Working Styles and Driver Behaviours
In addition to particular types of games and strokes, the individuals’ script also provides a way of managing stressful situations. Different situations can alert an individual to a possible challenge (often due to a particular injunction). To survive, or defend themselves, the individual can revert to a familiar behaviour to ‘drive’ them through the particular challenge. This takes the form of observable behaviours in TA these are referred to as ‘driver’ behaviours. An overview of driver behaviours is available here.
Whilst in the early days of TA drivers were seen only in negative terms, more recent developments have acknowledged the advantages, or qualities associated with the driver behaviour tendencies. Hay’s work on Working Styles is an example of this adaptation and is featured below.
Also, a more comprehensive model - Personality Adaptations - originating in the work by Tabi Kahler, has been well established as a typology of personality. I have developed a reduced version of this and incorporated some of the material on working styles and this is available here.