Scripts People Live

by Claude Steiner

  Payoff: These include stamps, racket, sweatshirt. The stamps represent the kind of affect accompanying the end of the game—anger, depression, sadness, etc. The act of pursuing and collecting the stamps is the racket. Every person has his own individualized racket and type of stamps. The sweatshirt refers to the fact that people prominently display their racket on their chests, so to speak, as an advertisement to willing players.

  Tragic Ending: This is important to therapists working with people with hamartic or self-destructive scripts. The tragic ending is usually specific as to time, place, and method, and is a sort of modus operandi which characterizes each self-destructive individual. Suicidal persons will stick to a certain form of suicide, thus affording the therapist a script antithesis, a transactional stimulus intended to disarm the self-destructive injunction. If the tragic ending is death through drinking, the script antithesis includes the injunction “Stop drinking!” plus Antabuse (see Games Alcoholics Play, Steiner)1 and, in extreme cases, removal of available alcohol by whatever means necessary. The script antithesis does not dispose of the script, but it buys time during which therapy can lead to script abandonment. The script antithesis has been tested in my work with very clear results. The most impressive result of a script antithesis was found when the person—as he was about to leap off a bridge—heard the voice of the therapist saying “Don’t jump!”

  Therapist’s Role: This is the role which the person expects the therapist to play when he applies for treatment. People commonly expect therapists to play the role of Rescuer or Persecutor and to reinforce parental scripting. This aspect of the script will be discussed fully in the section on therapy.

  Twenty Questions: It is possible through a series of questions to elicit information about a person’s script. I drew up the original “twenty questions” (actually only 13) in 1967. In What Do You Say After You Say Hello? Berne published three different lists: a comprehensive 169-question list and two short versions, a condensed list (fifty-one questions), and a therapy list (forty questions).

  Once again, I wish to reiterate that the in-depth investigation of the script matrix and checklist belongs in the realm of the structural analysis of scripts and is not my main interest in writing this book.

  Does Everyone Have a Script?

  A person’s life may fit into one of several different possibilities. She may be script-free or she may have a script. If she has a script it may be hamartic (dramatic) or it may be banal (melodramatic). Whether hamartic or banal, a script may be good or it may be bad.

  Miss America provides an example of a life course in which no script may be present. Not everyone has a script, since not everyone is following a forced, premature, early-childhood decision. Miss America may decide, at some point, that she is a beautiful woman, but this decision is made at an appropriate age and involves no sacrifice of an O.K. position, loss of autonomy, or inhibition of expectations.

  A person with a script is invariably disadvantaged in terms of his own autonomy or life potentials. The distinction between good and bad scripts is based on whether or not it has socially redeeming features. For instance, a man whose script was to become famous but unhappy to the point of suicide, became the most successful surgeon of his city at the expense of a satisfying family life and happiness. This man had a script personally damaging, but socially useful, and therefore it could be called a “good script.” On the other hand, a person with a hamartic script such as alcoholism, which is not only destructive to happiness but has no socially redeeming features, has a bad script. It should be emphasized, however, that in either case—whether a good or bad script —the fact that a person has a script is a detriment to the possibilities of living to the fullest human potential.

  As stated, scripts can be highly dramatic and tragic (hamartic) or they can be melodramatic (banal). In the banal form of script, while autonomy is restricted, it is not so restricted as to be dramatically obvious, and its adoption is far more frequent than the more dramatic, hamartic script. Banal scripts are those often adopted by large groups of people who are treated as sub-groups—such as women or blacks; these scripts are usually based on parental injunctions and attributions, which are not as severe and restricting as those involved in hamartic scripts. Banal scripts are often found among women or men, such as “Woman behind the Man” or “Big Daddy” (see Chapters 14 and 15). The banal scripts that are often imposed upon blacks have been very aptly described by White,1 and, again, they are restrictions of autonomy imposed upon human beings which have melodramatic, rather than dramatic, life outcomes.

  As to the frequency of their occurrence, banal scripts are the rule, hamartic scripts the minority, and script-free lives the exception.

  8

  Basic Training: Training in Lovelessness

  In Games People Play, Eric Berne says: “Parents, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, think, feel, and perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter.… Indeed, such liberation is only possible at all because the individual starts off in an autonomous state, that is, capable of awareness, spontaneity and intimacy, and he has some discretion as to which parts of his parents’ teachings he will accept.”1

  Eric Berne refers here to the systematic scripting which is imposed on children and which I call basic training. He talks about spontaneity, awareness, and intimacy as the three human faculties which we start with in life and which we may regain in later life.

  A great deal of what is taught in the nuclear family is oppressive, and it is because of this that I liken the early childhood training which all children receive, to one extent or another, to the basic training which is given to all inductees into the army. Army experience may vary greatly after a certain point, but almost everyone who goes into the army starts in boot camp and is taught and has to do certain things. In the family, just like in army basic training, the things that have to be learned and done are hard, unpleasant, and arbitrary. And just as in basic training, these things are thought to be, both by trainers and trainees, valuable and necessary for the achievement of “maturity” and success.

  The basic training of life includes a systematic attack on three primary human potentials: the potential for intimacy, namely the capacity for giving and receiving human love; the potential for awareness, namely the capacity to understand the world and its people; and the potential for spontaneity, which is the capacity of free and joyful expression of the Natural Child. I have called the end result of this three-part basic training Lovelessness, Mindlessness, and Joylessness.

  The topic of love is probably the most universally interesting to people. Yet the sciences of psychology and psychiatry, which are supposedly concerned with human behavior and its dysfunction, do not seem to consider it a subject worthy of much investigation or interest. The word “love” is not really acceptable in academic discussions. Behavioral scientists, when speaking of love or of being in love, if they dare mention the subject at all, will smile wanly, as if to say, “Ah! love is a topic for poets and philosophers, but we scientists cannot possibly deal with it.” Indeed, some scientists seem to regard love as a state of altered consciousness which has the earmarks of temporary psychosis; a deeply irrational, uncontrollable, undefinable state of mind.1

  Yet, not only is love the topic that is most likely to interest people, but it is failure in matters of love which brings the largest numbers of people to psychotherapists, ministers, and others whose work is counseling in human affairs. Love makes the world go around, and yet psychology and psychiatry have not given “love” full and serious attention.

  Eric Berne pioneered the investigations of human love when he defined the unit of human recognition as a stroke. The word “stroke” is a scientific word which makes research into human love quasirespectable. A psychologist who speaks of strokes may manage to get some attention from the scientific community. If he postulates that strokes make the world go around he may be able to get some grants for research to test the hypot
hesis and he may be able to publish scientific papers based on this research. It may be that, with the invention of the word “stroke,” Eric Berne made the first step in the rational understanding of that most important of human faculties: the capacity to love.

  A stroke is defined as the unit of human recognition. Strokes can be positive or negative depending on whether they feel good or bad. From now on in this book, when I use the word “stroke” I will be referring to positive strokes, while I will be referring to those strokes which feel bad as “negative strokes.” This may give the reader the impression that positive strokes are real strokes or better strokes or more worthwhile strokes, as opposed to negative strokes, which is exactly what is intended. Strokes are necessary for human survival, and when people can’t obtain positive strokes, they will settle for negative strokes because they too, even though they feel bad, are life supportive. Capers and Holland1 point out that when peoples’ stroke sources fall below a certain point which he calls the Survival Quotient, they become more and more willing to accept negative strokes because they need strokes, any strokes, for survival. Taking negative strokes is like drinking polluted water; extreme need will cause us to overlook the harmful qualities of what we require to survive.

  A Fuzzy Tale

  Once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived two very happy people called Tim and Maggie with two children called John and Lucy. To understand how happy they were, you have to understand how things were in those days. You see, in those days everyone was given at birth a small, soft, Fuzzy Bag. Anytime a person reached into this bag he was able to pull out a Warm Fuzzy. Warm Fuzzies were very much in demand because whenever somebody was given a Warm Fuzzy it made him feel warm and fuzzy all over. People who didn’t get Warm Fuzzies regularly were in danger of developing a sickness in their back which caused them to shrivel up and die.

  In those days it was very easy to get Warm Fuzzies. Anytime that somebody felt like it, he might walk up to you and say, “I’d like to have a Warm Fuzzy.” You would then reach into your bag and pull out a Fuzzy the size of a little girl’s hand. As soon as the Fuzzy saw the light of day it would smile and blossom into a large, shaggy, Warm Fuzzy. You then would lay it on the person’s shoulder or head or lap and it would snuggle up and melt right against their skin and make them feel good all over. People were always asking each other for Warm Fuzzies, and since they were always given freely, getting enough of them was never a problem. There were always plenty to go around, and as a consequence everyone was happy and felt warm and fuzzy most of the time.

  One day a bad witch became angry because everyone was so happy and no one was buying potions and salves. The witch was very clever and devised a very wicked plan. One beautiful morning the witch crept up to Tim while Maggie was playing with their daughter and whispered in his ear, “See here, Tim, look at all the Fuzzies that Maggie is giving to Lucy. You know, if she keeps it up, eventually she is going to run out and then there won’t be any left for you!”

  Tim was astonished. He turned to the witch and said, “Do you mean to tell me that there isn’t a Warm Fuzzy in our bag every time we reach into it?”

  And the witch said, “No, absolutely not, and once you run out, that’s it. You don’t have any more.” With this the witch flew away on a broom, laughing and cackling all the way.

  Tim took this to heart and began to notice every time Maggie gave up a Warm Fuzzy to somebody else. Eventually he got very worried and upset because he liked Maggie’s Warm Fuzzies very much and did not want to give them up. He certainly did not think it was right for Maggie to be spending all her Warm Fuzzies on the children and on other people. He began to complain every time he saw Maggie giving a Warm Fuzzy to somebody else, and because Maggie liked him very much, she stopped giving Warm Fuzzies to other people as often, and reserved them for him.

  The children watched this and soon began to get the idea that it was wrong to give up Warm Fuzzies any time you were asked or felt like it. They too became very careful. They would watch their parents closely and whenever they felt that one of their parents was giving too many Fuzzies to others, they also began to object. They began to feel worried whenever they gave away too many Warm Fuzzies. Even though they found a Warm Fuzzy every time they reached into their bag, they reached in less and less and became more and more stingy. Soon people began to notice the lack of Warm Fuzzies, and they began to feel less warm and less fuzzy. They began to shrivel up and, occasionally, people would die from lack of Warm Fuzzies. More and more people went to the witch to buy potions and salves even though they didn’t seem to work.

  Well, the situation was getting very serious indeed. The bad witch who had been watching all of this didn’t really want the people to die (since dead people couldn’t buy his salves and potions), so a new plan was devised. Everyone was given a bag that was very similar to the Fuzzy Bag except that this one was cold while the Fuzzy Bag was warm. Inside of the witch’s bag were Cold Pricklies. These Cold Prick-lies did not make people feel warm and fuzzy, but made them feel cold and prickly instead. But, they did prevent peoples’ backs from shriveling up. So, from then on, every time somebody said, “I want a Warm Fuzzy,” people who were worried about depleting their supply would say, “I can’t give you a Warm Fuzzy, but would you like a Cold Prickly?” Sometimes, two people would walk up to each other, thinking they could get a Warm Fuzzy, but one or the other of them would change his mind and they would wind up giving each other Cold Pricklies. So, the end result was that while very few people were dying, a lot of people were still unhappy and feeling very cold and prickly.

  The situation got very complicated because, since the coming of the witch, there were less and less Warm Fuzzies around; so Warm Fuzzies, formerly thought of as free as air, became extremely valuable. This caused people to do all sorts of things in order to obtain them. Before the witch had appeared, people used to gather in groups of three or four or five, never caring too much who was giving Warm Fuzzies to whom. After the coming of the witch, people began to pair off and to reserve all their Warm Fuzzies for each other exclusively. People who forgot themselves and gave a Warm Fuzzy to someone else would immediately feel guilty about it because they knew that their partner would probably resent the loss of a Warm Fuzzy. People who could not find a generous partner had to buy their Warm Fuzzies and had to work long hours to earn the money.

  Some people somehow became “popular” and got a lot of Warm Fuzzies without having to return them. These people would then sell these Warm Fuzzies to people who were “unpopular” and needed them to survive.

  Another thing which happened was that some people would take Cold Pricklies—which were limitless and freely available—coat them white and fluffy and pass them on as Warm Fuzzies. These counterfeit Warm Fuzzies were really Plastic Fuzzies, and they caused additional difficulties. For instance, two people would get together and freely exchange Plastic Fuzzies, which presumably should have made them feel good, but they came away feeling bad instead. Since they thought they had been exchanging Warm Fuzzies, people grew very confused about this, never realizing that their cold prickly feelings were really the result of the fact they had been given a lot of Plastic Fuzzies.

  So the situation was very, very dismal and it all started because of the coming of the witch who made people believe that some day, when least expected, they might reach into their Warm Fuzzy Bag and find no more.

  Not long ago, a young woman with big hips born under the sign of Aquarius came to this unhappy land. She seemed not to have heard about the bad witch and was not worried about running out of Warm Fuzzies. She gave them out freely, even when not asked. They called her the Hip Woman and disapproved of her because she was giving the children the idea that they should not worry about running out of Warm Fuzzies. The children liked her very much because they felt good around her and they began to give out Warm Fuzzies whenever they felt like it.

  The grownups became concerned and decided to pass a law to protect the children from deple
ting their supplies of Warm Fuzzies. The law made it a criminal offense to give out Warm Fuzzies in a reckless manner, without a license. Many children, however, seemed not to care; and in spite of the law they continued to give each other Warm Fuzzies whenever they felt like it and always when asked. Because there were many, many children, almost as many as grownups, it began to look as if maybe they would have their way.

  As of now it is hard to say what will happen. Will the grownup forces of law and order stop the recklessness of the children? Are the grownups going to join with the Hip Woman and the children in taking a chance that there will always be as many Warm Fuzzies as needed? Will they remember the days their children are trying to bring back when Warm Fuzzies were abundant because people gave them away freely?

  The Stroke Economy

  In Games People Play, speaking about stimulus hunger, Berne says: “A biological chain may be postulated leading from emotional and sensory deprivation through apathy to degenerative changes and death. In this sense stimulus hunger has the same relationship to survival of the human organism as food hunger.” The notion that strokes are, throughout a person’s life, as indispensable as food is a notion that has not been sufficiently emphasized in recent TA theory. Therefore, I wish to restate the fact: strokes are as necessary to human life as are other primary biological needs such as food, water, and shelter —needs which if not satisfied will lead to death.

  As Berne pointed out in the chapter on strokes in Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy,1 control of stimulation is far more effective in manipulating human behavior than brutality or punishment. Thus, while a few families still use physical force in an attempt to control their offspring, most injunctions are enforced in young persons through the manipulation of strokes rather than through physical punishment; strokes become a tool of social control.