cultural script tagged posts

Playing Out I Am Not OK and You Are Not OK

I Am Not OK and You Are Not OK

How each of the Game Positions Plays Out I Am Not OK and You Are Not OK

Every year the Academy presents the Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama or Serial distinguished by exclusive audience interest. In real life, however, there is no Academy to present us with awards for the roles we play. But we make every endeavour to fight for that Oscar, creating inappropriate relationships, where we often find ourselves telling our partner: “I Am Not OK”. People love the drama genre, and that is not only in movies, books, and serials, but in their own personal life as well.

Here are the three main characters and their view of life in their real life movies.

The Aggressor: I Am Not OK

Aggressors are not OK, and for them, no one else can be OK either...

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A Game People Play: The Martyr

A Game People Play: The Martyr

I was at the shopping centre last week finishing off my weekly shopping. I opened the car boot and was putting my shopping bags in when I overhear a conversation between a woman and a friend. They had parked their car next to mine and were gathering their things to obviously go and do some shopping of their own.

I heard one woman say that she was sick of still having to cook for her adult sons especially when they always wanted something different from each other and obviously made their wants clear. Then she spoke about her husband who had his own wants when it came to the meals that this woman would prepare for them. She complained bitterly that they all still relied on her to do not just their cooking but their cleaning and washing as well...

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A Game People Play: The Helpless

The Helpless

Every family is a multifaceted reflection of the surrounding world. In this variegated kaleidoscope of personalities and tempers we distinguish three basic behavioural models: the Aggressor, the Helpless, and the Martyr.

These three roles describe the life positions from which people play their games on a daily basis in their lives which is a means to support the basic life script that these same individuals live their lives by.

Regardless of whether the case is about a family of four or a household that includes three generations living under the same roof, each of the above roles is generally present in at least one of the household members. So if there is one clear Aggressor in the family, then inevitably there will be more than one Helpless or Martyr...

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The Games People Play: The Aggressor

Mad about the BanIf you have met them, you will recognize their characteristics and relationships with them will bring you nothing but feelings of frustration, helplessness and may be even despair as there is no winning with them.

We are talking about the Aggressors of the world. The game these people play follows the principle: “I must win at all cost!” In one way or another, they attempt to make themselves the reason for when things go right in their lives while blaming others when things go wrong in their lives; they under-value the efforts of their partner in relationship or completely suppress their partner’s right to express himself / herself.

In truth both types of behaviour lead to a no-win outcome.

How does this game begin? It invariably starts with a parent who is also an Aggressor...

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The Games People Play

Victors - Visitors - Victims

As a little child we all played funny games where the die determined our luck and our eventual triumph at the final. Have you ever noticed that in a particular situation participants have different reactions to the way a game progresses. Some of them feel themselves to be the winners the very moment they take the dice, while others feel scared while playing at dice, and third are desperate feelings some have that this would be just another time they would not get a double six.

The more the players are, the more the reactions are. Just as in life, isn’t it? The games people play bring them joy, disappointment or pride.

Eric Berne and His Theory

Differently from the games like those above the life that you ultimately come to live, and all that you think, feel, say, and do in it, is for the ...

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Theories about Choosing a Partner

Is It Chemistry or Script

Recently I was having dinner with my friends in one of our local restaurants, far away from the noise of the city. At the table next to us another company of friends were enjoying their Saturday while having a good feed drinking fine wine and sharing stories. Suddenly their conversation turned to the methods for choosing a partner to spend one’s life with.

I couldn’t help extending my ear to them. This was a true niggling for my experience as a therapist. What were these love couples thinking of love, their relationships, and of life in general?

What I discovered was that they were each very strongly in favour of their opinion and were clearly in support of one of two positions: The first one defended their thesis that love was chemistry, and the second one – that love was somehow pre-o...

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Unconscious Decisions versus Conscious Decisions

Faris and Rosie on the blind walk
Do you have any idea what really happens once a product is ready to be marketed? A product is permitted onto the market only after a series of researches of conscious and unconscious decisions, the rational and irrational motives of customers, have been explored when it comes to what the consumer is looking for and what they are then willing to pay for it.

Why do we need all this? Does good analysis ensure the future of a given product? Short answer? Yes...

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Distractions That Keep Us from Looking at Our Scripts

Butterfly in the Grasses and ChaosWhat is the connection between physics, literature and science fiction films? Let me stir your grey matter to look for the answer to this question.

Chaos Theory, the Butterfly Effect, the formation of a hurricane and the mind that creates literary pieces … all give us small hints that may give us the solution.

Let me make things easier: the Butterfly Effect refers to a simple action, which at some point in time will result in a significant impact across the planet. Chaos Theory refers to the interplay of everything that happens on our planet and indeed in the universe which it describes as actually happening in a very non-chaotic, even predictable way. They are equally part of the web of life even while seemingly random events.

In the lines below I will reveal why I bring Chaos Theory to y...

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Actions Can Speak Louder Than Words

What are we looking at?I don’t think there is anyone who would question that “Actions Can Speak Louder than Words”. And if considered from an analytical point of view, we will come to the conclusion that XXI century communication – whether verbal or not – is extremely well developed. With each day the complexity of our language changes, as it evolves, being enriched with new meanings. We may conclude that communication is a process where people exchange information with each other. However, far be it for me to even think that words are the only instrument out there. Actions are their physical materialization. And that is why we say that actions can speak louder than words!

I invite you to pause your reading here and think for a moment about what all this really means for you...

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Choosing a Partner, Choosing a New Script

Choosing a PartnerI often hear in my work the following question: why is that we really like some people and we really do not like others?

A long time admirer may follow you just as if being bound by an invisible thread, proving his loyalty and devotion, but you keep not noticing him. At the same time, you keep running headlong after another man, whose personality and appearance do not even come close to your loyal admirer. Just as a comic’s scene, where one is running after the other one, and the other one after a third. Let me summarize it for you – there is one thing clear here: choosing a partner is not a chaotic process under the banner “destiny gave me a hint”. And yes, you thought just right – there are laws here as well.

I often advise those I am counselling to take a close look at the relat...

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