The Drama Triangle and our roles in it
If life happens to us, we’re passengers in our journey. The biggest decisions are made for us, we simply follow what is laid out. If we make life happen, we’re its drivers. We make the most meaningful decisions and we take the responsibility for seeing them through.
A few weeks ago, I had written up a situation—a weekly meeting between function heads and their boss—to make a point about people leadership.
The question, I concluded, the participants in the scenario were grappling with was this: Does life happen to me OR can I make life happen?
Here’s the scenario I wrote for an audience of mid-career managers:
It’s the morning after the firm has lost a potential long-term contract.
Sales: I’ll cut to the chase. Ops didn’t meet the deadline. The client got upset and canceled the pilot. I did
everything I could do to keep us in the mix but they said they cannot have us missing dates.
_
Ops: I told everyone right at the start that the timelines we committed were unrealistic. In fact, I asked Sales to go
ask the client for an extension but Sales said no. _
_
Sales: I said no because that would have shown we didn’t have the capabilities._
_
Ops: Recruitment has brought barely three candidates all of last month. It’s been incredibly hard to do this on top of
the regular workload._
_
Sales: But now we’ve lost face. I’m tired of killing myself to get us business and having Ops fail to deliver._
_
_At this point, the boss steps in and cuts the raised voices…
_Boss: I don’t care who or what got in the way. What I care about is why did we miss this opportunity. I want you all to
take full responsibility, not point fingers at each other. Can you do that for me? _
If you have ever been a boss or ever had one, this may be familiar territory. The specifics of the situation may differ but the emotions that bubble up you know too well. Perhaps you identify more with one of the characters in this situation. Perhaps you see a bit of the Ops guy in your own life situation—someone who is maligned and misunderstood and has to deliver with their back to the wall. Or the Sales guy who has to, on the surface, make a commitment smilingly to the customer and, underneath, move heaven and earth to get the job done because of his colleagues’ incompetence. Or the boss who feels pulled down by a team that bickers and blames.
If you feel such, perhaps you see yourself as a passenger. You’re at the effect of forces, people, circumstances outside of you. It is incredibly hard—out of character—for a passenger to get up and take charge at the wheel.
In the session for emerging leaders, I briefly spoke to the participants about the Drama Triangle to help them recognize the archetypes in the situation and give them names: Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. (I used the names Villain and Rescuer for Persecutor and Rescuer, to tag more recallable names.) I’ll expand on it here because giving ourselves a vocabulary—a toolkit—to recognize how we show up socially helps us get out of the sense of deja vu that accompanies the most difficult of our social interactions.
In 1968, Stephen Karpman, a student of psychiatry and part of a group that met weekly to make and teach new theory on social interactions, came up with a diagram to show a triad of roles each of us takes on that allows us to sustain dysfunctional relationships with others. He connected the roles—Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer—with something he called the Drama Triangle.
At the heart of the Drama Triangle is the feeling of being at the effect of. Being at the effect of whatever is outside of us makes us feel helpless and yearn for a savior (Victim), blame and criticize others whom we deem responsible for our situation (Perpetrator), or jump in to save those in distress who are incapable of saving themselves (Rescuer).
Each role in Karpman’s Drama Triangle discounts something.
👉Victims discount their own ability to think through and solve their problems.
👉Rescuers discount others’ ability to think and through and solve their problems.
👉Perpetrators discount others’ sense of worth.
With this context, let’s see here’s how the characters show up for the weekly meeting I presented earlier. I’ve marked P for Perpetrator, V for Victim, and R for Rescuer. The → denotes a switch in role—switches happen, yes, pretty quickly at times.
Sales: I’ll cut to the chase. Ops didn’t meet the deadline. The client got upset and canceled the pilot. I did
everything I could do to keep us in the mix but they said they cannot have us missing dates. (P→R)
_
Ops: I told everyone right at the start that the timelines we committed were unrealistic. In fact, I asked Sales to go
ask the client for an extension but Sales said no. (V→P)_
_
Sales: I said no because that would have shown we didn’t have the capabilities. (R)_
_
Ops: Recruitment has brought barely three candidates all of last month. It’s been incredibly hard to do this on top of
the regular workload. (P→V)_
_
Sales: But now we’ve lost face. I’m tired of killing myself to get us business and having Ops fail to deliver. (R→P)_
_
_At this point, the boss steps in and cuts the raised voices…
Boss: I don’t care who or what got in the way. What I care about is why did we miss this opportunity. I want you all to
take full responsibility, not point fingers at each other. Can you do that for me? (P→V)
Games people play
Switches—one minute we’re poor and helpless and the next we’re accusing others for raining on our parade—rack up the drama. They are the fuel for the conflict’s fire.
Sales blames Ops for bungling the delivery up (P) and, almost in the same breath, paints himself as the martyr who did his everything to salvage it (R). Ops throws his hands up in the air thanks to Sales’ aggressive deadline (V) and at once points fingers at Sales for not willing to renegotiate with the client (P). Not long after, Ops switches, turning the tables on Recruitment for not getting him the manpower he so desperately needs, and in the absence of which, he and his team keep plowing on. And so on. Even the boss, in his solitary appearance at the end—and someone whom we can imagine is bringing out this behavior in the team—pulls off a brisk switch from accusing the function heads reporting to him of not stepping up to begging them to fix things up for him.
If Sales only ever blamed Ops and Ops only ever denied responsibility, and neither did anything else, the exchange would eventually run out of oxygen. But because Sales is not just apportioning blame but also calling attention to the lengths to which he goes just to crack a deal, Ops takes the bait; and vice versa. The drama escalates.
Using the Drama Triangle and honing their skill at in-game role switches, albeit not consciously, there are numerous games people can play with others.
Dysfunctional family:
The alcoholic father assumes the Persecutor’s role who blames his family and the world for his situation; the mother plays the Rescuer who sacrifices her own mental peace to save the children and the family; and the children are the poor, hapless Victims.
Alcoholic game:
Sticking to the theme of alcohol, here’s the alcoholic game in Karpman’s words:
…the alcoholic starts out in the role of the lonely and bored Victim. Then moves up to Persecutor to shift their own unhappiness onto others by getting drunk and unpredictable. Then moves over to the repentant Rescuer role to make it all OK to everyone if given "one more chance." But eventually that is not satisfying, trading stamps are collected, cashed in with a return back to the Victim role, thus starting the next game cycle, all over again, the same way.
Drama is everywhere
Hot on the trail of Anatomy of a Fall’s Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, I watched the movie in the theater. As a married man, I found the movie disquieting for the clarity with which it captured interactions with the spouse, at times recognizing shades of my own life. The exceptional quality of filmmaking aside, I want to pick out one scene from the movie for you.
It happens midway through the movie, which is about a courtroom dissection of the marriage of Sandra Voyter and Samuel Maleski after the latter’s death (suicide or murder?). It’s, if I remember right, the only time we see Samuel alive.
This exchange captures an altercation between husband and wife, both writers—one successful; the other frustrated. They briefly mention their eleven-year-old partially blind son Daniel. I’ve clipped their lines with ellipses (...) for brevity wherever I felt the missing part closely matches what has been said. The letters V, P, and R are my markings for the roles that Samuel and Sandra play in their domestic Drama Triangle.
SAMUEL: I need time, not just a few hours, I’m talking about blocking out time for myself for the whole year. This isn’t working for me anymore. (V)
SANDRA: So organize your time differently if you want to; it’s up to you… (P)
SAMUEL: When’s the last time you helped him with his homework?…. There’s a ton of things you don’t give a shit about, and that’s the time I’m talking about. (P)
SANDRA: Darling, the book just came out, you know very well that it’s just this time – (P)
SAMUEL: It’s always “just this time”! Whether you have a book out, or you're writing, or you need space to figure out what to write... or when you're invited who knows where... I’ve been following your lead for years and I’m not okay with it anymore. I can’t do anything with my time, do you understand? It’s not my time, it’s yours. (P→V)
SANDRA: Do I force you to teach? Do I force you to homeschool Daniel? No one’s forcing you. If you want to make time for yourself I’ve never stopped you! (P)
SAMUEL: Are you fucking serious? I cut my course load in half this year to gain time, and it’s still not enough. I have to finish… plus I’m dealing with… Why do you refuse to talk about it? Why can’t you just admit that it has to do with how things are divided between us? (P→R→P)
SANDRA: Because you’re wrong, I don’t owe you any time, I do my part. C’mon, let’s not start taking inventory. Let’s relax. We love each other. (P)
Sandra is trying to offer non-defensive responses though she does this by repeatedly going back to a it’s-up-to-you stance, which in turn riles up Samuel because he feels invalidated. His turmoil ramps up toward the end when he does a double switch (_(P→R→P) _from accusing Sandra of trivializing her part in an unpalatable situation to drawing attention to all the obstacles he has to face to, finally, blaming Sandra for pretending like everything is hunky dory. As a cinematic device (I’ve seen the movie), the tension hits the roof at the point of Samuel’s double switch.
The writers refuse to draw the curtains on the exchange at this point and let it play out. Thanks to that, we see how the Drama Triangle continues, beat by beat. And as the drama unfolds and roles reverse, we see Sandra mounting a defense against Samuel and slipping into counter-accusations.
SANDRA: Look at you, even your bullshit moralizing is a way for you to waste time. You should be flattered that I was inspired by you!.... (P→R)
SAMUEL: Each in our own territory, we take what we need. Except you are not alone in your jungle. I live with you and you impose everything…. We speak English at home when Daniel should only hear French. (V→P)
SANDRA: We hardly ever speak. (P)
SAMUEL: You’ve never wanted to learn French, just like you’ve never sacrificed a second of your time. Everyone always has to meet you on your turf. (P→V)
SANDRA: Bullshit, I’m not on my turf. I don’t speak my mother tongue. (V)
SAMUEL: Yes, but you don’t speak mine either! Even though we live here! (P)
SANDRA Well, yes, it’s a middle ground, in fact. I’m not French and you’re not German, but we don’t have to meet the other on their turf, we created a middle ground. That’s what English is for, it’s our meeting point, you can’t blame me for that. (V)
SAMUEL: But we live in France!!! That is our reality! Stop being evasive! Daniel hears you speak in a language that has nothing to do with his life. And you imposed this on him, like everything else. We’re on your turf, all the time, and I just have to follow. (P→V)
SANDRA: But we’re in your country. Every single day I have to accept living in your hometown. The people you grew up with look down on me whenever I don’t make the effort to smile…. (V)
SAMUEL: You never smile at anyone. (P)
Breaking the Drama Triangle
The first benefits to people come simply from a knowledge of the Drama Triangle and the vocabulary that comes with it. Breaking the triangle takes more. It does so because all three roles are “triggered simultaneously for ancient survival reasons, at an instinctual level.”
It was a few years before Karpman came up with the Compassion Triangle as a way to guide people to break out the dreaded Drama Triangle by following “forgiving motivations.” It is simple but not easy.
If the Drama Triangle shows behaviorally “what is happening, and who it is happening to,” the Compassion Triangle adds the third option of “why it is happening.”
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Karma describes the Compassion Triangle:
The center number refers to the 10% solution that says that at least 10% of anything a person says is true, 10% of anything a person says is false, and at least 10% of the world's population would agree with that, and 10% would disagree with that.
The 10% allowance lets in responsibility—the best antidote to blame. By making participants take partial responsibility (10% of what I’m saying may be wrong and 10% of what you’re saying may be right), it creates some middle ground for positive give and take.
The Compassion Triangle is designed for couples who can lay waste to reserves of love by going at each other in a vicious negative triangle. For less intimate situations, there’s the Escapes Drama Triangle that offers a way to get out from any of the three positions.
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I love the phrasing of the escapes. It shows the attention Karpman paid to make the labels vivid and easy to remember for lay people.
Work situations are different. For one, they don’t involve two people as intimately as a marriage or a relationship does. Second, there’s a hierarchy. There’s a leader and a team. Psychologist couple Gay and Katie Hendricks offer a protocol for breaking the Drama Triangle at work. It’s a two-step process.
1️⃣First, as the team leader, you take responsibility for the situation. Here’s how:
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2️⃣Next, you work with your team to make a commitment to curiosity over blame and victimhood. This means reconstructing your team vocabulary for how you communicate with each other. This lexicon is built on good questions. Here are some to lead your team with:
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It helps to recognize what goes on in our heads, not just for professional fulfillment but also for a more fulfilling life. If another stalwart Daniel Kahneman showed us how we use mental shortcuts to make decisions, sometimes consequential and costly, with incomplete information, Stephen Karpman tells us that understanding the drama in our lives we complain about (and yet add to) is the secret to unlocking happy and meaningful relationships.