The Drama Triangle

What is it?

The drama triangle is a model of human behavior and interaction developed by Stephen Karpman to describe the different roles we play in certain circumstances. Originally described in his article Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis, Karpman explained dynamics in terms of three distinct roles.

Just because we are playing these roles does not necessarily mean we are consciously making the choice to act in a certain way. On the contrary, these roles are reactive in nature. Reactive responses happen more like a reflex or like muscle memory. We may be aware of them, but it’s the knee-jerk response we’ve developed to cope with stress and relational issues that come up in our lives. 

What are the roles?

The drama triangle consists of three (big surprise there, right?) roles that attitudes and behavior can be described by.

Victim

It’s easy to spot the victim, right? It’s the person who is always complaining about how he’s being wronged and how terrible circumstances are but never taking the initiative to change things. The victim conveys a message of helplessness, whether it is spoken or implied. Someone playing the victim role believes things are done to him or her, not because of him or her.

Rescuer

The rescuer thinks he or she is the hero. Rather than support others, the rescuer tries to save others. The rescuer’s help seems to come with an agenda, whether it is a condescending tone or a martyr mentality. Someone who is playing this role finds it much easier, safer, and more interesting to focus on other people’s issues than their own. What’s worse is that this attitude engenders a condescending attitude, that is often a big turn off to others.

Persecutor

The persecutor is the person walking around with a chip on their shoulder. Where the victim whines and complains about what is going wrong, the persecutor takes matters into his own hands and strikes back. This isn’t always in a full-frontal attack though. Persecutors often harm others by withholding or being passive-aggressive. You can cause just as much harm (sometimes more) by withdrawing and being inactive as you can by attacking them directly.

What role do I play?

There’s no neat and easy answer to this question. The real answer is that we all play all the roles. Sure we might fall more easily into one over the others, or we might like to think we fall into one because we think it’s more acceptable than others, but the truth is that we all harm, save, and complain about others in various ways.

Why do we do it?

When I play a role – I’m trying to be “not me”. I’m trying (whether I’m aware of it or not) to avoid looking on the inside and potentially feeling the hurt, scare, or anger that is really going on deep down. These roles aren’t always consciously acted out. It’s natural for us to ‘play the part’ to create distance.

The victim avoids looking inside because he’s too busy blaming the world around him.
The rescuer avoids looking inside because he’s too busy fixing the world around him.
The persecutor avoids looking inside because he’s too busy hurting the world around him.

Are any of the three just being? It’s hard to just be you when you have an agenda. How about you? Where do you fit into all of this? Do you see yourself sliding to one particular point on the triangle? What do you think your agenda is?

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Like what you’re reading? Check out the lead-in to this article, Got Drama? – Part 1: Defining Drama!