Karpman Drama Triangle#
Article: https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/karpman-drama-triangle
Notes#
The article smells like marketing.
Karpman Drama Triangle term and background originated in family therapy after WWII.
The source of drama is inevitable conflict between two people.
The conflict becomes drama when emotions rise.
The drama obscures the real issues. Solutions are no longer the focus.
Three-person exchange is more comfortable as the tension is shifted around three people instead of just two.
The three roles are: persecutor, rescuer, and victim.
All three roles are dysfunctional for the purpose of resolving the original conflict.
The victim sincerely feels victimized, oppressed, helpless, hopeless, powerless, ashamed, and seems unable to make decisions, solve problems, take pleasure in life, or achieve insight.
The persecutor is controlling, blaming, critical, oppressive, angry, authoritative, rigid, and superior - self righteous.
The rescuer is an enabler. The rescuer feels guilty if he doesn’t rescue. Rescuing distracts him from solving his own problems. Rescuing keeps the victim dependent and gives the victim permission to fail.
Victim: “Poor me!”
Persecutor: “It’s all your fault.”
Rescuer: “Let me help you.”
Drama requires at least two people to create it.
Each participant gets some psychological needs met and they feel justified in their role not realizing the broader dysfunction and harm.
Each participant is acting upon self-satisfying but unhealthy roles, rather than acting in a genuinely responsible or altruistic manner.
The victim doesn’t take responsibility for his feelings. Seeks out a persecutor and a rescuer, instead.
Rescuer drives the conflict intensity by appearance of making great efforts to solve it. Rescuer plays upon the victim in order to continue getting an emotional payoff. Payoff can be: a sense of self-esteem, status as a rescuer, having someone dependent or trusting them.
Participants tend to have a primary or habitual role.
The roles shift as the drama escalates. The victim may retaliate and punish the persecutor who starts feeling like a victim. The rescuer may be attacked for doing too much or too little and feel like a victim. The new victim may seek out their own rescuer and form a partially overlapping triangle with a fourth person.
The drama participants produce drama. The price is not getting what they truly want or need.
Participants can escape the drama by stopping playing the exaggerated role and focus on the solution. By combining sensitivity, compassion, and responsibility.
All roles require one person to be superior, right, good, and better than the other person. While the other person has to be inferior, wrong, bad and worse.
Breaking the drama dynamic requires accepting the differences and similarities between ourselves and others as neither good nor bad.
Actions leading to taking a role of a victim:
Ignoring own wants and needs;
Denying own opinions;
Giving in to whatever the other person wants even if it is harmful;
Taking the blame for everything;
Giving up who you are and how you want to live.
Victim thinks he is being nice and helpful, but merely perpetuates the other person’s rules and dysfunctions.
It is also a way for the victim to not feel responsible for his own timidity and fearfulness in the interactions with the other person.
It leads to a sense of passivity and powerlessness that keeps them from taking the actions to make their lives happier, healthier and freer.
Persecutor role is defined by blaming other people or invalidating them.
Giving directions and telling others what we want shows them how to be successful and feels a lot better.
It also means to acknowledge that we are choosing how we respond, emotionally and behaviorally, without blaming the other person for causing our feelings and actions.
Rescuer thinks of himself as a caretaker. He feels obligated to rescue and guilty for not doing it. He enjoys the superior status of being the helper, the good person.
Giving up rescuing the other person is an action, not a discussion. Stop arguing, stop worrying about what the other person will do next, stop expecting the other person to fulfill our needs.
This does not mean to stop caring about or loving the other person.
“Winning triangle” provides an advice on how to dial down behaviors of each role.
Assert rather than persecute. Ask for what you want. Say no for what you don’t want. Give constructive feedback.
Be vulnerable, but not needy. Accept the situation you are in and take responsibility to problem solve and function in a more healthy and happy way.
Be caring, but don’t overstep. Instead of being the rescuer and taking the lead, be a supportive, empathetic listener and provide reflection, coaching, and assistance if the person asks and is taking the lead themselves. It is important to recognize the other person as an equal and give the other person the respect of letting them take care of themselves, solve their own problems, and deal with their feelings as they choose.
The rescuer has the most pivotal position on the drama triangle to redirect the dynamic into healthy territory.
Conclusion#
Karpman triangle is an interesting observation, and it might be entertaining to apply it to the interaction in drama movies. The drama is an inescapable part of social life and it’s important to understand its nature. The topic closely relates to emotional intelligence, and many advices overlap.
Surprisingly, escaping prosecutor and victim roles requires the same steps: accept responsibility of your own emotions, express positively what you need. While for the rescuer it means to step down and stop helping more than needed.
Links to follow#
Correct but useless article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle