This document discusses the origin of scripts in transactional analysis. It explains that scripts are formed in childhood as survival strategies to cope with a world that seems hostile. Scripts are based on a child's intense emotions and limited reality testing. Extreme decisions are made in response to feelings of rage, misery, terror or ecstasy. A child reasons from particular experiences to general conclusions. Scripts reflect a child's view of having little power and control over whether their needs will be met.

1. Origin of scripts

2. Prepared By
Manu Melwin Joy
Research Scholar
School of Management Studies
CUSAT, Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com
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3. Origin of scripts
• Why do we make these
sweeping infant decisions
about ourselves, others
and the world?
• What function do they
serve?
• The answer lie in two
crucial features of script
formation.

4. Origin of scripts
• Script decisions represent
the infant’s best strategy
for surviving in a world
which often seems hostile,
even life threatening.
• Script decisions are made
on the basis of an infant’s
emotions and reality
testing.

5. Response to a hostile world
• The infant is small and
physically vulnerable. To her,
the world is populated by
lumbering giants.
• An unexpected noise may
signal that her life is in
immediate danger.
• Without words or coherent
thinking, she knows that if
mother or father go away,
she will die.

6. Response to a hostile world
• When the child is two or
three years old, perhaps a
brother or sister is born
and mothers attention is
taken away by new arrival.
• Right through the years of
script formation, the child
is in a one down position.
• She perceives her parents
as having total power.

7. Response to a hostile world
• In her infancy, that power is
of life or death. Later, it is
to satisfy her needs or leave
them unsatisfied.
• Her response is to decide
upon strategies for staying
alive and getting her needs
met as best she can.

8. Early reality testing and emotions
• Baby’s emotional
experience is of rage, utter
misery, terror or ecstasy.
• He makes early decisions in
response to these intense
feelings.
• Thus it is not surprising
that the decisions are often
extreme.

9. Early reality testing and emotions
• A young child does not
think like a grown up.
Nor does she experience
emotion in the same
way.
• Script decisions are made
on the basis of a child’s
distinctive ways of
thinking and feeling.

10. Early reality testing and emotions
• In the logic of the infant, the
rule is to reason from the
particular to general.
• Suppose the child’s mother is
inconsistent in responding to
her demands.
• The child doesn’t concludes
that mother is untrustworthy.
Instead, she concludes that
people can’t be trusted.

11. Early reality testing and emotions
• The child may compensate
for his feeling of
powerlessness by imagining
he is omnipotent or can
work magic.
• If the child senses he is
being rejected by a parent,
he may attribute the fault to
himself , deciding “There is
something wrong with me”.

12. Thank You

13. Other TA topics available on slideshare
1. Strokes - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/strokes-24081607.
2. Games People Play - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/psychological-
games-people-play.
3. Structural Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/the-ego-state-model.
4. What is TA? - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/what-ta-is
5. Cycles of Development - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/cycles-of-
developement-pamela-levin-transactional-analysis.
6. Stages of Cure - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stages-of-cure.
7. Transactions - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/transactions-33677298.
8. Time Structuring - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/time-structuring.
9. Life Position - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/life-position.
10. Autonomy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/autonomy-33690557.
11. Structural Pathology - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/structural-pathology.
12. Game Analysis - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/game-analysis-33725636.
13. Integrated Adult - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/integrated-adult.
14. Stroke Economy - http://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/stroke-economy-
33826702.