ABSTRACT
Injunctions provide a summary of themes present in an individual's internalized prohibitions. Injunctions are considered pre-verbal, implicit aspects of a client's script: the child develops their injunctions in response to reactions and behaviours from primary caregivers. In this context, injunctions can be considered to be relational in origin in that they provide a set of rules that the individual needs to follow in order to preserve relationships and thus maintain a (script-bound) sense of `being OK'. Holmes describes this process from the perspective of attachment theory:
The key point about defences from an attachment perspective is that they are interpersonal strategies for dealing with suboptimal environment. Their aim is not so much to preserve the integrity of the individual when faced with con¯icting inner drives, but to maintain attachments in the face of relational forces threatening to disrupt them.
