Script analysis

Script analysis is the method of uncovering the "early decisions, made unconsciously, as to how life shall be lived". It is one of the five clusters in transactional analysis, involving "a progression from structural analysis, through transactional and game analysis, to script analysis". Eric Berne, the father of transactional analysis, focused on individual and group psychotherapy, but transactional analysis and script analysis is also considered in educational and organisational settings. The purpose of script analysis is to aid the patient to achieve autonomy by recognising the script's influence on values, decisions, behaviors and thereby allowing them to decide against the script. Berne describes someone who is autonomous as being "script free" and as a "real person". Script analysis at the individual level considers that "from the early transactions between mother, father and child, a life plan evolves. This is called the script...or unconscious life plan". Script analysts work on the assumption that a person's behavior is partly programmed by the script, "the life plan set down in early life. Fortunately, scripts can be changed, since they are not inborn, but learned".