Do you find it almost impossible to say no? Do you rewrite a simple email five times before sending it? Do you tell people you are “fine” when you are anything but – or feel restless the moment you have nothing to do?
If any of that sounds familiar, you are in very good company. These are not character flaws. They are often the sound of what Transactional Analysis calls your drivers: inner messages you picked up long ago that still quietly push you along today.
What are drivers?
Transactional Analysis (TA) is an approach to understanding ourselves and our relationships, first developed by Eric Berne. In 1975, psychologist Taibi Kahler noticed that people show five distinct sets of behaviour, especially under pressure. He called them drivers.
Drivers take shape when we are young. As children we work out what earns approval from the grown-ups around us – sometimes from what is said, often from what is not – and we adapt so that we feel okay about ourselves. Those adaptations can stay with us long after they have stopped being needed. The five drivers are:
- Be Perfect – high standards, careful and thorough, but rarely able to feel that anything is “good enough”.
- Be Strong – calm in a crisis and dependable, but finds it hard to show feelings or ask for help.
- Hurry Up – quick, energetic and great with a deadline, but restless when there is nothing to do.
- Please Others – warm, intuitive and caring, but struggles to say no or to put their own needs first.
- Try Hard – enthusiastic and full of ideas, but can put more energy into trying than finishing.
Most of us have one or two main drivers. And every one of them has real strengths – which is exactly why they are so easy to hold on to.
When strengths become stress
In everyday life, drivers can serve us well. The trouble comes when we are tired, stretched or anxious. Then the driver gets louder. The Be Perfect person checks and re-checks until the deadline has gone. The Please Others person takes on everyone else’s work and loses sight of their own. The Be Strong person goes quieter and quieter, carrying it all alone. The Hurry Up person rushes from one thing to the next and makes mistakes in the haste.
The driver promises that if you just try a bit harder, go a bit faster or keep everyone a bit happier, you will finally feel okay. But the finish line keeps moving. Over time, that can feed stress, burnout, low self-worth and strained relationships.
How understanding your drivers can help in therapy
- Seeing the pattern without the blame. Recognising a driver lets you see a pattern as something you learned in order to cope, rather than proof that something is wrong with you. That shift alone can soften a lot of self-criticism.
- Noticing the early signs of stress. Each driver has its own typical stress triggers and stress behaviours. Once you know yours, you can start to catch them sooner – the rising urge to rush, to apologise, to go it alone – and choose what to do next rather than being carried along.
- Finding your “allowers”. In TA, each driver has an antidote, sometimes called an allower or permission. These are gentle messages we can practise giving ourselves:
- Be Perfect: “It’s OK to make mistakes. Good enough is good enough.”
- Be Strong: “It’s OK to have feelings and to ask for help.”
- Hurry Up: “It’s OK to take my time. It’s OK to relax.”
- Please Others: “It’s OK to say no, and to say what I need.”
- Try Hard: “I can do it. I can relax and let things happen.”
Reading these is one thing. Feeling them is another, and therapy is often where people get to try them out safely, at their own pace.
- Understanding what happens in the room. Drivers do not switch off when we sit down in a counselling session. Someone with a strong Please Others driver might find it hard to tell their counsellor that something is not helping. Someone with Be Strong might say “I’m fine” out of habit. Naming these patterns together makes the relationship more honest – and practising something different with me can make it easier to do elsewhere.
- Improving relationships at home and at work. Understanding drivers can also shed light on other people. A lot of so-called “personality clashes” – the Hurry Up colleague and the Be Perfect manager, for example – make more sense when you can see the driver behind the behaviour. That can bring more patience, for others and for yourself.
How I use drivers at Three Oaks
I work in a person-centred, pluralistic and polyvagal-informed way, drawing on a range of approaches, including ideas from TA. Drivers are one lens we might use together – never a box to put you in. Some people find a short questionnaire or a simple guide helpful; others prefer to notice their patterns as they come up in conversation.
I often pair this with a nervous-system lens. A Hurry Up driver can feel very like being stuck “switched on”, while a Be Strong driver can sometimes look like quietly shutting down. Understanding both the story behind the pattern and what it feels like in your body gives us more ways to work with it.
A small reflection to try
Read the five drivers above and notice which one or two feel most familiar – no need to match every detail. Then pick the allower that goes with it and say it quietly to yourself. How does it land? Does it feel like a relief, or does part of you push back? Either response is useful information.
If you recognise yourself in any of this and would like to explore it further, I offer a free initial consultation. Sessions are available in person at Broughton Gate, Milton Keynes, or online anywhere in the UK. You do not have to be perfect, strong or in a hurry to get in touch – you can come just as you are.
Email: [email protected]
Or send an enquiry through the contact form: threeoakstherapy.co.uk/#contact
Martin Truscott – NCPS Accredited Counsellor, Polyvagal-Informed Practitioner
Three Oaks Therapy, Broughton Gate, Milton Keynes MK10 · Online sessions UK-wide
Acknowledgements: The drivers model was developed by Taibi Kahler (1975; Process Therapy in Brief, 1979), building on the Transactional Analysis of Eric Berne. The allowers draw on Julie Hay, Transactional Analysis for Trainers (Sherwood Publishing, 2009). This post is general information and is not a substitute for individual professional support.
AI disclosure: This post was drafted with the help of AI and reviewed and edited by Martin Truscott.
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