This article will interest people who strive for self-awareness. I answer the question "What is a life script and how is it formed?" and introduce you to ancient and historical views on the subject.
First, a short digression into history.
The earliest script analysts lived in ancient India, and they based their predictions mainly on astrology. The "Panchatantra" (approx. 200 BC) puts it very well:
Five circumstances are settled for every person before he leaves his mother's womb:
1. The length of his life,
2. His fate,
3. His wealth,
4. His learning,
5. His grave
I would put the very same thing somewhat differently:
Five circumstances are settled by the parents and by the person himself within the six years after birth:
1. The length of his life,
2. His fate,
3. His wealth,
4. His learning,
5. His grave
Over the past 100 years, the one who came closest to the analysis of scripts was Alfred Adler (before him, Freud spoke only of the "compulsion of destiny").
"If I know the goal of a person, I know in a general way what will happen. I am in a position to bring into order each single one of the successive movements of that person."
"We must remember that the person under observation would not know what to do with himself were he not oriented towards some goal, and it is this goal that defines his life line."
"The psychic life of a human being must be completed in the fifth act, like a figure created by a good dramatist."
"Any psychic phenomenon, if we want it to give us an understanding of the person, must be regarded and grasped in the light of preparation for some goal."
"The attempts to plan a compensation in the finale and the (secret) plan of life; the life plan remains in the unconscious, so that the patient may believe that an implacable fate is at work and not a long-prepared and long-considered plan for which he alone is responsible; such a person settles his accounts and makes his peace with life by composing one, or a great many, "if only".
Probably every one of you has already seen cases of the kind people describe as "stepping on the same rake again". For example (a crude example, but a very frequent one): a woman marries, and her husband becomes an alcoholic; she marries a second time, and in time her husband is an alcoholic again. What follows the script is grumbling about a cruel fate, a curse or bad luck.
In fact it is all simple and, at the same time, all very complicated. Because of her traumas and the defense mechanisms of her psyche, the woman is unconsciously trying, once again, to replay her role with a different outcome. That is, when they meet she does not notice the obvious signs of her chosen one's leaning towards alcoholism; or else, after the wedding, she unwittingly creates such conditions and such an atmosphere for her husband that he starts to drink.
We are not talking about who is to blame and who is right, that is not the point; the point is the chains of cause and effect that keep sliding the same "rake" under her feet, again and again.
There are many such examples, among men as well as among women, and it makes no difference whether it concerns family and relationships or work (frequent changes of job because of similar conflicts).
We unconsciously play a role that we absorbed in childhood; and since this role brings us no happiness and only creates problems, our unconscious, in order to bring us to a new level, tries again and again to create the same conditions, so that the "end of the play" can be replayed. This is what is called a life script.
Sadly, clients usually come to me only at the stage of despair, after they have stepped on the same rake many times over. They come because their reason already tells them that they are running in circles and repeating the same actions, while time passes, life goes by, and they long for happiness at last. What they do not realise is that they are playing one and the same role, replaying their play, their life script, over and over.
The work consists in understanding what exactly the client is trying to change, to replay. Where is it that he keeps returning to? What is hidden deep in the unconscious? How do the defenses work? What sets them off? As we work, I gradually turn the client's conscious attention to these points. It is as though I were shining a torch on what is hidden in the darkness of the mind. Of course, very strong resistance arises, because the unconscious fiercely protects a person from the traumas, from the pain he once lived through. But one has to go further! To go on and not give up! In most cases it turns out that "fear has big eyes". That is, those moments of life, moments from childhood that seemed dreadful to the child and because of which he developed defenses so that it would not be so frightening or so painful, the client now looks at with an adult mind, and awareness comes, awareness of that moment that was so dreadful for the child. Gradually the neural connections change at the physical level as well, and, as a natural process, the defenses fall away, and with them the whole "life script" breaks down.
The unconscious is a subtle thing; its language is complex and tangled, and its signs and defenses have to be deciphered with the help of a professional. The most productive method for uncovering a life script is fairy-tale therapy. It is a method that requires long work from both the counsellor and the client, and close attention to every detail.
A script can be changed!
© Natallia Nechai
