Scripts People Live

by Claude Steiner

  Mother Hubbard (or Woman Behind the Family)

  Life Course: She spends her life nurturing and taking care of everyone but herself. She chronically gives much more than she receives and accepts the imbalance because she feels she is the least important member of her family and that her worth is measurable only in terms of how much she supplies to others. This inequity is constantly legitimized by the mass media’s promotion (TV, women’s magazines) of the role of housewife and mother. Strokes and meaning in life do not come to her for herself and her labors, but rather for her family, her husband and children. She chooses this script because it’s safe and with it she can avoid taking risks inherent in confronting the fear of being an independent and whole person. She stays in this script because every time she rebels and does what she wants, her husband and children get angry with her.

  Although she plays all roles in the Rescue Triangle, she is most familiar with the one of Rescuer (see Chapter 11). In an effort to get something back from her family, she often talks too much (for attention), and she tries to create guilt in her husband and children when they don’t seem to love her enough or give her what she wants, even though she doesn’t ask. Additionally, she refuses to make love with her husband, using excuses of being too tired or having a headache with the hope that he will give her some nurturing strokes instead.

  She reads women’s magazines, envying slender models in fancy clothes and feeling that in comparison she’s not O.K. She is caught in a vicious cycle of cooking delicious recipes and going on diets. The more she feels not O.K., the more she wants to rebel and to cook the fancy recipes and overeat.

  Later in life she often ends up depressed and lonely, appreciated by no one. Her kids dislike her and her husband is no longer interested in her. She has been used up by them. For the most part, she is too often despised as the cause of her children’s problems, like Portnoy’s Mother. When her task and usefulness to others end, often coincidental with menopause, she undergoes psychic death (labeled involutional melancholia) and may be dealt a rude shock (electroshock therapy) in return for her long, hard life’s labor.

  Counterscript: When she gets a job it may appear that she is being independent and breaking out of the program, but it’s short-lived because the burden of doing the extra work on top of her usual tasks at home proves to be too much for her.

  Injunctions and Attributions:

  Be a good mother Be nice

  Sacrifice for others

  The Decision: As a young woman, Mother Hubbard decides she would prefer to be a good mother and wife rather than pursue a career of her own or take on the frightening challenges of independence.

  Mythical Heroine: She loved an old-time TV show called I Remember Mama, enjoys Betty Crocker commercials, and adores “Mother Earth” imagery.

  Somatic Component: She tends to be overweight and doesn’t get enough exercise of the kind her body really needs. Her body tends to be soft, dumpy, and cosy. If she is from the lower-class and/or Third World she may neglect her health in favor of tending to the health needs of her children.

  Games:

  Harried1

  Frigid Woman1

  Look How Hard I Tried

  Therapist’s Role in the Script: He tells her not to get angry—to adapt —and gives her tranquilizers to keep her comfortable and in her “place.” He tells her to diet, prescribes the pills to keep her thin, happy, and calm and may eventually finish her off with electroshock therapy.

  Antithesis: She begins listening to and respecting her own inner desires; she starts getting strokes for who she is and not for what she can give. She absolutely refuses to Rescue, starts demanding that people ask for what they want from her, and does not give more than she receives in return. It’s essential that she begin to put herself and her needs before those of others. She pays attention to her body—not to be beautiful in “media” terms—but because she loves herself and wants to feel good; she exercises regularly. She takes up women’s studies and learns herstory, auto mechanics, and aikido. She makes her health (both psychic and physical) a priority.

  Once under way this script is difficult to overcome because of the bleakness of the alternatives available to an overweight mother of four. But women who really want to change can take power over their lives —they can fight to create their lives the way they want them to be and to cooperate with and get support from other women to do it. They can work and cooperate in raising their children together and exchange child care. Eventually, they can also fight together in action groups for improved day care and welfare rights.

  Plastic Woman

  Life Course: In an effort to obtain strokes, she encases herself in plastic: bright jewelry, platform heels, foxy clothes, intriguing perfumes, and dramatic make-up. She tries to buy beauty and O.K.ness, but never really succeeds. She feels chronically one-down to “media beauty” women whom she idolizes in women’s magazines and the movies. She gets some strokes (mostly from store clerks) for being a fancy dresser and clever shopper, activities to which she devotes all her off-the-job hours. She feels safe in the role of consumer and experiences herself as having power when she makes decisions as a consumer and when she can buy the things she wants. On the other hand, she does not experience herself as having much power over what happens in her life outside of the department store and is thus most accustomed to the role of Victim in the game of Rescue. She structures much of her time shopping, putting on make-up, trying on different outfits at home, and reading movie and fashion magazines. She repeatedly proves the validity of this script by getting ignored by people when she isn’t doing her dress-up, “Barbie Doll” number. Because she doesn’t get what she really wants out of her life (what she wants can’t be bought), she may begin to fight back by shoplifting or, when she’s angry with her husband, by overspending to the extent that she is in effect beating him to death with a plastic charge plate or using his money to buy strokes from a psychoanalyst.

  When superficial beauty can no longer be bought and pasted on, she ends up depressed: she gets no strokes that she truly values, either from herself or from others. She may try to fill the void with alcohol, tranquilizers, or other chemicals. As an older woman, she often fills her life with trivia and her house with knickknacks.

  Counterscript: When she has just finished a diet, gotten herself some new clothes, and is dressed and feeling good while being admired by others at a dimly lit party or bar, it appears this script can make her happy. She also feels good at home or on the job when she is still a little high from the drinks at lunch, but the highs are short-lived and once again she feels empty and dissatisfied.

  Injunctions and Attributions:

  Don’t get old

  Don’t be yourself

  Be cute

  Decision: In high school she decides to take a part-time after-school job so she can earn money to buy clothes rather than keep up her work on the school newspaper and pursue her interest in writing.

  Mythical Heroine: She is fascinated by Doris Day and other such movie stars and is amused by Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, and Carol Channing.

  Somatic Component: Her body is thin but flabby. She’s ruined her feet in torturous shoes and dried her skin with suntanning.

  Games:

  Buy Me Something Schlemiel

  Alcoholic (Pill-oholic)

  Therapist’s Role in the Script: He prescribes drugs and engages her in an extended course of psychotherapy. His diagnosis precludes the possibility of group psychotherapy (because she’s so “neurotic”), and he sees her individually three or four times a week.

  Antithesis: She decides to like her natural self. She concludes that her “power” as a consumer is an illusion and decides to reclaim power over her life by taking responsibility for creating it. She no longer takes drugs to blur out what’s unsatisfactory about her life but rather joins a problem-solving group and learns how to make real changes. She works on developing aspects of herself other than her appearance that both she and others can ap
preciate. She begins to enjoy exercising and gets herself into a hiking club to meet new people. She commits herself to being concerned with how she feels on the inside rather than how she looks from the outside.

  The Woman Behind the Man

  Life Course: She puts all her talent and drive into supporting her husband who is often less talented than she, but according to sexist society is supposed to be the successful one. She usually has no children; looks smart at cocktail parties; and is a great hostess and campaign manager. She is a female Cyrano de Bergerac, the gray eminence who cannot shine because of a congenital defect (her sex) that makes her socially unacceptable in a position of power. In the service of supporting him, she gives him many strokes and allows him to receive strokes which are rightfully hers. For example, she ghostwrites her husband’s book and he takes all the credit. She must be satisfied to glow in the applause for him. She finds it much easier to put her drive for success into her husband than to deal with the hard, competitive realities of being a “career woman” and being labeled a “castrating bitch.”

  If he’s successful, she spends a lot of time reading her husband’s fan letters, watching him on TV, keeping track of his competitors, interior decorating, and planning for elegant dinner parties to “snow” his boss into giving him the promotion. Proof that she can’t break out of this script comes every time a publisher rejects a manuscript with her name on it or when she can’t land anything but a secretarial job. When she becomes dissatisfied with this inequity she might break down in her role as girl-Friday to highlight her importance in his work or contemplate having an affair with one of his competitors.

  In the end, when he is near the “top” and less dependent on her, he may want a divorce so he can get it on with a younger woman to whom he can feel one-up, or who is a more viable sex object.

  Counterscript: This script appears to be one of the least exploitative because it provides some recognition for the woman when she is known as “The Woman Behind the Man.” She feels pretty good as long as her husband is genuinely appreciative of her role, but as he begins to take her for granted, she starts feeling jealous and resentful, and thinks she’s not O.K. having these feelings.

  Injunctions and Attributions:

  Be helpful

  Don’t take credit

  Stand behind your man

  Decision: At a certain point she decides not to finish her education, but rather to quit, get a job, and help put her husband through school. She decides that to be a good wife she should support rather than outshine him.

  Mythical Heroine: She is fascinated by the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, and very curious about Pat Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Jackie Kennedy.

  Somatic Component: She hunches over a bit and tends to keep her shoulders and back up to make herself inconspicuous and unthreatening looking.

  Games:

  Gee, You’re Wonderful, Professor

  Happy to Help

  If It Weren’t For You

  Therapist’s Role in the Script: He reminds her of her limitations as a woman and of her duty to support her husband. When the mention of divorce comes up, he tells her that it would be castrating for her to be angry and vindictive toward her husband in their divorce settlement.

  Antithesis: The way out is for her to start taking credit for her talent and to use it in her own behalf. It’s necessary for her to give up the cop-out of his taking the responsibility and being out in the front line. She has to first get rid of the internal messages that tell her she’s not O.K. if she’s strong and powerful and then refuse to take put-downs from others who are fearful of her ambition. She can start to do her work for herself on her own terms and tell her husband to hire secretarial and housekeeping services. She has to decide if she wants success to have it directly, not vicariously, and to be willing to pay the necessary dues for it.

  Poor Little Me

  Life Course: She spends her life being a Victim looking for a Rescuer. Her parents did everything for her because she is a girl (and girls are supposed to be helpless), thus debilitating her, making her completely dependent upon them and under their control. After struggling against this, she finally gives up and concludes they’re right, she is helpless. She marries a prominent man, often a psychiatrist who plays a rescuing Daddy to her helpless little girl. She gets no strokes for being O.K. when she shows strength and is kept feeling not O.K. because she only gets strokes when she is really down. Thus the strokes she gets are bittersweet, that is, not nourishing.

  She experiences some intimacy from her Child ego state in relation to the Parent ego state of others, but very rarely experiences intimacy as an equal. Because she has permission to be childlike she can be spontaneous in a childlike and helpless way and be inventive about acting “crazy.” She learns she can get things more easily if she tells people about her troubles and thus she becomes invested in not giving up that self-image. She spends a lot of time complaining about how awful things are and trying to get others to do something about it. She keeps proving that she’s a Victim by setting up situations in which she first manipulates people into doing things for her that they really don’t want to do, then getting persecuted by them when they feel resentful toward her. Her husband gets strokes for being a good Daddy to a weak child, sexual strokes in appreciation from her and, finally, strokes for being a martyred husband when she totally falls apart. She fights back by “going crazy,” making public scenes to embarrass her husband, and generally creates doubt in the community concerning his competence as either a therapist or a husband.

  She ends up not being able to function adequately, is either locked into an oppressive dependency relationship with a man or is institutionalized.

  Counterscript: This script looks good just after she marries her Sir Gallahad husband and he is Rescuing and propping her up so that it appears that she has things pretty well worked out.

  Injunctions and Attributions:

  Don’t grow up Do what your parents say

  Don’t think

  Decision: When she is young, after she has been pressured or coerced into not listening to her own opinions and feelings, she decides that her parents know best, i.e., better than she does.

  Mythical Heroine: As a child she greatly enjoyed reading about Cinderella and Little Orphan Annie.

  Somatic Component: Her body tends to be weak and off-balance and her eyes are habitually wide open. Predominantly, there is a surprised or sad look on her face.

  Games:

  Ain’t It Awful Stupid

  Do Me Something

  Therapist’s Role in the Script: He plays Rescuer and when she relapses after a brief period of progress he switches to Persecutor and calls her unmotivated or schizophrenic.

  Antithesis: She refuses to take the easy way out by acting like a Victim or playing “Do Me Something.” She decides there’s a lot in it for her to grow up, to develop her Adult and take care of business for herself. She begins to get strokes for being O.K. when she shows strength and doesn’t accept strokes for being a Victim. She stops enjoying an injured one-down and hurt self-image. She becomes keenly aware of how oppressive and condescending it is when others Rescue her, so she commits herself to doing 50% of the work at all times and knows that Rescue does her about as much good as heroin. She starts getting high off her own power. She does body work to get out the scared energy that is blocked in her body and learns karate so that she can feel safe and strong on the street. She asks people to call her by her middle name “Joan” rather than her first name “Susy.”

  Creeping Beauty

  Life Course: She has the standard attributes of so-called “media beauty,” but she doesn’t feel very good about herself as a person and really doesn’t believe she is lovely. Rather, she thinks of herself as being shallow and ugly underneath the veneer. When she looks into the mirror she doesn’t see her beauty but only sees her blemishes and imperfections. This is called the “Beautiful Woman Syndrome” which paradoxically frequently occurs with women who do
not see their own beauty because they focus on individual parts of their appearance which may not be attractive when seen separately. She sees herself as deceiving everyone who thinks she is beautiful and thinks they’re fools for buying the deception. She gets too many strokes for being beautiful and discounts them all. She wants to be liked as a person, but no one is willing to see past her exterior beauty. Any man with her gets strokes for having such a lovely possession on his arm. She is constantly in search of a Prince Charming who will end all her troubles by making her truly beautiful and valuable with his pure love. She is angry that people don’t appreciate her primarily as a human being and tends to fight back by chain-smoking and presenting a very sloppy appearance around intimate friends. She gets men to come across with as much as they will and then doesn’t deliver the goods (herself). She primarily experiences herself as a Victim. Too often other women see her as a crafty competitor for men’s attention and envy her beauty. Because of her good looks she often gets what she wants very easily. This special treatment makes it unnecessary for her to learn to cooperate with people so she can be a bit of a prima donna at times.

  Because she doesn’t use her Adult in her relationship with Prince Charming, he eventually “rips her off’ emotionally. Later, when she loses her media beauty, she continues the same hostile behavior toward others that she has always manifested, only now people think she is just being a “bitch” for no reason. Too often she ends up alone, loving no one, not even herself.