Script analysis in ta in detail with roles.

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Script Analysis: In a layman’s view, a script is the text of a play, motion picture or radio or TV programme. In TA, a person’s life is compared to a play and the script is the text of that play. As Shakespeare said, “All the world is a stage. And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. Each man in his time plays many parts.” A person’s psychological script is a life plan, a drama he or she writes and then feels compelled to live out. These plans may be positive, negative or circular-endless repetition headed nowhere. According to Eric Berne, “A script is an ongoing programme, developed in early childhood under parental influence which directs the individual behaviour in the most important aspect of his life.” “A script is a complete plan of living, offering both structures, structure of conjunctions, prescriptions and permissions and structure which makes one winner or loser in life.” Thus, every person has a script. A person’s script may resemble a soap opera, a wild adventure, a tragedy, a sage, a farce, a romance, a joyful comedy or a dull play that bores the players and would put an audience to sleep. According to Jongeward, “Life script resembles the script of drama-characters, dialogues, actions and scenes, themes and plays, culmination towards a climax and ends in final curtain. She also uses the concept of a person’s two stages for action-the public stage and the private stage.” McClelland produces a scientific study of life script of people who have studied the relationship between stories heard and read by children and their motives in living. His researches have shown that achievers’ scripts are based on the success stories whereas the scripts of power oriented persons are based on stories of risk. Every person in his life time plays three basic roles which are called as the prosecutor, the rescuer and the victim. These roles can further be classified as legitimate and illegitimate. Legitimate Roles: These roles are realistically appropriate to the situation. Some legitimate roles are: A Prosecutor: Someone who sets necessary limits on behaviour or is charged with enforcing a rule. A Victim: Someone who qualifies for a job but is denied the job because of race, sex or religion. A Rescuer: Someone who helps a person who is functioning inadequately to become rehabilitated and self reliant. Illegitimate Roles: The roles are said to be illegitimate if they are used like masks and People use them for the purposes of manipulation. These are: A prosecutor: Someone who sets unnecessary strict limits on behaviour or is charged with enforcing the rules but does so with sadistic brutality. A victim: Someone who does not qualify for a job but falsely claims that it is denied to him because of race, sex or religion. A Rescuer: Someone who in the guise of being helpful, keep others dependent upon him or her. Every person from time to time plays the part of prosecutor, rescuer and victim. A person when confronted with a particular situation acts according to his script which is based on what he expects from his life or how he views his life position. Generally, man’s behaviour becomes quasi-programmed by the script which emerges out of his life experience. This life position of a person affects his interpersonal relationships. Thus scripts play a very important role in transactional analysis.