Script Cure:
Behavioral, Intrapsychic, and Physiological
Richard G. Erskine
Transactional analysis, as a social psychiatry, has
emphasized the behavioral change aspects of script cure.
Within this framework cure is defined as the cessation of
script syntonic behavior. Yet, for many people change in
behavior alone is not sufficient to effect pervasive change
of their life scripts. To achieve a total script cure change
must occur at the intrapsychic level of the script as well,
that is, change at the cognitive and affective levels of
existence. In addition, I think that in every case of script
formation, be it in response to introject, traumatic
experiences, or the process of survival decisions, there is a
corresponding physiological inhibiting reaction, and for
many people change is also necessary at the physiological
level of the script.
This integrative view of script cure implies that change
needs to occur in three dimensions: behavioral,
intrapsychic (affective and cognitive), and physiological.
Definition of Script
In understanding script cure I start with a definition of
script as a life plan based on decisions made at any
developmental stage that inhibit spontaneity and limit
flexibility in problem solving and in relating to people. Such
script decisions are usually made when the person is under
pressure and awareness of alternative choice is limited.
The script decisions emerge later in life as constricting
script beliefs about one’s self, others, or the quality of life.
These script beliefs, along with the feelings repressed when
the person was under pressure, are manifested in internal
and external behavior and together with selected
memories form a closed system of experiencing one’s life.
This closed system is the script.
Although many of the script beliefs on which we focus in
therapy are decisions that have been made in early
childhood before the child has any awareness of what his
or her alternatives are for being in the world, this definition
of script also includes those decisions that are made during
any developmental period of a person’s life when he or she
is under pressures that restrict perception of options and
alternatives for being and behaving. I think that at each of
the passages in life, situations emerge wherein each of us
must make choices. If restrictions are imposed on us that
narrow our options for need fulfillment, it is likely that the
decisions that are made, although they may seem to be
the best possible choices under the circumstances to solve
the immediate problem, will have the effect of limiting our
spontaneity and flexibility in problem solving and in
relating to people. In essence, any life plan made under
pressure will most likely be growth inhibiting.
Within the parameters of this definition, script cure means
that persons are free to contact people meaningfully and to
respond to problem solving without preconceived ideas or
plans that limit how they will interpret the situation and
restrict behavioral choices. Cure is accomplished when
each new experience is appreciated for its uniqueness and
is
perceived with an internalized sense, both viscerally and
intellectually, as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Behavioral Cure
Script cure at the behavioral level means that the person is
no longer engaging in script-related behaviors. For
instance, if the script calls for being “not understood,”
therapeutic work aimed at the social control or behavioral
level of cure may focus on encouraging the person to say
what he or she is thinking and feeling and to shift ego
states so that the listener has a clear understanding of the
talker’s internal experiences. The therapist’s teaching of
overt and ulterior transactions and the process of these in
games is aimed at the person’s using the knowledge to
develop new behavior to be understood clearly in
communications. Cure at this level means that the person
in this example who believes “I’m not understood” would
alter his or her behavior so that the listener has a thorough
sense of understanding the talker. Specific change
contracts are particularly relevant at the behavioral level of
therapy.
When thinking of the behavioral level of script cure I also
look for change in the fantasies and dreams of the person
with whom I am working. I approach therapy with the
concept that fantasy is an internalized behavior that occurs
in the association area of the cortex without expression
through the motor area. As psychotherapist I need to be
aware of the content of a person’s fantasies and dreams as
a possible way in which he or she may act out the script in
solitaire without ever engaging in observable or social
behavior. For example, a person may have integrated new
script-free behaviors at an overt or observable level when
in awareness, but the script may emerge in nonconscious
patterns during dream state or fantasy, producing
reinforcement of “I’m not understood.” Behavioral cure
does not mean just the cessation of overt script actions,
such as change in word usage, sentence patterns,
expressions, or gestures, but also that the content and
active processes of the dreams and fantasies are no longer
determined by script beliefs or serve to reinforce the script.
Intrapsychic Cure
Since behavior is a manifestation of our intrapsychic
processes I think that the therapist who is concerned with
achieving script cure needs to focus on the cognitive and
affective levels of script as well as the behavioral. The
cognitive and affective aspects form the intrapsychic
process of script through the continual nonconscious
stimulation between feelings suppressed at the time of
script decision (primal feelings) and the script beliefs
resulting from those decisions. Therapeutic approaches
that result in decontamination and deconfusion are
designed for intrapsychic cure.
Cognitive-level script cure has occurred when a person is
no longer contaminated by believing the script beliefs and
by using them in a way that narrows his or her frame of
reference. For example, the person would stop defining
himself or herself as unlovable, or perceiving the world as a
tragic place, or seeing people as untrustworthy, but rather
the frame of reference would be unobstructed to allow
each experience to be interpreted with a flexible view of
self, others, and the quality of life. Cure at the affective
level of script is the letting go of feelings that have been
repressed since the time of script decision.
Script Development
To understand cure intrapsychically I look at the
development of script within the young child. When the
child has needs that are not met, either because of
parental restrictions or environmental trauma, he or she
experiences pressure or tension, and the organism
responds to satisfy the need through the expression of
emotions intended to draw attention to the unmet needs. If
the emotions designed to meet the needs of the child are
not expressed to need completion and the need remains
unsatisfied, the result is an incomplete gestalt that
demands closure. Once the child has reached the
beginning of what Jean Piaget calls the concrete
operational phase (preoperational stage) of development,
closure of the incomplete gestalt occurs through a process
of cognitive mediation in which the child symbolically
replaces the unsatisfied need and concomitant feelings
with a cognitive closure.
The cognitive closure is the child’s explanation to himself
or herself of why the need was never satisfied (i.e.,
“Something is wrong with me”) and/or determines how to
protect himself or herself (i.e., “I’ll get hurt if I ask for what
I want”). This cognitive explanation is the script decision,
designed to protect the child through suppression of the
need and related feelings from the discomfort of the unmet
need. This explanation and any related physiological
reaction still does not meet the need, but it does serve as a
secondary closure of the needs and feelings—a fixed
gestalten—and forms the intrapsychic core of the script.
The child may also create an illusion that embellishes,
justifies, and makes the script decision more acceptable.
This illusion then is maintained later in life as fantasy.
Imagine a little child whose need at this point in time is for
affection and who, for various reasons, has caretakers who
are not providing it. If the environment lacks support for
the child to express feelings all the way to need
completion, the child may attempt to comfort himself or
herself by suppressing the feelings and need and decide
“Something is wrong with me” and “I won’t get what I
want.” At the time when these script decisions are made
they are probably the most effective response the child can
make to protect himself or herself from the discomfort, but
because these decisions do not satisfy the primary need,
they form a fixed gestalt, a set of rigid beliefs that serve to
limit the person’s frame of reference years later. This
limitation in perspective and the resulting behavioral
restrictions constitute the life script.
Closing the Gestalt
Cure at the affective level is the release of the repressed
emotions. When the repressed emotions are released and
are no longer providing intrapsychic stimulation of the old
script beliefs, the person then is free to experience feelings
related to the current situation and to use the emotional
sensations as an internal source of information and energy.
This may be accomplished in therapy through redecision
and disconnecting rubberbands by creating the
environment in which the person can express the emotions
that were inhibited in the original scripting situation all the
way to need completion. Completion can be either in the
reality of today’s life or through granting in fantasy what
was not provided in the original situation. The unmet need
and related primal feelings (those feelings suppressed at
the time of script decision) no longer dominate the
foreground in internal perceptions; the gestalt is completed
and new experiences come to foreground. As people
express the repressed emotions and related needs they
often become aware of what they decided about
themselves, other people, or life and are still holding onto
today as script beliefs—the cognitive level of the script.
Recognizing that the script beliefs were decisions made a
long time ago to protect themselves from the discomfort of
the unmet needs is an important step in changing the
cognitive level of the script. New decisions are made in
light of today’s realities, decision that enhance the views of
self, others, or the quality of life beyond the perspective of
the time when the person was under the scripting
pressures. Cure at the cognitive level of script means that
the person is no longer limited by the script beliefs.
Similarities may exist between script beliefs (i.e., I am all
alone) and existential realities (i.e., I am all alone);
however, the acceptance of existential realities is not
limiting but provides a freedom to move beyond those
realities, whereas script beliefs are inhibiting.
Body Scripts
Therapy aimed at the behavioral or intrapsychic levels does
not account for the pervasive physiological aspects of
script, and, since rigidity in the body represents a limitation
in being, the somatic aspects of script need to be an
important focus of script cure. Many of the script decisions
described in the psychotherapy literature and those
illustrated earlier in this paper are cognitive decisions that
have been made or remade after the child has developed
some use of language and has some understanding, at
least symbolically, of cause and effect. Prior to this level of
intellectual development I think that scripts are formed at a
physiological level by the very young child, who in Piaget’s
framework is still operating within the sensorimotor period
of development. When the child faces traumatic situations,
responds to injunctions, or in some way has needs that are
not being met, the child’s body reacts in a self-protective
way, and the scripting process takes place within the tissue
of the body as a survival reaction.
This reaction of the body is a muscular and/or chemical
defense against what the child experiences as threatening.
It is a physiological closure of the unmet need for comfort,
a shutting down or inhibition within the body that
suppresses the unmet needs and unrelated emotions, and
what Wilhelm Reich postulated as the basis for the
development of “character armor.”
This physiological reaction that is the primary basis of
script in very early childhood also occurs to some degree in
every scripting situation. Definitions of script imply
inhibition in being, and with each scripting decision or
script reaction I think there is always a corresponding
physiological inhibition or restriction within the body. The
younger the child or more severe the trauma, the greater
the physiological reaction.
Physiological script reactions remain within the person
much like conditioning and are the body script, the cause
of many physical illnesses. Script cure at the physiological
level is a letting go of the tensions, body armoring, and
internal restrictions that inhibit the person from living life
fully and easily within his or her own body. Changes in
body script are often evident to an observer as a more
relaxed appearance, freer movement, increased energy,
and an established weight level that is appropriate for the
person’s frame. People report having a greater sense of
vitality, an ease of movement, and an increased sense of
well-being.
When I engage in body-script work the treatment goal is to
energize the body tissue that was inhibited and rigidified in
the repression of unmet needs and primal feelings. This
may be the way into the intrapsychic level of therapy or
may be a concluding step in the treatment of a specific
script restriction. Interventions at the level of body script
include those approaches that lead to somatic change,
such as deep massage work, tension relaxation, proper
diet, exercise, and recreational activities that enhance the
flow of energy and movement of the body.
Recycling
The movement out of script may include some recycling
back into script several times before the person is script
free. This is the homeostatic or rubberband function of
script drawing the person back to the old way of being
whenever the pressures of life stimulate the unmet needs
and feelings that were present at the time of script
formation. Recycling may indicate that a level of script cure
is still needing attention, such as emotional or body-script
work that is undone even though the cognitive and/or
physiological changes have occurred.
This integrative view of the intrapsychic, somatic, and
behavioral levels of script cure implies that changes in a
person’s emotions and cognitive processes are determined
by changes in behavior and/or in how the body functions
and vice versa. The more levels of treatment the therapist
can integrate the greater the likelihood of script cure.
Script Cure and Beyond
Therapy as a process of growth and development is
unending. Therapy that focuses on script cure is complete
when the behavioral, intrapsychic, and physiological
restrictions that inhibit spontaneity and limit flexibility in
problem solving and relating to people are removed.
Beyond script is the realm of personal growth, which
includes the successful movement through developmental
passages, expanding creativity, understanding life purpose,
and enhancing psychic and spiritual growth.
In my frame of reference script cure is equivalent to the
definition I use of OKness: the belief and associated feeling
of comfort that no matter what happens to me, no matter
now bad the situation, I will learn and grow from the
experience.
__________
This article was original published in the Transactional
Analysis Journal, Volume 10, Number 2, April 1980, pp.
102-106.
