Scripts People Live: Transactional Analysis of Life Scripts

When Claude Steiner and the late Eric Berne developed the theory of Transactional Analysis, their basic belief that people were born princes and princess, until their parents turned them into frogsâ countered the fundamental principle of psychiatry which asserts that emotional and mental distress comes from within. This theory was further developed in Steinerâs book Games Alcoholics Play. Dr. Berne, in What Do You Say After You Say Hello?, acknowledged Steinerâs important role in the analysis of life scriptsâ which we choose at an early age and which rule every detail of our lives until our death.

In Scripts People Live, Steiner expands upon this belief to show that people are innately healthy but develop a pattern early in life based upon negative or positive influences of those around them.