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personal challenge, theme, or aesthetic that orients all of their life in different contexts.
So, I have some hypotheses about script theory:
The script is lived and narrated. Narratives are
an important mirror of scripts, both for their
content and their form. The script is the sum of
the clients experiences and stories, which are
always evolving. It is formed at the junction of
three domains: the personal world of meanings
created by each person; the interpersonal/relational dimension, which has an impact on each level (symbolic and subsymbolic, explicit and implicit) of its development; and the culture,
which always gives limits and resources to its
formation.
From my point of view, the psychotherapist
has the task of looking for what is invariable
and also what is variable in the clients story
life because the complexity and creativity of
each person are in the exceptions present in her
life, the errors that open a window on multiple ways of reaching a goal, the background
noise in her life that is worthwhile to acknowledge, the challenges she has been facing, the
aesthetic she wants to pursue, the irreconcilable
selves she does not want to deny.
I feel honored to have had the chance to present my ideas in this context, to talk about this
topic, one for which I have had a passion since
1993 (Tosi, 1993, 2010).
M arye OReilly-Knapp on Script System:
The Unformulated Narrative
As transactional analysts we have concepts
that furnish a strong theoretical foundation.
Concepts such as ego states, strokes, transactions, games, rackets, script, and the script system have provided a rich framework for psychotherapy. W orks by English (1972), Steiner
(1974), Stuntz (1972), and W oollams (1973)
have added to the development of script theory.
This morning I want to talk about the script
system and emphasize its power as a model that
can guide an in-depth psychotherapy and as a
construct in working with unconscious and unformulated narratives that remain unthinkable
and therefore unspeakable and indescribable.
First formulated by Richard Erskine and
Marilyn Zalcman (1979) as the racket system,
the script system is a representation of beliefs
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introjections [that] are unconsciously operationalized in current life as core beliefs, overt behaviors, fantasies and obsessions, internal physical
reactions, and reinforcing memories (OReillyKnapp & Erskine, 2010, p. 292).
The script system is maintained:
To avoid reexperiencing unmet needs and
the corresponding feelings regarding the
unmet needs suppressed at the time of script
formation
To generalize the unconscious experience
of self in relationship with others
To create homeostatic self-regulation (the
script system helps to organize experiences and maintain some stability in present
life)
To provide a predictive model of life and
interpersonal relationships this is how
life is and this is how people are and what
they do. (OReilly-Knapp & Erskine, 2010,
p. 293)
The Road to the Unconscious and Meaning
Making. The script system, as an unconscious
organization of experiences, provides the therapist and client with the means of recovering
unconscious experience and the clients way of
making meaning. This is partly done by giving
meaning to the thoughts, feelings, sensations,
and behaviors present in here-and-now experiences both in and out of therapy sessions.
W hen I am working within the script system, I
am reminded of Bollass (1987) concept of the
unthought known, which he describes as countless rules for being and relating that have been
operationally determined (p. 279). He identified fantasy as the first representation of the unthought known: It is a way of thinking that
which is there (p. 279). He went on to consider mental representations which are similar to Bowlbys (1979) internal working models, Sterns (1985) representations of internal
generalizations (RIGs), and Damasios (1999)
from wakefulness to consciousness model. Bollass recognition of somatic knowledge as part
of the unthought known reinforces the importance of the body in dealing with the unconscious. In script system analysis, the inclusion
of physiological reactions as well as beliefs
about self and others and the meanings given to
experiences, relational patterns, and the script
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displays of fantasies all bring together the concepts addressed by the term the unthought
known. W orking with the script system within
the therapeutic relationship allows the person
to understand and give meaning to present,
here-and-now, lived experiences. Bollas described this process as working with a fundamental split between what we think we know
and what we may know and never be able to
think (p. 282). W ith the use of the script system as a blueprint for script analysis, the unconscious organization of experiences becomes
coherent so that there is an organized whole.
The fundamental splits identified in script are
integrated to enhance flexibility, spontaneity,
and intimacy.
Forming an Autobiographical Self. According to Sameroff and Emde (1989), a narrative
is the story or account of the internal working
models of regulations as told to oneself or another (p. 66). Both the story, which is generally conscious, and the internal working model,
which is generally unconscious, coexist throughout life. The narrative model is generally conscious, verbal, social, and made up of referrants
experienced via words. Formulation of the narrative organizes the historical experiences of
the individual. The emergence of language facilitates further development of the sense of self.
Stern (1985) described the arrival of language
as bringing about the ability to narrate ones
own life story and, ultimately, to construct
narratives that begin to form the autobiographical history that evolves into the life story a
patient may first present to a therapist (p. 174).
Analysis of the script system adds to formulation of the narrative by reconstructing unconscious, implicit memories, that is, organizing an
autobiographical memory a record of the
past. An autobiographical self emerges where
memory is connected neurally and cognitively
to what Damasio (1999) calls the proto-self and
to eventually to the emergent and conscious
core self of each lived instant (p. 173). Knowing will help being, wrote Damasio in discussing consciousness and the emergence of the
autobiographical self. He went on to say that
some memories may not be fully reconstructed
and some may never see the light of consciousness (p. 227). Other memories may be
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was writing. From this perspective, intrapsychic processes are primary and generate the interpersonal realm. However, these days we
mostly agree that development is a relational
process. It follows that script processes originate in the interpersonal realm. Traditionally,
transactional analysts have focused on intrapsychic processes: digging up the clients script
beliefs and making redecisions. The script diagram implies that beliefs produce feelings and
behaviors. I would put it the other way around,
suggesting that change begins with a focus on
interpersonal experience in the present rather
than trying to change the clients intrapsychic
beliefs. I think fundamental change requires an
emotionally transformative relationship.
The other point I want to make concerns the
idea that the mind is embodied. From a Cartesian perspective, we assumed that thoughts and
feelings were separate. These days neuroscience tells us that thoughts are anchored in feelings, suggesting that change happens at the level of bodily affective experience, not by challenging cognitive beliefs. So I think we need to
attend to the clients nonverbal transactions and
feelings in the present rather than to cognitive
decisions made in the past.
Richard: That is not how it was meant in my
writing about the script system. The script beliefs, behaviors, fantasies, and physiological
reactions are a reflection and an expression of
what is going on unconsciously as a result of all
of those intersubjective experiences we have
had throughout our lifetime. So the script is really
a crystallization of hundreds and hundreds of
interpersonal experiences. The script beliefs
are a condensation of the persons narrative.
Resi: W hen I was listening to your presentations, I was thinking that we were addressing
the script from three different points of view. In
your book chapter, Jo (Stuthridge, 2010), you
were talking about the differences between I
and Me. So you were especially talking about
the I. How can you create an I, which is a
form to integrate and connect different parts of
the self?
Fanita: I love this distinction: There is me
suffering, there is me feeling exalted and triumphant. Resi, you pointed out in your writing the
connection between script and identity, which
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process of disintegration and integration, making new stories and dispersing them in light of
new experiences. I suggest we retain the word
script to represent the whole continuum.
Richard: Back in the 1920s, when Alfred
Adler broke with Freud in disagreement over
Freuds drive theory, Adler talked about the
importance of people telling their story to overcome what he called a personal inferiority. He
suggested that people stay in analysis long
enough to tell their entire life story in detail at
least three different times. W hat he listened for
was how the telling of the story changednot
the content, not the facts, but the emotional
valence, the emotional thrust of the story. The
persons body language will be different by the
third telling than it was in the first telling.
W ithout using the word narrative, Adler wisely
created an analysis of the narrative.
Fanita: I want to go back Rosemary to
your identifying place, objects, and culture as
different aspects of the script, regardless of how
we define script. For me, looking at the sea is a
source of great consolation, but for someone
else, looking at the mountains might be a
source of consolation. The mountains dont do
anything for me; they are pretty and lovely, but
they dont touch me as the sea does. I have
discovered in the course of meeting many people that every one of us has this yearning for
location.
Another word I would like to add to our talk
about script is yearning, whether you talk about
it negatively or positively a suffering script or
a happy script script always has the element
of yearning or wanting or looking or hoping.
Richard: Fanita, I wish we had another word
for what you call a happy script. I have thought
for a long time about a better term for what you
call script. I use the term frame of reference. I
think that what you are doing is looking at peoples potential. You are looking at those hidden
talents, the unexpressed creativity and the desire to grow, the persons expansive fantasies.
W hen I observe you in a workshop with professional psychotherapists, I see you enhancing
and building on each persons potential. In my
clinical practice, I work with clients who have
been neglected for many years, who have been
beaten when they were a child by the people
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