works. For example, in the paragraph below, you say:

I haven't noticed any themes or the like throughout my life, usually just stuff happens for no good reason and that's that,

This is the kind of script Berne and Apollanaut are talking about. "The subtext to what you said is 'I don't really have control over my successes or failures.'"

I was proposing a slightly different idea, that we don't just have stories about how life will work, but that we encode certain states of being, combinations of feeling and situations. So, we could take what you said and speculate (even though this may not be you) that at some point in your life, you saw shit crumbling around you and felt no control over it. You decided at that point that your life would contain a series of events where things were crumbling beyond your control. (To some extent, this also serves you in the sense that it relieves responsibility for failure.) So, now you have this Life Script.

As you live your life, you will put yourself in situations that "produce" this script. For example, you might aim for a certain goal and put time into it. When you notice that things are getting tough, you give up trying to succeed and produce the same state of mind you were in when you were young. What the outer world tends to see, though, is the summary of your life script, which is a statement like "things just happen to me."

See? :)
 

heart

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It's more complicated that than. Early conditioning and bad relationships may limit perspective and life skills and lead to bad patterns just as easily as false beliefs. And it may not be apparent to the person living the life at the moment.
 

Apollanaut

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usually just stuff happens for no good reason and that's that, loose ends areeverywhere :D

But that belief could itself be part of your own script! No-one said the script has to be coherent or meaningful.
 

wolfy

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Early conditioning and bad relationships may limit perspective and life skills and lead to bad patterns just as easily as false beliefs. And it may not be apparent to the person living the life at the moment.

That's interesting. I've always lumped early conditioning and false beliefs together.

Model is a tricky word. How about...

...script.

LOL

I like model better. :D
 

Quinlan

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This is the kind of script Berne and Apollanaut are talking about. "The subtext to what you said is 'I don't really have control over my successes or failures.'"

Haha I thought you'd say something like that.


Yes much clearer now, thanks.

Actually those kind of false belief are very apparent in my wife, she hangs onto these concepts that to her are "absolute truths" but have no basis in reality and are actually holding her back.
 

ring the bell

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Interesting... Here's my two cents....

I can see where it brings to light the difference between the conscious mind and the unconscious. It’s as if the script of our lives is driven by our instinctual set of values that are hard wired. We observe constantly and process data in our environment. As we process this, we remember facts about a situation. I think how we felt about the situation might be hardwired into the unconscious as well.

So maybe, as we go through life, what is known through experience is familiar. Familiar is not good versus bad. Maybe instinctually we know that doing the familiar will give better chances of survival. We aren’t processing good or bad. The unknown isn’t quite so safe, since we don’t know the outcome. We are just placing ourselves into situations and on a life path of least resistance.

By introspecting and paying attention to our behaviors, we are able to process it and change what’s hardwired in our habits. We change the way we think by seeing patterns in how we think. It’s kind of like breathing in and out. Your body does it’s own thing until you suddenly take notice and then you can control it. Otherwise, your body just does its own thing on instinct.
 

Apollanaut

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Interesting... Here's my two cents....

I can see where it brings to light the difference between the conscious mind and the unconscious. It’s as if the script of our lives is driven by our instinctual set of values that are hard wired. We observe constantly and process data in our environment. As we process this, we remember facts about a situation. I think how we felt about the situation might be hardwired into the unconscious as well.

So maybe, as we go through life, what is known through experience is familiar. Familiar is not good versus bad. Maybe instinctually we know that doing the familiar will give better chances of survival. We aren’t processing good or bad. The unknown isn’t quite so safe, since we don’t know the outcome. We are just placing ourselves into situations and on a life path of least resistance.

By introspecting and paying attention to our behaviors, we are able to process it and change what’s hardwired in our habits. We change the way we think by seeing patterns in how we think. It’s kind of like breathing in and out. Your body does it’s own thing until you suddenly take notice and then you can control it. Otherwise, your body just does its own thing on instinct.

Nicely put! It can feel quite strange or awkward when we first try on new behaviours, like trying to ride a bicycle for the first time. However, with practice and repetition, our new approach can becomes more and more habitual until it passes into our personal unconscious and becomes second nature, either supplementing or completely overwriting the old pattern.

This happens all the time - whenever we change a habit or learn a new skill, for example. However, by becoming more conscious of the hidden "scripts" which direct our lives, we can take a more proactive approach to self-improvement, by focussing on the beliefs we hold which may be severely limiting our choices. Also it is far, far easier to modify our behaviour by rewriting the script than by using willpower alone!
 

heart

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That's interesting. I've always lumped early conditioning and false beliefs together.

By a false belief I mean holding a thought in the mind: "I am destined for bad things to happen to me"

By early conditioning I mean how our role models teach us to live and interact with others. And by using bad coping mechanisms we cope badly with life and other people.
 

Apollanaut

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"I'm always lucky with the weather."
"Things have a way of working out for me."
"I find it hard to get respect."
"I'm always nice to people"
"I wish I didn't procrastinate so much"
"I need lots of sleep"

These don't really apply to a here and now attitude.

Not sure what you mean, but it might help if I give some examples:

"I'm always lucky with the weather."
"Things have a way of working out for me."

These imply that I believe in "luck" as a power which positively influences my life. Also that I benefit from good luck. By holding this belief I tend to approach life with an expectant attitude - if things are not going well, I "know" that I merely have to wait for a while and they will sort themselves out. It also provides me with my own personal pair of rose-tinted spectacles - I habitually filter out the dark clouds in my life and focus on the silver lining.

With regards to my belief about the weather - it seems to be self-fulfilling. I expect to have good weather when I am on holiday, so that is what I focus on and notice. It can be raining cats and dogs, but I will be commenting that the teeny-tiny sliver of blue in the sky is a sure sign that the sun will soon come out! However, I DO tend to have good weather when I go away, and other people have commented on this without my prompting. Two years ago I returned to the UK for a 3 week holiday during their summer. Well guess which 3 weeks had the only decent sunshine during an otherwise wet and dismal typical English "summer".

The downside to holding this belief (which I have no intention of changing as it makes me happy) is that I sometimes fail to take action when it is needed, believing that things will sort themselves out without my direct intervention. This part I have altered somewhat - I'm much more proactive than I used to be.

"I find it hard to get respect."
"I'm always nice to people"

These two go together. I was brought up to believe in being polite, kind and helpful to other people. However, in the modern world it seems that these traits are not valued at all, in contrast they are actually telling (some) people that they can walk all over me, respond to my politeness with extreme rudeness, or simply ignore me completely. "Respect" seems to be earned by being loud, sarcastic or assertive-to-the-point-of-bullying in our society, and I refuse to treat others in that way.

You see how powerful and emotional these scripts can be? Just writing about it has got me all fired up! Partly to compensate for this belief, I have acquired many academic and professional qualifications and I hold down a highly respected job as a senior forensic scientist. I have been cross-examined in courts of law on many occasions and held my own. Yet still, there is a part of me that feels like people do not truly respect me, or who mistake my easygoing facade for weakness. I admit to having a lot of editing still to do in this area of my personal script! :blush:
 

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"I'm always lucky with the weather."
"Things have a way of working out for me."

I actually agree with the OP, but I think this is an example of selective bias. Weather is a random factor that you have no control over - if you think you are lucky with it, chances are you are filtering out the external world to confirm that belief, not that it is inherently true.

That's the power of the 'scripts', in a way, and it works both ways. In cases where we have control and can predict the outcome, we end up influencing it in a myriad of ways beyond our ability to be aware of them ourselves. Most of what we do - if not the entirety of what we do - is below awareness. We can find patterns in our own life, but most of the time others are able to see it better than we are. But this ties into the filter concept - selectively seeing the world a certain way. By always seeing the world a certain way, we prune down how we can react to a far smaller subset of behaviors... which we choose based on the 'script'. It's an efficient defense mechanism that everyone has.

I personally see it as a form of conditioning, but it is essentially the same thing.
 

Apollanaut

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I actually agree with the OP, but I think this is an example of selective bias. Weather is a random factor that you have no control over - if you think you are lucky with it, chances are you are filtering out the external world to confirm that belief, not that it is inherently true.

I thought that's what I said in my last post. But my belief does influence my behavour subtly - I suspect I'm more likely to choose to visit holiday destinations at the optimal times for good weather. I'm pretty good at reading the sky and guessing what the weather's likely to do in the next few hours, so I'll time my journeys for when i think it's most likely to be dry. Or I may pick up on the weather forecast subconsciously - there are many ways in which my unconscious behaviour can act to reinforce the script. I know it's an irrational belief, but as I said before, it makes me happier to think that there is such a thing as "luck", or "weather-attunement" or at a deeper level "magic".

I chose a relatively minor, harmless example from my own life to illustrate a point, but even this superstition could become detrimental if taken too far (overwhelming belief in supernatural forces?).

I know plenty of people who hold the reverse beliefs: "I always have bad weather", or "My luck is always terrible" and these ones do seem to have quite a negative effect on people's lives and happiness.
 

ptgatsby

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I thought that's what I said in my last post.

Ah, sorry, didn't mean to give the impression I was disagreeing with you, I saw what you said as an expansion on the OP, which might not include your reasoning :D It just prompted me to think about the interactive effect between them (meaning - because you believe you have good luck with the weather, you tend to go out and do more).
 
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