cultural script tagged posts

March 19, 2021,  Counselling, Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

So, if Dad got mad when something went wrong, you might get mad and respond in the same way he did. Or, maybe your mother got sad when something went wrong, and depending on your personality and your closeness to each of your parents, you might respond that way instead.

It could be worth noting here that your personality is already there at your birth. This phenomenon subsequently influences how you respond to events in your later life, and it also influences which parent, if any, you are most likely to imitate in your behaviors, thoughts, and feelings when confronted with a particular situation.

The way you choose to respond to circumstances could be the topic for a whole other book, but suffice it to say here that your personality, your gender, the environment you grew up in, ...

February 17, 2021,  Family, Life, Script  No comments

We also know the power of the subconscious mind, since every day we do so many things without even thinking. We shower, get dressed, brush our teeth, have breakfast, and get ourselves to work and home again without even giving it a second thought. We just trust our unconscious mind to take care of these things, and it does.

How Did I Get Here?

If you’re skeptical, let me ask you this question: have you ever driven your car or taken a walk and suddenly realized you didn’t remember how you got where you were?

Your subconscious mind got you there, and you can trust it. If you had come across a stop sign or something happened that needed your attention, your conscious mind would’ve taken control in an instant.

This ability is really very helpful: it means that you don’t ...

January 25, 2021,  Family, Life, Relationship, Script  No comments

Family and Cultural Scripts

When you were born into your family, you were presented with your script for life. The script is the programming you undergo that defines how your life will be lived out—it’s not much different from a computer program, really. It contains the set of instructions for how to be a girl or a boy, a son or a daughter, a woman or a man, a wife or a husband, a parent, or even a member of your family, workplace, or your community. The set of instructions contains the values, beliefs, and attitudes that will flavor everything you think, say, and do in your life until you replace it.

Your script’s values, beliefs, and attitudes symbolize your fundamental needs: your physical, safety, feeling, love and belonging, and spiritual needs, as described earlier.

March 16, 2017,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Games People Play, Relationship, Script  No comments

Beth and Roger’s Games – What Obstructed Their Relationship Progress?

There are few things that obstructed Beth and Roger‘s relationship. Surely the first thing to mention is the miscommunications between them. Having in mind their childhood experiences and the way they have developed certain patterns in their way of relating to each other, it is obvious that their effective communication skills are limited.

By “skills” I mean the ability to say what you really want to say and to give yourself time to understand what the other person is saying.

I also mean the ability to listen not in order to answer, but in order to understand.

It also means being honest with each other in those communications.

Situations like this and the resulting crisis in the relationship are most often a sig...

January 11, 2017,  Exercise, Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Games People Play, Relationship, Script  No comments

Life Is Not a TV Drama

Is it possible to live a drama free life? Is it necessary to have drama in our lives in order to feel balanced when it is over? Isn’t it easier to just exclude even the smallest possibility of turning a fly into an elephant? What make us create dramas in our lives when this is the thing we fear and dislike the most?

Look at the games the couples in our stories (The Story of Tamara and Alex, The Story of Vanessa and Mark, Vanessa and Mark (cont), Detecting Games in Relationships, Responding Assertively to Game Playing).

An Exercise

If you want you can challenge yourself: try imagining each game discussed as initiated by anyone, of either sex, and imagine how that game story might play out...

February 1, 2016,  Games People Play, Relationship  No comments

Many people who have played the Survivor’s Triangle games have realized that it usually doesn’t lead to a good outcome. Then comes the need of a positive outcome and you have to figure out how to make it happen.

Approaching the task logically, if you want a positive outcome to a situation you need to be positive yourself.

All could be different depending on which angle you are watching it from. And if the Survivor’s Triangle is viewed from an “I am okay” position, then the whole picture will change and the roles played will change as well to become the higher “self” of that positive interaction – no longer a game of the negative kind.

For example, the higher self of the Aggressor from the Survivor’s Triangle would turn to an Assertive type on the Winner’s Triangle and will...

December 23, 2015,  Fundamental Human Needs, Games People Play, Relationship, Script  No comments

What does it really mean to be “OK”? Is there a formula that we need to follow to in order to be okay? When are we okay? Is it when we feel loved and respected, or when we feel someone needs us and that make us feel important? Is happiness something to fight for or it is something that comes to us when we’re done the battle with ourselves?

To sum it up – each of us is either predominantly OK with life and how it’s progressing, or not. I think you might be able to guess which is better. Victors live out a very clear “I’m OK and you’re OK” life script, while both Visitors and Victims live out a predominantly “I’m not OK, you’re not OK” life script.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of the Survivor’s Triangle.

The Aggressor

Aggressors are the bullies of...

December 17, 2015,  Family, Games People Play, Relationship, Script  No comments

All Psychological Games get played from one of three positions. These can be seen in action on the Survivor’s Triangle.

I call it the “Survivor’s Triangle,” because, while games are destructive, you play them in response to whatever you were taught, or decided, as a child. It was the way you learned to survive in your family and in society.

As well when you are a child you ‘by default’ need to be taken care of, to be helped and pampered because you are a tiny and weak creature. You simply need to survive as a child biologically and later on emotionally so you naturally do whatever you need to ensure that happens.

Survival or Imprisonment?

Each of the triangle’s corners represents one of the three stances that someone might take in a game...

November 10, 2015,  Games People Play, Relationship, Script  No comments

People often ask me – why are relationships so complicated? The short answer is – because there are two in the game.

The games people play are a complicated mix of roles that are lived out unconsciously and driven by the equally unconscious need to stand by them on a daily basis. In short these are habits, and we’re referring here to the bad ones, that we live our lives by.

Eric Berne notes: The general advantage of a game consists in its stabilizing (homeostatic) functions. Biological homeostasis is promoted by stroking (the means individuals use to communicate something with another), and psychological stability is reinforced by the confirmation of a set position (that is their life position).

The Games People Play Are Intended to Re-establish Predictability

A relationship “game” ...

February 18, 2015,  Relationship  No comments

For centuries people have described and praised love as a flame striking at the heart. Sonnets, stories and novels tell stories about young lovers who through all kinds of adversity find love and come to live happily ever after.

Each one of us tends to believe this magic, to submit our whole life to it in the search of our own fabulous love story. And why not, you probably think! But for us to truly be able to say: “I Am Ready to Meet You”, we really must be free of our past and at peace in ourselves. This is the foundation and the beginning of a new life where Happy Ever After is truly possible.

And like any great adventure finding the fairy tale requires us to pass through a storm of challenges on the way...