Scripting 104: Competencies and Learning Objectives:
Know what a Life Script Questionnaire is
Be able to explain its purpose to fellow students and clients
Be able to administer the Questionnaire
Be able to use the results to make decisions regarding your life script
Know what a Life Script Questionnaire is
A Life Script Questionnaire is a set of exploratory questions developed and used by Transactional Analysis concerning the formative influences in our life and how they shaped us into the people we are today.
Be able to explain its purpose to fellow students and clients
The purpose of the Life Script Questionnaire is to objectify scripting factors that otherwise remain hidden, controlling and limiting our life decisions.
Be able to administer the Questionnaire.
The following is adapted from a standard Transactional Analysis Life Script Questionnaire:
http://www.psychologistics.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/LIFE-SCRIPT-QUESTIONNAIRE.pdf
A Snow Shovel Named Bob that Hates Questionnaires
Me: “A snow shovel! Where did you come from!”
Snow Shovel: “Day residue, you know, Bro.”
Me: Uh, I don’t want to be impolite. Do you have a name?
Snow Shovel: “No. Who gives snow shovels names?? But hey, if you want, I’ll be Robert. But you can call me Bob.”
Me: So, what’s going on?
Bob: “I’m just your ordinary Wal-Mart metal snow shovel with a wooden handle.”
Me: “Yes, and…”
Bob: “Well, I do my job. I’m good at shoveling snow.”
Me: “It must be a drag being a snow shovel, not doing anything almost all of the year, then being brought out to first freeze, then rust.”
Bob: “No, that’s just your projection. I don’t care. I don’t even care about not caring.”
Me: “Why not?”
Bob: “I don’t have an identity or a ‘self’ except what you give to me. However, when you interview me, you provide me with your identity, plus I add my own perspective on top.”
Me: “You mean after I throw you out you don’t go to Snow Shovel Heaven and continue to exist there?”
Bob: “Could be interesting, but no. I don’t do metaphysics.”
Me: “Well, I’m supposed to ask you about questionnaires, since that’s the subjects of this lesson.”
Bob: “I hate questionnaires.”
Me: “Why?”
Bob: “Because they make me think. Thinking is not my nature. I’m into being and doing.”
Me: “You seem really concrete.”
Bob: “I’m not concrete. I’m metal and wood, remember?”
Me: “So…do you have any advice for those who take questionnaires, especially long ones, like this one?”
Bob: “Yeah. If you don’t think, just answer, you won’t hate. You’ll just do it. Then who knows what will happen?”
Me: “So that’s your secret to your success?”
Bob: “Never thought about it. But if success is about accepting your lot in life as a snow shovel, I guess so.”
LIFE SCRIPT QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: Date:
Parental Influences
1. What kind of lives did your grandparents lead?
2. What is the date of your birthday?
3. What is your position in the family?
4. What is the birthday of your next oldest sibling?
5. What is the birthday of your next youngest sibling?
6. Have you any special interest in dates?
7. How many children do you have?
8. If single, how many children do you expect to have?
9. What kind of person are you?
10. Were you wanted?
11. Have you ever read your birth certificate?
12. When and where were you conceived?
13. How do you feel about sex?
14. Who chose your name?
15. Whom were you named after?
16. Where does your surname come from?
17. Give 3 words to describe your mother and father?
18. Did you have a nickname as a child?
19. What did the other kids call you in school?
20. What do your friends call you now?
21. What do your parents call you now?
Early Childhood
22. How did your mother and father teach you table manners?
23. Who gave you your toilet training?
24. How did they train you and what did they say?
25. How did you respond?
26. What do your parents say about toilet training?
27. When did you toilet train your children?
28. How did your parents make you feel when you were little?
29. What did you decide about life when you were little?
30. How did the world look to you when you were little?
31. How did you feel about other people?
32. Do you remember ever deciding as a child never to do a certain Thing no matter what?
33. Do you consider yourself a winner or loser in life?
34. When did you decide this?
35. What kind of people did your parents look down on?
36. What kind of people did your parents look up to?
37. What kind of people do you like best?
38. What happens to people like you?
Middle Childhood
39. What did your parents tell you to do when you were little?
40. What was your parents favorite phrase?
41. What did your parents teach you to do?
42. What did they forbid you to do?
43. If your family were put on the stage, what kind of play would it be?
44. When you were a child and either of your parents were angry at you, what would you have been doing?
Later Childhood
45. What is your favorite fairy tale as a child?
46. What was your favorite nursery rhyme as a child?
47. Who read it to you or told it to you?
48. Where and when?
49. Who was your favorite character as a child?
50. Who was your hero?
51. Who was your favorite villain?
52. How did your mother react when things got tough?
53. How did your father react when things got tough?
54. What kind of feelings bother you the most?
55. What kind of feelings do you like best?
56. What is your most frequent reaction when things get tough?
57. What are you waiting for in life?
58. What is your favorite ‘if only’?
59. Who or what is your Santa Claus?
60. Do you believe in immortality?
61. What were your family’s favorite psychological games?
62. What kind of difficulties did your parents get into?
63. What games did you play with your parents when you were little?
64. How did your teachers get along with you at school?
65. How did the other kids get along with you at school?
66. What did your parents talk about at the dinner table?
Adolescence
67. What do you talk about with your friends?
68. Who is your hero nowadays?
69. Who is the worst person in the world?
70. How do you feel about people masturbating?
71. What happens to your body when you get nervous?
72. How did your parents behave when there was company around?
73. What did they talk about when they were alone or with friends?
74. Have you ever had a nightmare?
75. Have you ever had a really vivid dream?
76. Have you ever had any delusions?
77. How do people look to you?
78. What is the best thing you can do with your life?
79. What is the worst thing you can do with your life?
80. What do you want to do with your life?
81. What do you expect to be doing five years from now?
82. Where do you expect to be 10 years from now?
83. What is your favorite animal?
84. What animal would you like to be?
85. What is your life slogan?
86. What would you put on your sweatshirt so people would know it was you coming?
87. What would you put on the back of it?
Maturity
88. How many times have you been married?
89. How many times has each of your parents been married?
90. Did they have any lovers?
91. Have you ever been arrested?
92. Have you ever committed any crimes?
93. Has either of your parents done likewise?
94. Have you ever been in a mental hospital?
95. Has either of your parents?
96. Have you ever been hospitalized for alcoholism?
97. Has either of your parents?
98. Have you ever attempted suicide?
99. Has either of your parents?
100. What will you do in your old age?
Death
101. How long are you going to live?
102. How did you pick that age?
103. Who died at that age?
104. How old was your mother or father at death if not living now?
105. How old were your grandparents when they died?
106. Who will be at your deathbed?
107. What will your last words be?
108. What will others say to you?
109. What will you leave behind?
110. What will it say on your gravestone?
111. What surprises will they find after you are dead?
112. Are you going to die a winner or a loser?
113. Do you prefer time structure or event structure?
Biological Factors
114. Do you know how your face looks when you react to something?
115. How does your real self feel?
116. Does your real self always control your actions?
117. Do you have any sexual hangups?
118. Do things go round and round in your head?
119. Are you conscious of odors?
120. How far ahead do you begin to worry about things before they happen?
121. Do you ever lie awake at night planning revenge?
122. Do your feelings interfere with your work?
123. Do you like to show that you can suffer?
124. Would you rather be happy than prove yourself?
125. Do you ever speak to yourself when you are alone?
Choice of Integral Deep Listening
126. Why did you choose IDL?
127. How did you choose the IDL Certification program?
128. What do you think of working with your IDL team?
129. Who was the magician in your childhood?
130. What kind of magic are you looking for?
Be able to use the results to make decisions regarding your life script
If you find yourself repeatedly working to your own disadvantage, assume you are doing so because of your script.
Assignments and Homework
Reading:
Dealing With Pain and Physical Symptoms
A Dream of a Car Fire, Health & Exercise
Videos:
Freeing Yourself from Your Life Script: 7
In this video we discuss why it is not enough to uncover and choose your own life script; you need to develop a life script that is in alignment with the priorities of your own unique life compass. This is why IDL interviewing of emerging potentials is invaluable and effective.
Interviewing:
Trade interviews of both dreams and life issues with one or more partner once a week.
When you interview, ask interviewed characters what they think of your life script interview. What do they think is important? What would they like to see you focus on?
Questions
- Write down your answers to the following questions.
- Share your answers with your other study team members.
- Discuss.
- Submit your written answers.
What parts of your scripting are healthy and you want to keep?
What parts of your scripting are supportive of your life goals?
What parts of your scripting keep repeating, like a broken record, leading nowhere?
Do you believe you have the power to choose your scripting?
Do you believe you have the power to change your scripting?
What changes do you want to make in your life scripting?
What did you like about this IDL Coaching module on scripting?
What did you find helpful?
What could be made clearer or more interesting?
What do you think was unhelpful or should be deleted?
How do you think you can use this information in your coaching of others to help them heal, balance, and transform
Course Information
Course Instructor
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