 Well, the major game they will play, by the way, from a try-hard position is how can I explain this to you? Is to project onto the therapist that the therapist does the work for them or does the thinking for them. So when the therapist doesn't do the thinking for them or doesn't do the cognitive reasoning for them, they then will enact out and usually get quite aggressive internally. Yeah. And stay passive, by the way. Yeah. Because you're not doing what you're supposed to do in this situation. Which is to work it out for them. Yeah. 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 the next episode of The Therapy Show with myself, Jackie Jones, and the wonderful Mr Bob Cook. Hi, thank you very much again. Yeah, we're going to carry on with the drivers. This is episode 62. God, 62. We're really climbing up the charts, aren't we? We are. And we're going to look in your glove. No, that's fine. I was saying climbing up the charts, I was just thinking about I was in the shops the other day and I saw a whole, I don't know, a paper that came out when I was born in 1950. Wow. It had the charts, the top 20 in the charts. And when you say, when I said I was going, we're going up the charts, I was thinking of that memory. But nothing to do with this podcast at all, but anyway. Nothing to do with this. We're going to try really hard in this one, both. Oh, gosh. Because we're looking at the tri-hard driver. Driver, sir, for this. This is one of you. I think the last podcast we did was on the Be Perfect Drive. And you talk about that maybe under stress, that could be your default one. Tri-hard used to be with me. And it's done a lot of therapy. So it's not my favorite corner as much as it used to be under stress. I do them all, Bob, depending on what mood I'm in. Tri-hard's one of mine. Because I think that links into the Be Perfect. OK, so we're going to do tri-hard. We are. We can, let's start off with a little bit more about what you just said, that you think that the tri-hard driver links into the Be Perfect driver. So if you could explain a little bit more what you mean by that. Because it takes a lot of effort to be perfect. So I'm constantly trying hard. With everything I do. Another big giveaway is that I've got lines in the middle of my eyebrows as well. That's a giveaway for somebody with a tri-hard. Because we're constantly straining to try and do our best. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. So they go together quite well, don't they? I think so. Yeah, they pop up quite regular for me. So do you want to give a brief synopsis of driver behavior then, Jenny, for people perhaps missed the last podcast and what we're doing? Yeah, driver behavior is something that we kind of develop from a very young age with our parents. And it's the antipathy, or is that the right word? I don't know, the opposites of the injunctions where we have don't be young, don't be you, don't be well, don't be ill. Don't exit all these don't things that we pick up non-verbally from our parents. Our drivers kind of move us in the right direction so we get strokes, recognition and validation from our parents. So there's five driver behaviors. There's be perfect, try hard, please others, be strong and hurry up. Well done. Ta-da! Perfectly. Do I pass? Thank you. Thank you. Very unique style, of course. So yeah, we spoke a lot about it, be perfect, but I just love the whole mechanics of the driver behavior and how it links into our script and early decisions and everything else. I've spoken lots of times in this podcast. I'm very logical and I just think it's a very, it's a useful tool in the therapy room. Yes, to spot when people in their driver behaviors. And of course, if they are stuck in their driver behaviors or if they, how can I explain this, if they're utilizing them in a way that they don't actually get in touch with their real self or lose contact and relationships, then they end up often coming to therapy. And actually, often when a person's not allowing themselves to be their self, they get anxious. They especially get anxious if they, like in your case, what you just said, they're trying hard to be perfect. It takes so much energy and often they fail so they get even more anxious. Yeah, totally. And again, I know we touched on it in the last one, but you can generally see a client when they're in their try hard driver because the facial expression and the body language is trying really hard to work out maybe what you're saying. Sometimes I'm thinking of one particular client that I have, there's a sense of confusion on their face sometimes if they don't get it. And you can see them really trying to understand or to get it right. Yeah, and often they move into or they attempt to move into what I call mind reading. Yeah. They're trying to guess or think or work out maybe what you're thinking. So they can try hard to be fitting in to what you're thinking so they can get some recognition. Yes, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. The problem with that, of course, is that they lose contact with the person in front of them because they're not being their real self. They're being caricature of what they think the other person needs them to be. Yeah. Now, of course, in their house of origin where trying hard was stroked, then to not do that, they often feel uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Do you point, behave yourself to clients when they're in certain drivers? Is that something that you wouldn't do? That's an interesting one. You see, the pen is the type of TA therapist you are because you can get TA therapists who do quite a lot of what I would call educative therapy. Yeah. Or they would teach eager states or teach driving behavior or teach injunctions. And that's very valid and very useful. And there are some TA therapists who may not do any what we call educative therapy at all. And then there's people, TA therapist in the middle of that, do some and then do some. I think the big thing to think about in all this is what you mentioned on the last podcast and that's the concept of shame. Yeah. Yeah. So number one, you need to, I think, know the people quite well. Have to think about what does it mean when I start to share this material? Does it help or doesn't it help? Are there the sort of person might go away and obsess or attempt to do things perfectly or get lost in intellectualism rather than feeling and all these things. But if you do decide to share it, I think you also need to think about shame because they may experience the sharing of the material as them doing something wrong. Yes, yeah. For example. Yeah. So they may feel shamed in some way. So I think the things to look out for when you are sharing information. Say, I'll just repeat it. The biggest is the client starts to think or might think they've done something wrong or they may feel interrogated. Yeah. So I do do a good educative therapy. Me too, yeah. You share things like what you just said. But I think about it. And I certainly think about in terms of timing when I would share models of theory. I think about, well, are there the sort of client who might get lost in the head and is it would it be useful? And I also think about shame. Yeah. I think for me, I do use the drivers an awful lot in the therapy room. But I use myself as an example. I'll point out when I'm in my different drivers. Yeah. Yeah. Do you do it then, Jackie? I guess you share. And this is difference in styles, not right or wrong. Do you, how can I say this? Do you share the thinking on driver behaviors with what's in mind? So I suppose I was simply saying, why would you do it? Exactly what you were talking about earlier on. But I believe rightly or wrongly that there's no shame involved for the client when I'm using myself as an example. Right. Okay. And why would you do it though? What's the end goal in sharing that theory? One to reinforce the understanding of how it plays out in the room. Okay. You know, and in the hopes that it's gonna help the client. So you're really, whether it be driver theory, junction theory, script theory, two things, what you're doing is helping them understand how they become the way they are. And from that process of more awareness of psychological functions and psychological behaviors, they then can change and integrate new ways of being in the world, which will be more beneficial for them. Yeah. Yeah. I think to have examples of these things in everyday life helps understanding that, you know, and that we all do it. There's nothing wrong in being in your driver behavior. It's something that we all do. You know, one of my sayings that I use a lot in the therapy. I know this stuff. I'm a qualified psychotherapist, but I still go into my driver behavior. It's not wrong. It's not bad. For me, it's all about awareness when we're in it. Yeah. And I am assuming, well, I'll just check out that you all spend a lot of time on what people can do instead. Yes. To go towards healthy processes, I mean. Yes. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But in order to move away from it, we've got to know what it is when we're in it. And all this is done, you know, unconsciously. We don't consciously play out our driver behaviors. That's right. And it's useful to hear that you do this. And for the TAP people out there or people who are just interested when we're talking, of course, or even therapists from different disciplines or clients. Byrne called, you know, drivers, injunctions. That's part of the script. And then he would encourage them because particularly to do what you call script analysis. So they could understand the decisions they made about themselves and have people right at the beginning of life and how they may enacted out today in a way that doesn't help them. So on a training course, what training course drivers and injunctions and script decisions would all be taught under the concept of script analysis. So it may or may not be part of an educative therapy like Jackie does, or teaching people around their own scripts and helping them understand themselves better. And most importantly, how to change their scripts and put a new show on the road. So there are some TAPs that might not even mention all that a lot, but they think it. The most important thing is they think it. Their thinking determines the treatment plan. Yes. Yeah. And again, you know, I know we're talking about the try hard driver, but we touched on it with the one be perfect last time. Personality traits and which one the try hard leaks into. And the passive aggressive or playful resistor is what links into this driver behavior, which I think plays out interestingly in the therapy room. Oh, yes. I mean, so the driver burn called, you know, you know, trying try hard in Stuart and the book that you bought up in the last podcast, I think it was Van Jones actually nicknamed this driver playful resistor, which is what you're just talking about now. So it's the same driver try hard in the nickname is playful resistor. And it's often linked in with people who are quite passive or they're what we call inverted commas passive aggressive. So it's a very inward process, but they actually don't actually get anything done. They try hard to do it or try hard to move away from that passivity, but they don't actually do it. Yeah. Which is really interesting because, you know, somebody that's in that, you know, ego state or that part of them will even use the words I'll try and do it. Yeah. You know, those are the actual words that they use. I'll give it a go. I'll attempt it. Yeah. Yeah. These are the procrastinators. Yeah. Yeah. And taking action is very uncomfortable for them. Yeah. Using the words I'll do it. Yeah. Is very difficult for them. Well, the major game they will play, by the way, from a try hard position is, is how can I explain this to you? Is to project onto the therapist that the therapist does the work for them or does the thinking for them. So when the therapist doesn't do the thinking for them or doesn't do the cognitive reasoning for them, they then inact out and usually get quite aggressive internally. Yeah. And stay passive, by the way. Yeah. Because you're not doing what you're supposed to do in this situation. Which is to work it out for them. Yeah. Yeah. Solve all the problems for them. Which is interesting because I think one of the things where, you know, if we're looking at driver behaviors is a way of getting recognition and validation and everything when we're younger. If we've got a try hard driver, in my mind, that means that we've got recognition for the effort we put into things, not necessarily achieving an end result. Yeah. Especially with a try hard. Yeah. So when we were constantly making it difficult so that we would get more recognition for trying really hard at something that might be quite a simple process. If that makes sense. That makes sense. And as a beverage, what we experience often is a power struggle with the client who's caught up in that. Yeah. Because that's the struggle, if you like, is what, how can I... Is there power play for connection? Yes. Yeah. That's a really good way of putting it. Yeah. So it needs to be difficult. It needs to be really hard. Yeah. If it's a simple process. Correct. And that's the process they enacted out with their parent, actually. And that's what we've got the strokes for. Yeah. What's that phrase? Try hard and hard again until you succeed or something like that. Yeah. But I can't remember the parental slogan, but it's linked in. And there's a lot of... If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again or something like that. That's the parental slogan, which the client with this sort of system will accept as adult reality. Yeah. And you can see it playing out in the therapy room a lot of the time. Everything is, you know, it's making a mountain out of a molehill, literally, from the moment they walk into the door. Because I recognise it so well. Yeah. Yeah. They don't complete anything. They end up in struggling. Yeah. They don't take action. They struggle and procrastinate. And they really, really do move into struggling in an attempt to get for the therapist or the other person to do the thinking for them. Yeah. And it's simple things. I can think of a few clients where, you know, if I asked them, where would you like to sit this week? That would throw them into turmoil. You know, whereas if I just sat in my usual chair and left them to sit in there, that they'd be all right with that. But if I asked them, where would you like to sit? Even the question, what would you like to talk about? That's right. And they'll usually pick people in relationships who will actually do things for them or do the thinking for them. Yeah. Or, and when that doesn't work, they end up in a struggle with them. And this in life, and they often come to therapy because of this, communication then breaks down. Yeah. Is it, when you started saying that then, the words that was going through my head was kind of a sense of hopelessness. Yes. Hopelessness and helplessness. Yeah. And kind of they've done, I used to call it learned helplessness where they learned to be helpless so that the other would then come in and do the thinking or the doing. Yeah. That's a very good word. And they pick the type of person who's got a parent, eager state that buys into that. Yeah. That defines them, tells them what to do, that does the thinking for them. Yeah. And of course, what happens then is, the other person on the side of that resents all that in the end and starts struggling with them. And there's no separation or individuation. They get caught up in the struggle. Yeah. It's in relationships and nightmares, Bob. Why do any of them? Because the more we talk about the driver being is over the next few weeks, you know, this is something that maybe I should have thought about before I actually say it out loud. But do some drivers attract other types of drivers? Yes, absolutely. And they, you know, our partners, we pick them because it complements our drivers. Yeah, but just think of the obsessive compulsive person who things have to be right or they're wrong. Yeah. They're between they're black or they're white. Just, you know, I learned the last podcast we picked on obsessive compulsive again. But then of course, the passive, sorry, the try hard person who exhibits try hard in a way to survive, put those two together. Yeah. It's a good combination, haven't you? Yeah, yeah. Because you're gonna then have the parent who actually is black and white and usually obsessive compulsive people do define themselves and then therefore they heavily define the other person. And those two often go together. I think the try hard and the obsessive compulsive person who usually has drivers around being perfect. So the other person tries hard to be perfect for the parent on the other side who has to have the other person being perfect. Yeah. And that's just a wonderful eye opener for how we are as human beings and how we interact with other people. And, you know, do we unwittingly pick certain friends or, you know, partners to lay out our script along with all this? Yeah, that's exactly what happens. So people who come to you for therapy are usually enacting out the games and patterns and drivers from the past that they learned to do to survive in their family system. Yeah. So when they grow up, individuate, move away, move into the same relationships, they usually, and this is where I agree with Freud and there's not much I really agree with Freud, but I do agree with this bit. Freud used to say, we marry our parents. Wow, that's scary. Yeah. What he was really saying is we choose people with interlocking scripts and people who we know how to be with. Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. Familiar. Yeah. Familiar, it's predictable. Yeah. We know how to be, the world makes sense and we're all on the same plane. Yeah. So we pick people. Now, on one level, that's okay because we have all the psychological positivities you just talked about there. And on another level, it can often lead to disaster. Yes. I would imagine quite a lot of the time it leads to disaster because familiarity breeds contempt. So they say it's not always the best place to be. You know, when people come on to, when people came onto my training program still do even though I'm not the trainer to them, I often use, or when they come into therapy, I often, it's more training, I think. I often used to say, you know what? You're gonna be a different person when you leave here in four years time because you've got to do a lot of your own therapy. And then you may choose to be around people with different scripts and different ways of being. Yeah. And often your partnerships might split up but if they love you enough, they'll stay with you while you change. Yeah. Or the relationship changes. But what happens is, as people, if they just carry on the same scripts or the same people that it might work out and also as they start to change and meet different people and have different communications, things may go wrong. I think that's really... And the other person doesn't come to therapy, then we're into an interesting area. Yeah. I think that's really interesting because one of the things I say a lot in the therapy room, you know, if they're saying that they want to change the partner or they want to change their husband or whatever it is. And I'll say, we can't change anybody. The only person we can change is ourselves. But if we make certain changes, our behavior will change towards that person. So it kind of by osmosis sometimes. Change occurs in the relationship, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I think our driver behavior, you said this, I think the last podcast, but I want to repeat it. As we start to do the therapy, as we start to change, as we start to take ownership of ourselves, by definition, we'll have to face the parents and therapy, as I said before. So we start to do all this, but there are reliance on one particular driver may not be so exaggerated. In other words, we may pick other ways of being. Yes, yeah. And that's the point of therapy, isn't it? Is looking whether what we're doing is working for us now. And if it's not, being able to change it and do something that is working for us. That's right. And I think with all these drivers, it's very useful to be able to spot the third percentage spot when a person's moving in the driver behavior, because it means they're going away from contact from the other person, as well as going away from contact with themselves internally. Yeah. Yeah. So what would we be seeing in the tri-hard, then? The words that you were talking in front of you. I know, that's what I'm doing. The words that the use would be that I'll try to do it. I'll attempt it. So the words that they'd be using. It says here, the tone, the person will sometimes tense up the throat muscles so that the voice sounds muffled or strangled, which is interesting. Gestures, often one hand is placed beside the eye or behind one ear, as if they're straining to hear something. And trying hard. Yeah. And the fists are sometimes clenched. Yeah, in that passive way, yeah. Postures with tri-hard, as with please others, the person often strains forward, hands might be on the knees. General impression is there a hunched up pause. And all those behaviors will show that they've moved ego state. In other words, they've moved to a different part of themselves. In other words, they've moved to their younger self, whether they're enacting out their script. Yeah. And you can see that happening in the therapy room. And they will, as I said earlier, and we can call it transforms if you want, they will attempt to make you into the parent they have in their heads. So life's predictable. Yes, yeah. They have a sense of urgency. Now, what's really important is that therapist has an understanding of what's going on. So by being a driver detective, you like. Love that. You'll hypothesize on their younger self and then you can really shape the therapy from there. You can be, if you want to move into the transference, you could act that parent out. If you want to stay out of the transference, you could explain it from an educative way. Either way, what you're aiming for is to help the person understand themselves better. So they've got more awareness so they can put a new life panel script on the road. Yeah. And therefore, they won't have such reliance on one particular driver. Yeah, I know I said it in the last one, but I do love how we dip in and dip out of these five drivers that we all have access to each and every one of them. But we do tend to have a few that we use. But to physically see somebody going into driver behavior, I can distinctly remember the first time when I was aware of that as a trainee psychotherapist. And I don't think we pay attention to people's body language that often in normal everyday life. No, because, well, we don't because, A, we haven't been taught, B, there's no purpose for it really. But certainly, if you're thinking from a psychological way or a psychotherapeutic way, the behavior manifests the internal process. So what's happening behaviorally is a manifestation of what's happening internally. Yeah. So by looking at behaviors, you can actually then inquire about the internal world and they too will link together. Yeah. And they'll think you are a mind reader. Well, certainly with try hard, yes, try hard, they expect you to be a mind reader. Yeah. And they will try hard to work out what you're thinking, what you're feeling, and then they'll go into a struggle against that. That's the point. They won't go into adapting like a pleasing person like we're going to go on to later. What we'll do is to start struggling against that. And they usually go into competition about whose reality is correct. Yeah. But they don't have aggressive part or the resistive part in the way you call it playful was just a thing. But now the best way to work with people who move into that whole process, we just talked about struggle and procrastination and trying hard and never actually is actually to come from your own childhood state yourself in terms of fun and humour. Humour is a great one because you bypass the parent with those sorts of transactions as long as the person on the other side doesn't experience you taking fun of them or something. Yeah. But it's a good way to bypass that parent and that whole struggle. Yeah. To get to the child, I mean. Definitely. Because as you said in the last one, the parent is going to pop up, they're going to come out and be in the room as well. Yeah. If we can bypass the parent to engage in their child, perhaps by humour, then that's a good way to work with these types of characters, I think. Yeah. It's interesting driver theory when we talk about them. OK, so. Brilliant. So what we're going to be looking at next time is... Let's do the next three. Yeah. In the next two podcasts, we can do the next three, I think. OK. You are going to be... What are they? Please me. Pleasing others. Please yourself. Please others. Hurry up and be strong. Thank you, Paul. Yeah. OK, and three of my favourite ones. We can do that in the next two podcasts. Oh, yeah, I mean, it's really important to say these are defence systems. Yes. This is how we got by. This is why you can say they're my favourite ones because this is how we got by. This is how we survived. This is how we pleased the parents. And this is often brings us great success today. And often it might be the source of the problems. Yes, 100% is also the problems. Yeah. So it's best to look at we don't just go in and say, oh, stop being perfect or something. We need to understand the process and how it helps the person defend against the critical parent or the injunctions or have everyone to talk about it so they can start understanding themselves to put a new script on the road. And yeah, all the things I've said in the last two podcasts. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Bob. So I will see you in the next ones where we can finish the other three often talk about them. And I'm going to try and link them as well to personally adaptations and different types of personality profiles. It's really interesting. I like talking about these drivers because I don't often have the opportunity to talk about them. I love it. Thank you for that. I love talking to you about anything, Bob. Oh, so such kind words. That's my pleas others just in case you didn't know. Oh, that's all right. When clients move into their pleas of the drivers, I can sit back in the luxuriousness. It's they make me a cup of tea or they ask me how I am and all that sort of stuff. So but that would be stepping into the trends, I suppose, but thanks for letting me talk about them clinically anyway. Any time, any time. So I shall see you on the next episode, Bob. Yeah, take care then. Take care. Bye. Bye, bye, bye. You've been listening to The Therapy Show behind closed doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back next week with another episode.