Individual Life Trajectory Or "life Line Technique"

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

People are ready to go to palmists to predict the future along the "line of life" on their hand. But they do not pay attention to the fact that, having studied the trajectory of their life path, they can not only predict their future life, but also help to somehow correct their fate.

The individual life trajectory is a dual-use tool:

• on the one hand, it can be used as a projective test to identify key events in a person's life and their impact on his fate,
• on the other hand, we can use this technique as a means of psychotherapy and correction of a person's life scenario.

Influence on a person's life of his social scenario and interference in his fate of external factors

A life scenario is a program of behavior that was imputed to a person in early childhood and which he, most often unconsciously, implements during his life. Nevertheless, events can occur in a person's life that greatly influenced his fate, but not directly related to his life scenario.

In some cases, "fateful events" can have no less powerful programmatic impact on a person's life than the scenario that was imputed to him in early childhood. In this case, our hero finds himself under the influence of two different programs, which can come into opposition with each other, but can also lead to a certain synergy.

For example, a girl whose childhood took place in an atmosphere of scandals between parents. Her father's behavior was strongly impressed on her mind - his attitude to the mother and to her. And with a high probability she will find the same type of men as her husbands, building relationships according to the same scenario. But there are times when such girls stumble upon men who only outwardly resemble her father, and the core of their character may be completely different.

Psychologists in their practice encounter cases when the wrong "casting" of a partner for the implementation of a family scenario leads to a breakdown of this behavioral scheme. In some cases, men seem to replay the "script slaves" and take them out of this game. As a rule, girls in such situations at first fall into a state close to panic (since their life program is collapsing), but gradually they adapt to new conditions and principles of interaction with a partner.

Situations are quite common when a man similar in appearance to her father imposes on the girl his family scenario, which assumes a different storyline and requires our heroine to perform a slightly different role. In this case, there is a struggle for who will be able to impose his script on whom. Sometimes this leads to a violent breakup, but sometimes they find a "compromise", and their scripts rub against each other.

There are times when an event that breaks the logic of the unfolding of a life scenario has an absolutely external nature. For example, when faced with a “femme fatale” and unhappy love, a young man is so shocked that he begins to prove to her all his life that he was the very prince she was looking for. The same can happen with a girl who stumbles upon her “fatal man”. And these fatal encounters may have nothing to do with a person's life scenario. It's just that, ironically, he falls into the element of someone else's game and someone else's script.

In such cases, the idea of an individual life trajectory allows us to identify the impact on a person's life and his scenario, and various external factors and fateful events.

Recurring phases of life scenarios and fateful events

In some cases, by indicating the key events in their lives, people designate repeating phases in the logic of the development of their life scenario. The beginning of the first serious relationship and their breakup - the second relationship - the first marriage - the second marriage and so on. In this case, we are dealing with a cyclically repeating scenario.

It so happens that the “fateful event” actually turns out to be just one of the script's acts. For example, cheating in the middle of a cloudless relationship or the birth of a child, after which everything changed. But we can identify events that really turn out to be fateful in the sense that they have no direct relation to the scenario.

From the point of view of psychotherapy, the work on adjusting the script and eliminating the negative consequences of a fateful event can be different. Slightly simplifying the situation, we can say that the script is a game that develops in time, from which a person needs to be taken out. The consequences of some events can be reflected in the human psyche in the form of a set of static psychological defenses.

To some extent, when analyzing "fateful events", one can identify ways that a person can already have to overcome difficulties and stresses. This is the experience that he can use in overcoming and current difficulties. True, most often it is necessary to help a person realize his own experience and his own capabilities.

It is important for psychologists to take into account the fact that the very fact of a person's request for psychological help may turn out to be that “fateful event” for him, which will save him from a negative scenario. But also work with a psychologist can be incorporated into the script, when the figure of a psychologist traditionally appears in the phase of breaking up a relationship or licking wounds in the field of divorce.

Life scenarios and age crises

Age crises are caused by both social and biological factors, and most often they have nothing to do with the logic of the development of human life scenarios. But sometimes certain acts of the script can be tied to a particular age.

For example, in his 40s, the father or mother told the child that by their age he would have to achieve some certain results. Or maybe the mother told her daughter that a young girl could not be trusted by men, and for this reason, the daughter was afraid to enter into a relationship until she was told that at her age it would be time to start a personal life.

To some extent, we can say that age crises are reference points in a single, common for all representatives of our culture, life scenario. But in those cases when some age crisis is woven into a person's life scenario, this period can be especially painful for them.

Very often, perhaps due to a vague presentiment of an "impending catastrophe", people come to psychologists on the eve of the onset of the age crisis with some secondary problem. In fact, this problem and this request is only a pretext, and, having dealt with a person's life scenario, the psychologist can help him more calmly and constructively go through the impending age crisis.

Fateful forks and rejected opportunities

In some cases, fateful events come in the form of a conscious choice or a choice imposed by circumstances, as well as unconscious impulses or erroneous perception of what is happening. In this case, it makes sense to carefully analyze the situation and understand what exactly the choice depended on and what opportunities had to be abandoned. Very often rejected and forgotten opportunities are, in principle, possible to return to a person's life in a slightly altered form.

In an individual history, in contrast to a social one, it is possible and justified to use the subjunctive mood: what would happen if … What would happen if I did not obey my parents and entered another university and the like. Lost opportunities rarely return in their original form, but some of their key components can sometimes be revived. For this reason, when working with a person, a psychologist should ask questions about what he lost by making this or that choice.

When an unconscious scenario turns into a rational "life design"

The very fact of realizing a life scenario does not yet give a person the opportunity to somehow change his life. Instead of an unconscious program of organizing life, he needs to get his hands on some kind of tool for the rational management of his destiny. One of these tools is the vision of one's life trajectory.

Our psyche has some inertia, and changes in it do not occur instantly. The ability to project the continuation of his life trajectory gives a person the opportunity to direct the inertia of his psyche in the right direction.

In order for a person to be able to get rid of a negative life scenario, you need to help him turn on such a function as reflection in his psyche, when he becomes able to see and understand what is happening to him. To switch from a mode of life according to a scenario to a conscious management of life, in addition to reflection, a person needs to master another intellectual function - this is design: designing his further life trajectory.

Having got rid of the script, the person leaves it in the past, but the life path he has traveled remains with him. Seeing his path in the light of the "line of his life", he gets the opportunity to plan further moves in the direction he needs.

Practical use

It is convenient to use the “individual life trajectory” or “life line” methodology in conjunction with the practice of scenario analysis, as it allows you to identify the influence of family scenarios, “parenting spells” and objective events on a person's life. In addition, at the moment of realizing the essence of his life scenario, a person can rely on the idea of his life trajectory for the conscious design of his life.