Goals:
- Be able to describe scripts for managing negative affect, how they develop, and how they might be modified.
- Discuss applications of script theory for recognizing patterns of managing fear/distress/ anger/shame, etc. Can you give examples from personal or clinical experience?
Readings:
EA, “Script Theory,” pp. 364-388.
Bulletin, v2, #1, 1995, Donald L. Nathanson, “Scripts, Therapy, and the Movies,” pp. 1-3.
Discussion Questions:
- Describe three types of affect management scripts. What is the aim of each type?
- Does use of a sedative increase or decrease as the sedative becomes more effective?
- How does a sedative script evolve into preaddictive script?
- How does an addictive script manage negative affect?
- What happens when addicts miss their addictive substance?
- Tomkins speaks of a “conjunction of greed and cowardice” in the nuclear scripts. What does he mean?
- Can the nuclear script succeed in reversing a bad scene into an idealized good one?
- Will it be easy to renounce this goal?
- What types of bad scenes and good scenes play central roles in nuclear scripts?
- What is reciprocal magnification and how does it keep nuclear scripts from resolving?
- What is a “scarcity script”?
- How might you use script theory to explain personality change?