With a 2000 addendum by Alan Jacobs, editor...

Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) considers will power a relatively useless concept. Living "a day at a time" is seen as far more effective, and from the point of view of script psychology this approach makes good sense. Living a day at a time reduces life to a long series of short-term episodes which deprive the script of a matrix for development. This evens out the odds in the contest between the script and will power and gives will power an even chance.

Experience with well-advanced alcoholics indicates that the tragic ending of the script has usually been temporarily interdicted by periods during which will power seems to triumph over the script. The unfolding of this apparent reversal of the script can be called the counterscript. The counterscript as well as will power has their origin in the Parent.

On the stage, a tragedy to be intuitively effective depends on the reflection of both these elements: the script, and a period during which the hero seems to avert the tragic ending. In addition it seems essential for intuitive effectiveness that neither the hero nor the audience believe that the tragic ending has been truly averted.

To the therapist, whose task is to avert the tragic ending, it is important to be able to distinguish between the unfolding of the counterscript, and a cure. Structurally, script and counterscript are Parental precipitates, and therefore superficially indistinguishable, but closer scrutiny reveals important differences.

In the case of a non-masculinity script the structural analysis is as follows. Consistent with the simplest Oedipal identification scheme in which, for a boy, mother tells him what to do and father shows him how, it is mother's Child (Cm) (Figure 1A) who "calls the shots". To Cm masculine behavior is an omen of desertion. As a protection against the threat of loneliness she marries a non-masculine male with whom she plays IFWY. As their son begins to exhibit masculine behavior, Cm will react with swift disapproval. From the point of view of learning psychology this reaction is seen as negatively reinforcing. Negative reinforcement is known to be most effective in shaping avoidant behavior extremely resistive to extinction.

Thus, mother's strong negative injunction ("Don't be a man") causes the boy to avoid masculine behavior. The alternative to masculine behavior is father's demonstration of how to be a non-man. Mother's Child (Cm) becomes the boy's Parent (P1), and father's Adult ("Here is how") becomes the boy's archaic Adult (A1) (Figure 1C).

During puberty and after, both mother's and father's Parents (Pm and Pf) develop expectations of manhood from the boy ("Be a man"). In the full-grown offspring this expectation becomes the Parent (P2) while the earlier parental injunction ("Don't be a man") is lodged in C2 as P1.

Figure 1.

The script is determined by Pl and the counterscript by P2. The script is pre-Oedipal, non-verbal, preconscious, visceral (gut level) while the counterscript is post-Oedipal, verbal, conscious; and the former preempts the latter.

The counterscript usually unfolds in early maturity; in the case above described it takes the form of fairly successful sexual and athletic activity. But-this counterscript lacked conviction and soon succumbed to mother's injunction. In the case of alcoholics the script and counterscript alternate with every binge.- It is important to emphasize the non-verbal nature of the script. Typically, patients will deny that their parents gave them certain injunctions. Typically, again, they will agree as soon as it is made clear that these injunctions were probably non-verbal. The non-verbal nature of the script dictates the basis for another important therapeutic maneuver: when a patient is playing out a counterscript and is making a bid for its validity as a cure ("Honestly Doc: I'll never touch another drop") the response of choice is not verbal denial, but non-verbal head shaking.

The theory implies that there is a deep, primitive, visceral discomfort associated with counterscript behavior, often placed by alcoholics in the pit of the stomach. Consistent with this there is a deep primitive visceral comfort associated with script behavior. Thus at the worst point of alcoholic withdrawal one man heard his mother's voice saying: "Isn't this fun, Jerry?". The postulate that the hangover is the alcoholic's payoff fits squarely into script psychology. During the hangover the individual is given temporary respite from the demands of his parent's Child; the hangover is the epitome of acquiescence to the parental (P2 ) injunction.

As far as AA is concerned alcoholism is an incurable disease; to the transactional analyst alcoholism is a script, and unless the show is shut down it will draw to is heritable tragic ending. Whether the person drinks himself to death or becomes a "dry alcoholic every waking breath is drained of life by the relentless application of will power. Sobriety is AA goal. but to the transactional analyst sobriety may mean "making progress"; five years of progress are nullified in one binge.

For a cure to occur two elements seem of importance. Permission to the Child not to follow the parental injunction, which in the case of the alcoholic means permission not to drink and decontamination of the Adult.

In the case of a 17 year old girl with a script that demanded that she become pregnant and drop out of high school as an adaptation to the injunction ("Don't outdo me"), permission was given "not to get pregnant and to outdo-mother" through a strong, supportive, parental statement from the therapist. Decontamination of the Adult was accomplished by cutting through a number of erroneous ideas about the facts of conception by obtaining a prescription for birth control pills. Almost immediately, joyful relief followed. For the next weeks depression was evident but it slowly yielded as the patient developed a course of life to replace the abandoned script.

A well elaborateded counterscript can become the nucleus of the new course-of life making it possible for some patients to go through this therapeutic process with a minimum of depression.

Copyright © Claude Steiner, all rights reserved.

See also the 2000 addendum by Alan Jacobs, editor...

In 1966, at the time this article's publication,
Claude Steiner, Ph.D., was Coordinator of group therapy, Center for Special Problems, S.F.

*This article was originally published in the Transactional Analysis Journal, vol. 5, no. 18, April, 1966, pp. 133-135.