Bulls n' Bears

 

Life Script Analysis, Transferring Script Topics I

Eric Berne has developed the concept of Transactional Analysis as a tool to analyze and understand the human behavior. It was meant to be an integrated approach to psychotherapy. The concept of Transactional Analysis was explained by Dr. Eric Berne with the help of six key ideas viz., the Ego States (Parent, Adult & Child), Transactions and Strokes, Life Positions, Life Scripts, Injunctions and Drivers and Time Structuring.

While each of the above key ideas makes an interesting study in itself, the Transactional Analysis concept covers the whole gamut of the interaction between these key ideas that determine basic human behavior in their daily life in different contexts. This article is a brief on the Life Script Analysis model as proposed by Dr Berne in the context of TA.

In TA all human behavior is considered to be emanating from one of the three Ego States, which people tend to take in each of the social interactions in daily life, i.e. the Parent, the Adult and the Child. This determines how they respond to a transaction stimulus from the other person. This leads to the emergence of the Transactions and Strokes economy which produces three kinds of transactions - viz., Complementary, Crossed and Duplex. The Ego States are colored by the Life Positions people tend to choose, thus they become the phenomena behind the transactions. It is in this backdrop that Dr Berne has described the idea of a Life Script.

Eric Berne took the premise that all human behavior is the result of self-imposed and limiting decisions, made usually in the childhood. Probably these decisions could have been influenced by the instinct of survival in a given context. Such decisions influence the human behavior on the sub-conscious level and are what Dr Berne called the 'Life Scripts'. Life Script is a pre-conscious life plan which influences the way of life for an individual, the core of his beliefs and purpose of life.


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