Scripts People Live

by Claude Steiner

  Because the person has to rely on the therapist’s Protection, the timing of Permissions is important. They should be given only when both the therapist and patient feel that Protection is possible. Thus, major Permissions should not be given before going on vacation, or when schedules are likely to be overcrowded. The need for Protection may arise at almost any time; therapists who prefer to isolate themselves may fail to be available for Protection when needed. Protection is often provided over the telephone, since the panic that follows Permission does not always coincide with therapeutic appointments. My experience has shown that a therapist working with about forty people will need to provide Protection about twice a week outside of the regularly scheduled appointments. I have made my home telephone available to all the people I work with and have encountered very little difficulty because of it. By remembering that any “distress” phone call may be either an invitation to play Rescuer over the phone or a genuine call for Protection, it is relatively simple to separate the “game” phone calls from the calls for Protection. In general, a genuine call for Protection takes less than fifteen minutes and is a highly satisfying experience for both the therapist and the caller. An invitation to play Rescuer has a totally different feel to it since whatever reassurance the therapist gives is received with a “Yes, but,” which is simply a further invitation for another move within the Rescue role. When a person calls and is clearly attempting to hook the therapist into a Rescue role, the therapist should quickly decline any further conversation and remind the person of his responsibility for his own actions. Consider the following conversation:

  JANE: Hello.

  THERAPIST: Hello.

  JANE (crying): I’m scared.

  THERAPIST: What’s the matter?

  JANE: I don’t know, I’m scared and I feel like killing myself.

  THERAPIST: I understand. It’s pretty scary to try to do things differently from what your script calls for. I suggest that you call up a friend and go to a movie tonight.

  JANE: That sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll do it.

  THERAPIST: That’s good, hang on tight, and feel free to call me any time you get scared again.

  JANE: I feel better now. Thank you.

  THERAPIST: Goodbye.

  JANE: Goodbye.

  The above conversation is a typical Protection transaction. Notice that Jane is willing to accept responsibility for her emotional state, and is willing to accept the therapist’s recommendations to change it. Jane is genuinely scared and responds in a favorable manner in a relatively short period of time. Consider in contrast the following conversation:

  JUNE: Hello.

  THERAPIST: Hello.

  JUNE (crying):I’m scared.

  THERAPIST: What’s the matter?

  JUNE: I haven’t been able to sleep for ten nights and I feel like killing myself.

  THERAPIST: I understand how you feel. It’s pretty scary to try to do things differently from what your script calls for. I suggest that you call up a friend and go to a movie tonight.

  JUNE: I don’t feel like doing that. I don’t have any friends. Can’t you do better than that? If you can’t do better than that, I’m going to take all my sleeping pills.

  THERAPIST: What would you like me to do?

  JUNE: I want you to talk to me, or give me some different medication, or something.

  THERAPIST: I want to help but what are you going to do about the situation?

  JUNE: I don’t know, I think I’ll end it all

  THERAPIST: Well, I hope you won’t, but I don’t exactly understand what you want me to do. I suggest that you get out of the house and go to a movie.

  JUNE: Yes, but…, etc.

  The above conversation is an attempt on the part of June to draw the therapist into a Rescue role. If the therapist is willing, this conversation can go on for hours and have essentially no results. If the therapist is unwilling to play, June may decide to abandon the attempt. If she does, she is much less likely to think of the therapist as a possible Rescuer and will probably not repeat the attempt in the future, but instead ask for and accept Protection.

  The therapeutic effectiveness of Protection needs to be distinguished from what is called “transference cure” in psychoanalysis, in which improvement is predicated on a continuing involvement with the therapist. Ordinarily, a person does not require Protection for more than three months following abandonment of a script injunction. If the panic and need for the person’s therapist do not subside by that time, the therapist is probably playing a Rescue game.

  Protection is the function of the Nurturing Parent. If it were possible to rank the importance of the ego states, I would put the two Adults (A1 and A2) first and the Nurturing Parent a close second with the Child running an important third. The Pig, or Critical Parent, however, has no usefulness in therapy.

  Thus a good Adult, rational as well as intuitive, a loving, caring Nurturing Parent, and a happy Child are important attributes of a script analyst. His Pig Parent should be left outside the door and if it manages to intrude in the proceeding, it is the therapist’s responsibility to get some help from his own therapist as a consultant.

  Potency

  These four tissue transactions (Command, Permission, Protection, and Fun), in addition to the Adult-to-Adult Work transaction, constitute the transactional analyst’s basic tools. Adding Antithesis, Fun, Permission, and Protection to the Work transaction gives the transactional analyst flexibility and latitude and provides him with increased therapeutic effectiveness or Potency. Therapeutic Potency refers to the therapist’s capacity to bring about speedy improvement. The Potency of the therapist has to be commensurate with the potency of the injunction laid down by the parents of the person, and it is an attribute which transactional analysts seek in their work. Eric Berne1 said, “A timid therapist is as out of place trying to tame an angry Parent as a timid cowboy is trying to ride a bucking bronco. And if the therapist gets thrown he lands right on the patient’s Child.” Potency implies that the therapist is willing to attempt to truly remedy the problem, to permit himself to do so, and to estimate the time and expense involved. It means that she is willing to confront the patient at the impasse and to exert pressure, and it means that the therapist is willing to provide Protection when it is needed. Potency, when striven for by therapists, if often interpreted as implying a wish for omnipotence. However, the difference between Potency and omnipotence is quite clear; and transactional analysts, aware of their limitations as well as those of the concept of therapeutic Potency, are seldom plagued by what psychoanalysts call “fantasies of omnipotence” or, in transactional terms, by being hooked into the Rescuer role.

  The desirability of therapeutic Potency makes transactional analysts willing to consider for use any technique which demonstrably accelerates therapy. Some techniques which contribute to therapy are Permission classes, Marathons, and Homework.

  1) Permission Classes. Group sessions have their limitations as therapeutic tools. They are arranged primarily for the purpose of verbal interaction among ten or fewer individuals and they tend to take place in a room of limited size. In addition, time is limited and many therapists feel that they are bound by their ethical code to limit their physical contact with their patients.

  Transactional analysts have amplified the potency of group therapy by adding to it Permission classes led by a Permission teacher (see Steiner and Steiner,2 and Wyckoff.3 These classes are recommended to selected group members whose parental injunctions inhibit them not only in their thinking and talking (which can be dealt with in group), but also in more physical ways, such as in touching and being able to be touched; moving in an expansive, graceful, or assertive way; laughing or crying; dancing or cutting up; moving sexually or aggressively; relaxing; and so on.

  Permission classes preferably meet at a dance studio with mirrors on the wall and soft mats available for the floor. Each patient is referred to the Permission class with a specific contract such as “Permiss
ion to dance,” “Permission to touch others,” “Permission to be sexy,” “Permission to act assertively,” or, “Permission to lead instead of follow,” to mention a few.

  2) Marathons. Marathons, or protracted therapy meetings lasting between eight and thirty-six hours, are another technique which amplified therapeutic Potency. I have found Marathons extremely useful for people who, after several months of therapy, have arrived at an impasse beyond which they seem unable to move. People who are on an improvement plateau in therapy and who have not made any recent progress are encouraged to participate in Marathons.

  Marathons can have different aims. Permission marathons are simply enlarged permission classes. Wyckoff describes Amazon Power Marathons designed to put women in touch with their physical power.1 A Stroke Marathon or Stroke City is a situation exclusively devoted to breaking down the stroke economy. Body Marathons focus on getting people back into touch with their bodies. Off the Pig Marathons are devoted to exercises to get rid of the Pig Parent.2 Typically, the session begins with a discussion of the goals each person hopes to achieve during the Marathon. These goals are written on a large sheet of paper or on the wall to be clearly visible to all the members participating,3 and work toward achieving these goals continues throughout the period of the Marathon. At the end every person evaluates his own work and writes his accomplishments next to his contract on the wall.

  The success of these sessions is unquestionable; people are usually quite elated and feel a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction at the end of a Marathon, a sense of euphoria which usually lasts from one to two weeks. Work in group is usually invigorated and pushed forward by a good Marathon experience.

  3) Homework. Homework is assigned work that group members do between therapy meetings toward the fulfillment of the contract. Often people will do homework without any urging from the therapist or the group. It is not unlikely that it is those people who profit from “insight” therapies in which much emphasis is placed on what transpires during the therapeutic hour. A person who generates his own homework is likely to assume responsibility for his situation and assume that he must do something about it. I pointed out earlier that all the diagnostic labels or categories heretofore applied to people seem to make very little, if any, sense. Based on the concept of homework, however, one valuable distinction seems to emerge: workers versus nonworkers. The latter category is not to be confused with the familiar term, “unmotivated.” Many people who would be called motivated, because they attend regularly, pay fees, participate in the group, are nonworkers. The concept of motivation is hypothetical: a worker, on the other hand, is a person who uses suggestions given her by the therapist or group members and tries them out, discarding those that do not work and keeping those that do. Whether a person is a worker or not is the best predictor of success known to me. Workers who seemed to other therapists to be hopelessly psychotic have achieved their goals within a year of group therapy, while nonworkers with minor neurotic symptoms have made little change in one or two years.

  I don’t mean to imply that there is, after all, a category of people who are not O.K., namely nonworkers. I am really only saying that some people’s scripts have built into them permission to work toward getting better. This means that they apply their Adult to their situation, listen to feedback, experiment with suggestions, and so on. These people have a much easier time giving up their scripts than others who don’t have Permission to do the above. Giving nonworkers Permission to work is the first and most difficult task of therapists. Having a good contract and not playing Rescue are essential in the task.

  The kinds of homework assigned are as varied as the problems they are intended to counteract. Some homework assignments are devised to overcome social anxiety by systematic desensitization, an approach borrowed from behavior therapy. A shy person, for example, is given increasingly difficult social tasks starting with one he finds simple to perform. Beginning with such things as asking the time of day on a busy street, the homework includes a number of items, each one to be performed repeatedly. Each homework assignment is more difficult than the last one: asking the time of day, then asking for elaborate directions; smiling at people in the street, then complimenting someone on his appearance; making small talk, and so on. The purpose is to teach how to obtain strokes. Another type of homework is assertion with significant persons. A person’s homework may be to ask her boss for a raise, to tell her husband that from now on she will take a night out, to tell her mother-in-law to move out, or to call a man she likes and ask him for a date. The conversations involved are often rehearsed in group, and this procedure—as well as the whole activity of devising and assigning homework—is often the source of much fun.

  A person who suffers from a contamination of the Adult such as “I am no good,” “Everyone who says that they like me is lying to make me feel better,” “The people in this group are communist agents,” may be asked to write an essay defending the opposite point of view: “I am a good man,” “People love me and like me,” “The people in this group are just people like myself.” One woman who called herself a monster was asked to draw a picture of it because she had no words to describe it. Having done this, she was able to realize what a distorted and unreasonable view she had of herself.

  Other forms of homework such as following a tight schedule of activities, having fun, and looking up old friends are assigned to teach people how to structure time to replace an abandoned game. Homework can be as varied as people’s problems and has included writing love poems, masturbating, spending a thousand dollars, fasting, staying awake for a whole night, etc.

  When homework is assigned, it is important to expect a report on it the following week. If the group member did not do his homework it is reassigned, and if this reoccurs his sincerity is challenged. Often the assignment is too difficult and the homework has to be redesigned to fit the capacities of the person.

  These auxiliary techniques of group treatment amplify the therapeutic Potency of the transactional analyst. Clearly, as therapists experiment with new techniques and creative practitioners explore the vast array of possibilities which may increase their effectiveness, other approaches will be added to the tried and tested approaches available today.

  Unloading Negative Feelings

  Another approach that amplifies the potency of a group therapist is the use of two techniques designed to clear up two common obstacles to effective group interaction. These obstacles are stamps or held resentments, and the harboring of paranoid fantasies between group members. These two procedures can be ritualized and performed at the beginning of every meeting or they can be done more spontaneously throughout meetings.

  Held Resentments. I learned this technique at Askleipieion, a therapeutic community within the Federal Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois. It consists of making it possible for people to release the accumulated feelings of anger, which people in the group may be holding from previous transactions. These feelings, called stamps in transactional analysis, are generated by game playing (see page 41) and when accumulated hinder frank communication and work between people. The process works most smoothly when it is done contractually, that is, the offer and acceptance of the stamps is prearranged. Once the stamp is delivered, the recipient of it is asked not to respond. If the person doesn’t understand the nature of the stamp, he can ask for clarification. Example:

  JACK: I have a stamp for you, Fred. Do you want it?

  FRED.O.K., I’ll take it.

  JACK: I resent the way you cut me off in the middle of a sentence during the last meeting.

  FRED: I don’t recall. Do you mean when you were talking to Mary?

  JACK: No, when I was talking to John and you started talking about your own thing.

  FRED: I understand.

  Notice that Fred needs only to understand the stamp, not necessarily to agree with it. It is also important that stamp exchanges alternate from person to person so that Jack will not follow up with another stamp for
Fred nor will Fred respond with a stamp for Jack before someone else gives someone else (preferably neither Jack nor Fred) a stamp.

  Paranoid Fantasies. A paranoid fantasy is a suspicion, a feeling of distrust, or a belief that another person does not mean well, which usually has a reason for existing. When people harbor such paranoias, it is very difficult for them to openly and freely work on their intimate problems. As a consequence, it is important that these be cleared by being openly expressed. The proper response to paranoid fantasy is an attempt to account for it by providing the grain of truth for its existence. Obviously a total discount of it will only heighten it and make it worse. Example:

  FRED: I have a paranoid fantasy for you.

  JACK: O.K., I’ll take it.

  FRED: I think that you are jealous of me and actually really hate me. I think that you are especially angry at the fact that I get along with Mary.

  JACK (thinks carefully): I don’t hate you, but I am annoyed at you and a little bit jealous. Part of my jealousy is because of the way Mary listens to you but won’t listen to me.

  FRED: Thank you. That makes sense.

  Unloading of held resentments and accounting for paranoid fantasies is not just useful in group therapy. Indeed, it is extremely useful when it precedes any kind of meeting in which people wish to work fully and cooperatively with each other.

  Being able to express resentments and hearing justification for our paranoias makes the difficult work of therapy easier and clears the way for Work.

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