Is stress putting pressure on your relationships?

Understand the Drama Triangle and relate with peace and power.

Developed in the late 60s by Stephen Karpman, The Drama Triangle, and its later-suggested solution, The Empowerment Dynamic, could possibly help you to build healthier, more harmonious and fulfilling relationships.

Three roles play out in The Drama Triangle:

· The persecutor feels powerful by blaming, dominating and being aggressive.

· The victim feels powerless, is passive and thinks ‘poor me’.

· The rescuer thinks ‘poor you’ about the victim, and is compelled to ‘save’ them. The rescuer feels needed by doing so.

Try not to look at this dysfunctional dynamic from the superficial and fairy-tale viewpoint of good (rescuer) versus evil (persecutor). It’s easy to like the heroic rescuer and dislike the bullying persecutor; and it’s human nature to want to help the victim. Remember that all players here are projecting their unresolved pain, their sense of unworthiness and their lack of personal power.

The Solution

Developed in the early 2000s by David Emerald, The Empowerment Dynamic turns the Drama Triangle upside down, suggesting new roles: Victim to Creator, Persecutor to Challenger, and Rescuer to Coach.

According to this model, if you find yourself in victim mode, practise moving towards creator role: Find ways to be self-responsible. Avoid submitting to and then blaming the persecutor. Be careful of being ‘rescued’ by someone, which may temporarily relieve your problem, but would ultimately keep you powerless.

If you find yourself in persecutor mode, practise moving towards challenger role: Be assertive rather than aggressive. To clarify the right-hand diagram above: Be a challenger consciously; doing it unconsciously won’t be constructive. Motivate others by using a ‘power-with’ rather than a ‘power-over’ approach.

If you find yourself in rescuer mode, practise moving towards coach role: Check that your help is strengthening others and not making them dependent on you. Work on your self-esteem so that you no-longer ‘need to be needed’. (Or as the aeroplane safety demonstration puts it: ‘Fit your own oxygen mask before helping others’) Being a coach means preferring to do things with someone, rather than for them. Recognise that they have to find their own solutions, and help them to do so by asking them questions, instead of giving advice.

Caused by trauma or dysfunctional family conditioning, you and people in your life may have been enacting and swapping roles in The Drama Triangle for decades. Remember that sometimes the most proactive thing you can do is to withdraw from a situation or person, temporarily or permanently. Be patient as you try out The Empowerment Dynamic, and initially practice with others who are open to growing too. If you need, see a counsellor or therapist, or join a support group.

Excessive use of alcohol and other drugs; compulsive gambling and other behavioural addictions can all make the Drama Triangle worse. An alcoholic may be abusive, meaning they fall into perpetrator role. Often the partners or parents of addicts/alcoholics fall into rescuer role and inadvertently ‘enable’ their loved one to continue using / drinking / acting out. And chances are, everyone involved falls in and out of being victims in one way or another.

Support groups for substance addicts include 12 Step programs and Smart Recovery www.smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au. The 12 Step peer-support model (founded by Alcoholics Anonymous, see www.aa.org.au) not only includes programs for people with all kinds of addictions, but programs for their partners/family/friends too. If you exhaust yourself in rescuer role, Co-dependents Anonymous www.codependentsanonymous.org.au could be worth checking out.