 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show, behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to episode 51 of The Therapy Show, where I close doors with myself, Jackie Jones. And as always, the wonderful Mr Bob Cook. Yay. So in this, I don't know, I just felt like you deserved one. So in this episode, we're talking about understanding your life plan, a way to change your scripting therapy. I love that title, Bob. What do you love about it, Jackie? I love all of it. I talk about life script and awful lot. I talk about being scripted, actually scripty stuff, and you're in script and things like that. But to actually look at it, the meat and the bones of it. And I like the way that you said, and to change your scripting therapy, because that's the aim, really, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, you know, I was trained in transaction analysis and you were trained in transaction analysis. Yeah. Eric Burn, the originator of transaction analysis, 1960, wrote the first book on TA. He defined a life plan as a script as a life plan that you learn early in your life, basically, which people call script. So script equals life plan. And one of the major aims of any transaction analyst as a psychotherapist is to help the person understand their life plan, which is often, you know, way back in their history that they weren't aware of. And look at how it may not be helping them nowadays, even though when they formed it, it was, you know, a pretty useful one and got them by as best as they could, but maybe doesn't do the job now, so outdated in some ways. So the first job is to help them understand or be aware of those life choices that make up their path in life. Yeah. Now that may not be useful now or perhaps needs adjusting or amending. And that's in TA language is called script analysis. Yeah. He fascinated me when I first started learning about this, the fact that we make these decisions at such a young age, you know, sort of before they were around the age of seven, it's kind of cemented our life decisions on who we're going to be in the world. And, you know, potentially we're living our adult life, still adhering to those decisions. I found it blew my mind. Yeah. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because there's a lot of controversy in some ways. So the earlier analysts like Freud, Young, and many of the psychotherapists, theorists in the last century, if you like, have come from that position, what you've just said. More modern writers, especially in TA, other disciplines as well, have come to argue or have a different view of this. So their view would be that we're always adjusting and changing our life plan as we go along. According to the crisis is and developmental milestones that we actually are going through in life. Okay. So you have different commentaries in TA and I suspect you've got different commentaries in quite a lot of the psychotherapy disciplines about when that live plan is actually formed. And as I said, many commentators in TA see the life plan, if you like, changing, being altered, amended according to developmental milestones that person goes through psychologically. Yeah. Which, you know, that again is another thing. We've been an ex foster care and working with children. I was fascinated by, you know, the ages and stages that we go through psychological things and the fact that we recycle them over and over again throughout our life is fascinating. I think that that really is the bolt of psychotherapy, if you like, that the past affects the present. Yeah. And if we look at these repetitive patterns, these repetitive plans that are carried out, which confirm our own identity and a way of being very early on in life, even if they might get changed slightly or not, depending which view you hold, it's the same process, isn't it? The past affects the present. Yeah. And, you know, even if we look back at those decisions that we made when we were younger, we made them with the best of intentions. And at the time, like you said at the beginning of this, they made perfect sense. They were good decisions to be making at a very young age, because we look at the world completely differently when we're young to what we do through adolescence and adulthood. Absolutely. And often we're in a different place where a different stage of life and maybe those early decisions about whether people are okay or not okay, about whether people feel okay themselves may actually differ. Yeah. I mean, script theory is often linked to the existential positions that we have decided about ourselves and other people. Now, in TA, they have that whole theory about okay, corral, on the okay corral, we put these existential decisions that we made early in childhood at a very elementary level. You know, I'm okay. You're not okay. I'm okay. You are okay. I'm okay. So, you know, you're not okay. And they have healthy positions in different positions. And that becomes the basis of our early elementary life plan about other people in the world around us. Yeah. And you don't have to really know all that type of theory I've just said. But I think the elementary position about the past affecting the present, which means healing needs to take place developmentally in the therapeutic room is an important position in therapy. Yeah. So, ultimately, do you think people need to know what the script is made up of in order to move out of it and be aware of it? No. Okay. I don't think at all. I think the therapist needs to think about it and ponder about it. And they may decide to, you know, they might decide to share some of the theoretical components, like, you know, things like injunctions or drivers and look at analyzing person's script and talking in the relationship about that. And the two people reflecting on that themselves to go forward. But do I think that's a necessity? Not necessarily. Okay. In fact, somebody who intellectualizes a lot may use that as a process to not change. Yeah. Yeah. I found it, I found it helpful. And it just have an awareness around it. I know it took me a while to work through all the mud in my life script. But now I kind of know when I'm in it. And I have a choice whether I step out of it again. It's familiar a lot of it. You know, when for me, when I'm stressed or overwhelmed or something's going on, I know I'm more likely to step back into those all familiar decisions, even though a lot of the time it feels crappy when I do it. I still go back to it sometimes. Yeah. And the theory is that under stress, we're more likely to go back to those patterns that we decided upon many years ago. We see people that come through our door who want help in solving their problems. They're often helpful patterns. Yeah. Yeah. I certainly don't stay in it as long or as often now, but it's quite comfortable sometimes. You know, I can be quite introverted at times. And I think that's when I'm kind of in my scripted stuff. Yeah. And you know, I think we can, the more we know about all these things and understand ourselves more, who may choose under stress to inhabit that comfortable place, even though we know it's unhealthy. Yeah. And, you know, for me, I find it helpful to know the things about, you know, whether you're a thinker or whether you're a feeler or whether you're a doer or what, you know, what type of, how you connect with another person. I just find that really helpful in all communication and relationships. And it, you know, I get curious about a lot of that stuff. And in junctions, you know, I know where they come from, but how they can impact on us as well. Well, you know, and going back to your question, do you share some of this stuff with your clients? Again, you need to think about the type of client. I think intellectual stuff can be a defence to the person might get stuck in that. But if not, you may choose to do that in a relational way and help the person understand themselves a bit more and see where the genesis of this script comes from in order to help the person change that. So when you talk about injunctions, you're talking about negative messages that come from the parent, which inhibit the person's, you know, healthy script or life plan. In fact, is not healthy at all. When you talk about drivers, they're often the permissions for the parent, which drives the person to achieve and to get on in life as a defence against the negative messages. Was that all help? Yes. If they can get to a place to understand what they've decided back then, that actually doesn't help today. Yeah. And that's the difficult bit because we can't remember making those decisions. It's like, yeah, that to me was the nuts and bolts of it when I was learning it. How do I know what decisions I was making? I get a feel for them. I get a sense of them. But it's not like it was a conscious thing that I did at a certain age. No, I think if you're saying, do I remember consciously or minute decisions are made that are actually healthy or not healthy and go to that way of understanding it? I completely agree with you. I think not many people have that type of memories or even reflections. But in a general way, we might, I could think, for example, in my history, I talk about generally, when I decided it was safer to withdraw. Yeah. I can't remember the exact time date I made that. But as a younger self, thinking about my younger self, I can probably safely say that I decided to do that way back in childhood when it was pretty toxic to be in the present. Yeah. Which, you know, it makes perfect sense that we would make a decision like that. Yeah. And I thought I therefore I can understand it in connection with how it may or may not help me in the present to stay in a withdrawn place when I need to actually be spontaneous or, you know, whatever. So, if I'm connecting with past to present, then it can often be quite useful to have these relational discussions with clients to be like a shirk homes over the therapeutic rooms. Yeah. Love that. And that's, you know, one, some people say to me, why do we keep need to going over the past? You know, why do we keep going back and everything? And this is one of the reasons why, because particularly in the early part of therapy, we need to explore those early decisions and that includes, you know, family life and siblings and yeah. So, give you, yeah, absolutely. Give you a story. So, and a true story, this is a true one. Somebody, I think you are going back a quarter of a century. I'm picking a one in terms of I have to be careful of confidentiality of the house. So, I'm picking a situation a long time ago. So, I do the assessments at my institute half an hour. Well, I listen to the issues and then pass on to therapist. So, someone comes in and says, I've come to you because you're my last hope. Well, that's when somebody says that I tend to sort of sigh with thinking what's going to come next. And she went on to say that she had depression for the last 15, 16 or even further 20 years, which is incapacitating herself and she'd been on medication. And finally, the doctor said, I think talking therapy might help you. I gave my name and she turned up and we started to talk about depression and her problems. And she said that she nothing worked, the medication hadn't really worked. And as we talk about this whole process, I asked a developmental question because in my assessments, I need to know a little bit about how the past affects the present. So, I tentatively said, and is your mother and father alive and your caretakers people brought you up? And she said, yes, my mother's alive and she started talking about her mother. And then she said, and do you know what? I said, no. She said, my mother was depressed as well. I haven't ever really talked about this or reflected about this, but nobody ever asked me. But she started to say, you know, my mother was depressed and I often used to think about how comes she withdrew and incapacitated herself and I helped as much as I could. And here comes the sort of question I hesitated to ask, but I asked it. So I said, oh, right, so is there any connection between the depression you've got today and your mothers, for example, whose depression is it really that you've got? And she sort of hesitated and then eventually she said, gosh, she said, it's not my depression. And I said, well, whose depression do you think it might have been always? She said, I think it's my mother's. And there's that sort of moment in there. Well, it was an assessment, but it was a sort of moment where a light bulb had gone on her head and she couldn't quite work it all out. But she started to realize that maybe it was never hers in the first place. And then she said, well, what do I do about it? So I said, well, you could give it back to her. And she said, how do I do that? I said, well, first of all, let's send you to a therapist who can help you do that. And, you know, and so that was great. Send her to therapist. Then one morning I was coming in quite early on and I bumped into her in the therapy in the corridor for about seven months on. And she said, I must tell you about what's happened. I couldn't quite remember her. But then I remembered as she started to talk. She said, I've handed the depression back, you know, I feel a lot lighter. And then she said, I said, congratulations. She said, well, what do I do next, Bob? So I said, go back to your therapist and talk to him about what you do next and how you can be different in the presence. So there's how the there's a pure example, a real example of how the past affects the present. Yeah, that's amazing. What a lovely thing. And I can see that happening. You touched on something that I think is really important there. What's that? What do we do when we heal? Well, I think the first thing is awareness. I've had an awful lot of clients, not just necessarily recently, but the kind of attached to their suffering and they have increased anxiety when they're bordering on letting it go or giving it back to whoever it belongs to. Be there for them about making that change. Yeah, because that's what they've been used to. Yeah. In a previous podcast, I'm sure, we talked about cure. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the beginning of all this is awareness. Oh, first step, I think, is motivation to want to change in the first place. But I think awareness is very, very important because without awareness that there's something wrong or the discomfort is really so painful you can't carry on, you wouldn't come to therapy in the first place. So you need to be aware, at least, that change is possible. And then there's a whole process of change. So when you say, I don't know what the question requires, but read it is what constitutes getting better. I think, well, I think it's one of my famous sayings, which I know you know, but I'll say it again, it's a process, not an event. Yeah. But this process starts with motivation and awareness. Yeah. And then from there, we can go forward. Yeah. It's the clients that fear cure because they don't know how to be any other way. You know, there's a grieving process sometimes when... Well, you see, I think, yeah, you are right, but I think there's more than that. I think it's the class of fear change and fear vulnerability and fear being out of control that have the biggest issues. Yeah. I talk to some clients about having a worry bucket and it's like, when it's getting empty, they've got to fill it back up with something because they don't know how to be any other way. It's like, well, actually, your life is going swimming with it at the moment. You don't need to be putting things in that bucket anymore. Yeah. And this is where the therapist comes in. So that's why I said this is a process after when there's motivation and all these other things. Yeah. The therapist needs to help the clients, you know, in the process of putting a new life plan or a new script back on the road. I mean, they can't do it themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a really good way of saying it. It's, you know, making a new life plan. Yeah. Yes. Because the sense of predictability, the sense of those insidious decisions which we made to survive are so strong. Yeah. So without the therapist's protection, potency, and help to actually put a new life plan on the road, therapy often won't happen because there's so people so afraid of change, vulnerability, loss of control, having feelings, all those sort of things. So this is where the therapist is really important in terms of containment and helping them with a torch so they can see the road. Yeah. So you can go down it together. Yeah. I love that. And, you know, a life script is like a map, isn't it? We kind of, we're following it. So it's about getting a new map and finding because it is new and it is different. It's kind of like uncharted territory when you're making changes. Yeah. Absolutely. But you need to do it together. Yeah. That people cannot do it by themselves because they'll, you know, they're the best within the world. And I know you've got two hands to perhaps have a torch to shine on the map, but you need someone else to guide you along the way that knows the way. Yeah. To a certain extent. Yeah. Which is lovely because I see that's what therapy is all around. It's being alongside somebody while they're taking that journey and things. It's not about dragging them along, kicking and screaming. There's a great book called, and I don't know who wrote it. So I'm going to say it's a great book and I'm thinking it's a very old book and I wish to talk to you. You might know who it was written by. It's called A Road Less Traveled, which is all about what we're talking about. Yeah. And it's all about the therapist going along this new road in a relational way in the process of helping the person develop and integrate a new life plan in their lives. In a more healthy, spontaneous way. Yeah. I love that because life is full of traps and pits and things. Do you know what I mean? And sometimes we avoid them and sometimes we fall in them. And it's about how do we get out of it and things like that. So I can literally visualise a map while you're talking with all these different twists and turns in it. Yeah. A torch as well. Yes. I need a torch. Yes. Yeah. We both hold that torch together, hopefully, as you start to take ownership of the path and the new way of being. Yeah. Yeah. That's lovely. Well, you need a therapist to help you in the process. Yes. I can't really tell. I remember when I was kind of unearthing mine, it was really difficult. Well, if you're doing it by yourself, it would be. Well, yeah. And when you're talking about the drivers and injunctions and things like that, it was really difficult for me to work out my drivers, which is not surprising because one of them is a be perfect. So for me to find anything that was negative or wrong about me was really difficult. So I quickly found out that one of mine was to be perfect and to get everything right, which, again, in a therapy situation, can be quite, I don't want to say traumatic, but it's hard because we don't like making mistakes or getting it wrong. And I fell into that trap of performing in the therapy room because I needed to get it all right. Very common. Yeah. And it's just being able to step out of that now and look back on my behaviour then. I don't want to say it's laughable, but I was literally in my driver behaviour for a long time when I was in therapy. Well, things become habits as well. Yeah. There's a book called Habit, which I really like. It's just simply called Habit. Again, I can't remember who wrote it, but anyway, and I talk a lot about habits and how many times you carry out a ritual or transaction that it becomes entrenched as a habit. And I was surprised how little it was. So, and I can't remember how many times, but whether we call them entrenched patterns or entrenched habits, it needs somebody to help us and give us a helping hand to move away from that and help us not slip back. Yeah. Yeah. This is, as always, Bob, it fascinates me. You know, it's one of the things I'm so pleased that I did 10 years ago was start this journey because human beings just fascinate me. How we were all unique and individual. And, you know, yeah, I were life script. I were, you know, upbringing the family that were born into the environment, everything. It all plays a part in it. Yeah. And I think TA, TA therapists have this theory of life plan or scripts. You know, other therapies do, you know, they might use the word schema therapy. So, so, but, you know, all psychotherapy disciplines. And I think TA has got a good personality model here and a good, you know, thinking about scripts. But they all hopefully come from the idea that past affects the present. And we need to look at the patterns and the scripts and the life plans which stop us actually being the person that we want to be today in 2022. And have the therapist and yourself start on the quest to, you know, change some of this together. Yeah. Find a new way through the whole process which is more healthy and, you know, has more light attached to the way of living. Yeah. The other thing that sometimes comes up with clients for me when they have that, you know, light bulb moment, like you're, when you were doing that assessment and she said, oh my God, it's not mine. It's my mum's. You know, there can be a bit of shame around it that they've lived their life thinking this for so long that, you know, there's a lot of judgment they put on themselves for why did I not know this sooner? Why? Yeah. Yeah. Now, that's very true. And you need to help the person deal with that shame. You need to help them find a way to be less hard on themselves and to, you know, come to terms with the process which usually comes, of course, from, you know, another place altogether. And for me, you know, one of the things I always say is that if you knew a better way to do it, you would have done it at the time. The decision that you made was the best that you could come up with. You know, yes, you, like you said, were in 2022 now and you would probably make a different decision. But at that time, it was a good decision to make. Especially for your younger self. So it's like as you start to make these transformational changes, then that's a wonderful thing, I think. Yeah. I always find that pretty humbling to be part of somebody on a journey when they make such transformational changes. Yeah, it is. So I want a good place to end it, Bob. Wait, good. Yes. So I shall see you in the next episode where we're going to be talking about the courage to be human in the therapy room. Oh, well, this is following off from what we've been talking about then. It is. It's a good one to follow on from. And what number episode are we up to next, Bob? I don't know. You know, I lose to, I'm sure you're going to tell me. It's 52. We've done a year. 52. The next episode is a second episode. I think we should give ourselves a pat on the back. I think we should. I think we've done well. We've motored through this last 12 months. Look at all the changes we've been through. So until the next time, Bob, I shall see you very soon. OK, see you. Bye-bye. You've been listening to The Therapy Show behind closed doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. 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