The human psyche is like a computer into which you can load a particular program. And the first such record is made in childhood. Parents influence the present and future of the child, forming subconscious motives of behavior. Most of the psychotherapeutic work is devoted to correcting the unfavorable scenario from childhood, getting out of it and building a new life. But first things first.
What is a life scenario
A life scenario is a gradually realized plan of life, formed in childhood. It reflects the attitudes, values, rules that the parents instilled in. Moreover, more often this suggestion occurs in deed, and not in word, although the parents themselves do not always understand this.
The life scenario requires adjustment if it interferes with the development of the personality. This is usually described as “bad fate”, “the stigma of a loser,” “being born under an unlucky star,” “I come across some scoundrels,” “I was cursed,” “I have a crown of celibacy,” “this is a family curse,” etc. In fact, there is no fate or fate, there is a program of parents, their model, which is densely entrenched at the unconscious level.
Why does every child internalize the parent’s script? A ready-made purpose of life is given:
- someone is told about the value of education;
- someone about marriage;
- to someone about self-realization;
- someone is shown that it is possible to exist without a purpose (asocial families);
- for someone, the goal becomes to do everything for other people, to receive their love and attention.
The life scenario reflects the experience of the parents, their way of life, which the child has learned to perfection. Parents teach what they have learned themselves, or at least they themselves think so. Therefore, successful children often come out of successful families, but people from asocial families have a hard time. In the future, they become clients of a psychotherapist or try to independently break the parents’ life template, break stereotypes, start living in a new way, in their own way.
Scenario types
In psychology, it is customary to talk about 4 life scenarios:
- Winner’s scenario: “I am good, they are good, life is good.”
- Loser scenario: “I am bad, they are bad, life is bad.”
- The script of an embittered pessimist: “I am good, but they are bad, life is bad.”
- Scenario with an inferiority complex: “I am bad and they are good.”
The names themselves perfectly describe the attitude of people living by them. The first type is unlikely to get to a psychotherapist, but the other three are at risk.
The founder of the theory, Eric Berne, identified 3 scenarios:
- Winner. He always sets goals, achieves them. Moreover, he achieves specific results, no more and no less than intended. Winners fight, compete, for which they are often disliked.
- The non-winner. A person who spends a lot of energy to maintain the same position. He works hard, but not for the sake of victory, but to maintain his position. The winners make everyone’s favorites, and they themselves are grateful to fate for any result.
- Losers. They cause a lot of trouble for themselves and others, involve others in their problems, pull them to the bottom.
You can suspect what scenario a person lives by with careful listening:
- “Now I know how to do it next time,” says the winner.
- “I would, of course, do it, but…” or “If only…”, the loser will say.
- “I did that, but at least I …” or “Nothing, thanks for that too,” says the undefeated.
The life scenario is reflected in life attitudes in work, love, friendship, marriage. Life position – a person’s attitude to something.
Script structure
The script structure includes the following elements:
- The final of the script. Yes, it is laid first and sounds like a curse or a blessing. “You will die just like your alcoholic father!”, “I hate you, it would be better if you weren’t!” – harsh curses that, alas, are found in real life and form losers. Of course, this does not happen after one shout, but the systematic repetition of this turns into an attitude. But the phrases “Be great!”, “You will become the most famous football player” and the like bring up the winners.
- Prescriptions: orders and prohibitions. “Don’t be selfish”, “You behaved well today” are the victor’s prescriptions. “Don’t tell anyone about this” is the command of the undefeated. “Don’t bother!”, “Don’t be smart!”, “Don’t whine!” – the instructions of the loser. For consolidation, multiple repetitions are also needed, but in conjunction with physical punishment, once is enough.
- A provocation, the danger of which is not always recognized by parents. Example: “He is a slob with us”, “He is such a fool with us.”
- Morals about how to live: “work hard”, “be a good girl”, “don’t go for a walk.” A great difficulty is caused by the contradiction of parental instructions, in the future a person lives like this – he rushes from one extreme to another.
- Behavior patterns. Parents pass on practical experience in the implementation of moral teachings and prescriptions.
- Pulse. This is a desire to act contrary to parents. It occurs when there is an excess of instructions and prescriptions.
- Anti-script, or internal liberation. A person gives himself permission to be different, for example, to get married and build a happy marriage, although all the women in the family remained single.
The base of the script is laid by the age of 6. In the future, with a negative life scenario, a person, without noticing it, interferes with his own success, frustrates his own plans. He hurts himself, driven by inadequate parenting.
Script structure
The basis of the scenario is a position in life. It stems from the early mother-child relationship that determines the little one’s trust or distrust in the world. Already in the first year of life, a child has beliefs about himself and others:
- “I’m good, everything’s okay with me” / “I’m bad, I’m not all right”.
- “You are good, everything is fine with you” / “You are bad, everything is not right with you.”
The first beliefs are colored with a plus sign, the second with a minus sign. This is the core of the script. Life position depends on the combination of signs:
- I (+) and You (+). This is a position of success. Such a person is psychologically healthy, able to achieve success, to emerge victorious from any situation.
- I (+) and You (-). Superiority position. Such a person is accustomed to jokingly and seriously accuse other people, mock, criticize. He is constantly looking for enemies, finds, moreover, far-fetched ones, and then gladly gets rid of them. This position is typical for those who like to give advice, to educate everyone, as well as for tyrants and murderers. There are both winners and losers.
- I (-) and You (+). The position of depression, self-destruction, self-deprecation. Such a person allows himself to be pushed around, to take advantage of his weaknesses, to humiliate him. He tortures himself, condemns him to loneliness, illness, prison. This is a loser scenario, the key phrases of which are: “If only …”, “I should have …”.
- You and I (-). A position of hopelessness that leads to a loser scenario. Such people are preoccupied with ideas of death, often go crazy, and become clients of a clinical psychologist.
The life position of most people is stable, but there are types with an unstable position. They regularly fluctuate between all four types. These are disturbing and unstable types. Working with them, like other relationships, is particularly challenging.
The fact is that we see these positions in each other and are drawn to the same as ourselves. An unstable person is drawn now to one circle of persons, then to another, and as a result, he does not feel comfort anywhere, and the environment does not understand him.
It is with the attitude in life that one must fight in order to get out of the script. Destroy the foundation – the house will collapse by itself. But there are only two ways to change this position, as Berne noted: by working with a psychotherapist or by finding a source of great and sincere love. The psychoanalyst was sure that strong feelings can destroy even children’s attitudes about themselves and the world.
How to define your scenario
Bern recommended honestly answering 4 questions and analyzing the result:
- What slogan did your parents use? The answer will help run the antiscript.
- How did the parents live? The answer is the key to imposed patterns of behavior.
- What was the main parental prohibition? It will help you understand what you replaced it with or what you are protesting against.
- What makes your parents happy and what saddens? The answer helps to see the alternative to the prohibition.
The results can be quite unexpected. For example, Berne’s book says that the prohibition “Don’t think!” starts a binge program. Alcohol is a departure from reality, an opportunity not to think about problems.
How to change the script
It is necessary to see the imperfection of the installed program – this is the difficulty, because the script is recorded on the disk of the unconscious. When a problem is found, you need to start work to seize independence: set conscious life goals, independently choose social roles, ways to achieve goals.
It is not easy to change the script on your own. It is better to see a psychotherapist, but right now you can take the first step towards changing your destiny:
- Think if you have a specific life plan, or are you blindly going with the flow? You need to have clear tasks for the day, week, year, whole life, important and useful for you. If you set a goal for someone else, then you again succumb to the script. These should be exclusively your goals.
- Do you have a conscious plan to achieve these goals.
- Whether you are guided by deliberately chosen patterns of behavior.
You need to think about what you want to change, how you want to live, what resources are needed for this, where to get them. Eric Berne noted that the most important job is to give yourself permission to live your own way, develop, love, change. There are enough prohibitions left over from the parents in my head.
Epilogue
The predisposition to life problems, the ways of responding to them, are rooted in family education. But not only genetics, parental behavior, environmental conditions shape human life. It is influenced by the personality itself, external circumstances beyond the control of the parental scenario.
Ultimately, each person is the master of his own destiny. Only his individual characteristics and personal aspirations play a decisive role. Parents can write down the script, but they do not affect the innate features of the psyche, temperament. And this plays a significant role in the correction of fate.
