Karpman drama triangle

The original Karpman Drama Triangle as it appears in Karpman, S. (1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7(26), 39-43.

The drama triangle is a social model of human interaction – the triangle maps a type of destructive interaction that can occur between people in conflict. The drama triangle model is a tool used in psychotherapy, specifically transactional analysis.

Origin

The Drama Triangle is a social model that was conceived by Stephen Karpman, M.D., a student studying under Eric Berne, M.D., the father of transactional analysis. Berne encouraged Karpman to publish what Berne referred to as "Karpman's triangle". Karpman's article was published in 1968. Karpman received the Eric Berne Memorial Scientific Award in 1972 for this work.

Through popular usage and the work of Karpman and others, Karpman's triangle has been adapted for use in structural analysis (defining the conflict roles of persecutor, victim, and rescuer) and transactional analysis (diagraming how participant switch roles in conflict).

Theory

Karpman used triangles to map conflicted or drama intense relationship transactions. The Karpman Drama Triangle models the connection between personal responsibility and power in conflicts, and the destructive and shifting roles people play. He defined three roles in the conflict; Persecutor, Rescuer (the one up positions) and Victim (one down position). Karpman placed these three roles on an inverted triangle and referred to them as being the three aspects, or faces of drama. Karpman, who had interests in acting and was a member of the Screen Actors Guild, chose the term "drama triangle" rather the term "conflict triangle" as the Victim in his model is not intended to represent an actual victim, but rather someone feeling or acting like a victim.

1. The Victim: The Victim's stance is "Poor me!" The Victim feels victimized, oppressed, helpless, hopeless, powerless, ashamed, and seems unable to make decisions, solve problems, take pleasure in life, or achieve insight. The Victim, if not being persecuted, will seek out a Persecutor and also a Rescuer who will save the day but also perpetuate the Victim's negative feelings.
2. The Rescuer:
   

   Karpman drama triangle
   The rescuer's line is "Let me help you." A classic enabler, the Rescuer feels guilty if he/she doesn't go to the rescue. Yet his/her rescuing has negative effects: It keeps the Victim dependent and gives the Victim permission to fail. The rewards derived from this rescue role are that the focus is taken off of the rescuer. When he/she focuses their energy on someone else, it enables them to ignore their own anxiety and issues. This rescue role is also very pivotal, because their actual primary interest is really an avoidance of their own problems disguised as concern for the victim’s needs.
3. The Persecutor: The Persecutor insists, "It's all your fault." The Persecutor is controlling, blaming, critical, oppressive, angry, authoritative, rigid, and superior.

Initially, a drama triangle arises when a person takes on the role of a victim or persecutor. This person then feels the need to enlist other players in to the conflict. These enlisted players take on roles of their own that are not static and therefore various scenarios can occur. For example, the victim might turn on the rescuer, the rescuer then switches to persecuting — or as often happens, a rescuer is encouraged to enter the situation.

The motivations for each participant and the reason the situation endures is that each gets their unspoken (and frequently unconscious) psychological wishes/needs met in a manner they feel justified, without having to acknowledge the broader dysfunction or harm done in the situation as a whole. As such, each participant is acting upon their own selfish needs, rather than acting in a genuinely responsible or altruistic manner. Thus a character might "ordinarily come on like a plaintive victim; it is now clear that she can switch into the role of Persecutor providing it is 'accidental' and she apologizes for it".

The motivations of the rescuer is the least obvious. In the terms of the drama triangle, the rescuer is someone who has a mixed or covert motive and is actually benefiting egoically in some way from being "the one who rescues". The rescuer has a surface motive of resolving the problem, and appears to make great efforts to solve it, but also has a hidden motive to not succeed, or to succeed in a way that they benefit. For example, they may get a self-esteem boost or receive respected rescue status, or derive enjoyment by having someone depend on them and trust them – and act in a way that ostensibly seems to be trying to help, but at a deeper level plays upon the victim in order to continue getting a payoff..

In some cases, the relationship between the victim and the rescuer can be one of codependency. The rescuer keeps the victim dependent on them by encouraging their victimhood. The victim gets their needs met by having the rescuer take care of them.

In general, participants tend to have a primary or habitual role (victim, rescuer, persecutor) when they enter into drama triangles. Participants first learn their habitual role in our family of origin. Even though participants each have a role with which they most identify, once on the triangle, participants rotate through all the positions, going completely around the triangle.

Each triangle has a payoff for those playing it. The antithesis of a drama triangle lies in discovering how to deprive the actors of their payoff.

Historical context

Family therapy movement. After World War II, therapists observed that while many battle-torn veteran patients readjusted well after returning to their families some patients did not; some even regressed when they returned to their home environment. Researchers felt that they needed an explanation for this and began to explore the dynamics of family life – and thus began the family therapy movement. Prior to this time, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts focused on the patient’s already developed psyche and downplayed outside detractors. Intrinsic factors were addressed and extrinsic reactions were considered as emanating from forces within the person.

Transactions analysis. In the 1950s, Eric Berne, MD developed Transactional Analysis – a method for studying interactions between individuals. This approach was profoundly different than that of Freud. While Freud relied on asking the patient about themselves, Berne felt that a therapist could learn by observing what was communicated (words, body language, facial expressions) in a transaction. So instead of directly asking the patient questions, Berne would frequently observe the patient in a group setting, noting all of the transactions that occurred between the patient and other individuals.

Triangles/triangulation. The theory of triangulation was originally published in 1966 by Murray Bowen, M.D. as one of eight parts of Bowen's family systems theory. Murray Bowen, M.D., a pioneer in family systems theory, began his early work with schizophrenics at the Menninger Clinic, from 1946 to 1954. Triangulation is the “process whereby a two-party relationship that is experiencing tension will naturally involve a third parties to reduce tension”. Simply put, when someone finds themselves in conflict with another person, they will reach out to a third person. The resulting triangle is more comfortable as it can hold much more tension because the tension is being shifted around three people instead of two.

Bowen studied the dyad of the mother and her schizophrenic child while he had them both living in a research unit at the Menninger clinic. Bowen then moved to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), where he resided from 1954 to 1959. At the NIMH Bowen extended his hypothesis to include the father-mother-child triad. Bowen considered differentiation and triangles the crux of his theory, Bowen Family Systems Theory. Bowen intentionally used the word triangle rather than triad. In Bowen Family Systems Theory, the triangle is essential part of relationship.

Couples left to their own resources oscillate between closeness and distance. Two people having this imbalance often have difficulty resolving it by themselves. To stabilize the relationship, the couple often seek the aid of a third party to help re-establish closeness. A triangle is the smallest possible relationship system that can restore balance in a time of stress. The third person assumes an outside position. In periods of stress, the outside position is the most comfortable and desired position. The inside position is plagued by anxiety, along with its emotional closeness. The outsider serves to preserve the inside couple’s relationship. Bowen noted that not all triangles are constructive – some are destructive.

Pathological/perverse triangles. In 1968, Nathan Ackerman, MD conceptualized a destructive triangle. Ackerman stated “we observe certain constellations of family interactions which we have epitomized as the pattern of family interdependence, roles those of destroyer or persecutor, the victim of the scapegoating attack, and the family healer or the family doctor. Ackerman also recognize the pattern of attack, defense, and counterattack, a shifting roles.

Karpman triangles. In 1968, Stephan Karpman, M.D. theorizes the Karpman Drama Triangle in an article entitled Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Karpman was a recent graduate of Duke University School of Medicine and was doing post post-graduate studies under Eric Berne at the time.

Transactional analysis

Main article: Transactional analysis

Eric Berne, a Canadian-born psychiatrist, created the theory of transactional analysis, in the middle of the 20th century, as a way of explaining human behavior . Berne’s theory of transactional analysis was based on the ideas of Freud but were distinctly different. Freudian psychotherapists focused on talk therapy as a way of gaining insight to their patient’s personalities. Berne believed that insight could be better discovered by analyzing patients’ social transactions.

Games in transactional analysis refers to a series of transactions that is complementary (reciprocal), ulterior, and proceeds towards a predictable outcome. In this context, the Karpman Drama Triangle is a "game".

Games are often characterized by a switch in roles of players towards the end. The number of players may vary. Games in this sense are devices used (often unconsciously) by a person to create a circumstance where they can justifiably feel certain resulting feelings (such as anger or superiority) or justifiably take or avoid taking certain actions where their own inner wishes differ from societal expectation. They are always a substitute for a more genuine and full adult emotion and response which would be more appropriate. Three quantitative variables are often useful to consider for games:

Flexibility: "The ability of the players to change the currency of the game (that is, the tools they use to play it). 'Some games...can be played properly with only one kind of currency, while others, such as exhibitionistic games, are more flexible", so that players may shift from words, to money, to parts of the body.

Tenacity: "Some people give up their games easily, others are more persistent", referring to the way people stick to their games and their resistance to breaking with them.

Intensity: "Some people play their games in a relaxed way, others are more tense and aggressive. Games so played are known as easy and hard games, respectively", the latter being played in a tense and aggressive way.

Their consequences of games may vary from small paybacks to paybacks built up over a long period to a major level. Based on the degree of acceptability and potential harm, games are classified into three categories, representing first degree games, second degree games, and third degree games:

Socially acceptable,

Undesirable but not irreversibly damaging, or

May result in drastic harm.

The Karpman Triangle was an adaptation of a model that was originally conceived to analyze the play-action pass and the draw play in American football and later adapted as a way to analyze movie scripts. Karpman is reported to have doodled thirty or more diagram types before settling in on the triangle. Karpman credits the movie Valley of the Dolls as being a testbed for refining the model into what Berne coined as the Karpman Drama Triangle.

Karpman now has many variables of the Karpman triangle in his fully developed theory, besides role switches. These include space switches (private-public, open-closed, near-far) which precede, cause, or follow role switches, and script velocity (number of role switches in a given unit of time). These include the Question Mark triangle, False Perception triangle, Double Bind triangle, The Indecision triangle, the Vicious Cycle triangle, Trapping triangle, Escape triangle, Triangles of Oppression and Triangles of Liberation, Switching in the triangle, and the Alcoholic Family triangle.

Therapeutic models

The Winner's Triangle was published by Acey Choy in 1990 as a therapeutic model for showing patients how to alter social transactions when entering a triangle at any of the three entry points. Choy recommends that anyone feeling like a victim think more in terms of being vulnerable, that anyone cast as a persecutor adopt an assertive posture, and anyone recruited to be a rescuer should react by being "caring".

• Vulnerable - a victim should be encouraged to accept their vulnerability and problem solve and be more self-aware.
• Assertive - an persecutor should be encouraged to ask for want they want, be assertive, but not be punishing.
• Caring - a rescuer should be encourage to show concern and be caring, but not over-reach and problem solve for others.

The Power of TED, a self-help book published in 2009 focuses on the victim. It recommends that the "victim" adopt the alternative role of creator, view the persecutor as a challenger, and enlist a coach instead of a rescuer.9

1. Creator is someone who is outcome-oriented as opposed to problem-oriented.
2. Challenger is a person or situation that forces the creator to clarify their needs, and focus on resolving "dynamic tension" (the difference between current reality and the envisioned goal or outcome) by taking incremental steps toward the outcomes they are trying to achieve.
3. Coach is a person who asks questions that are intended to help the individual to make informed choices. The key difference between a rescuer and a coach is that the coach sees the creator as capable of making choices and of solving their own problems. A coach asks questions that enable the creator to see the possibilities for positive action, to focus on what they do want instead of what they do not want.

See also

• Family estrangement
• Script analysis
• Victim playing

Further reading

Books

• Karpman, Stephen (2014). A Game Free Life: The definitive book on the Drama Triangle and Compassion Triangle by the originator and author-the new transactional analysis of intimacy, openness, and happiness. Self Published.
• Emerald, David (2009). The Power of TED. Edinburgh: Polaris Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0977144112
• Zimberoff, Diane (1989). Breaking Free from the Victim Trap. Nazareth: Wellness Press. ISBN 978-0962272806
• Harris, Thomas (1969). I'm OK, You're OK. New York: Galahad Books. ISBN 978-1578660759
• Berne, Eric (1966). Games People Play. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0345410030

Articles

• Johnson, R. Skip (2015). Escaping Conflict and the Karpman Drama Triangle. BPDFamily
• Forrest, Lynne (2008). The Three Faces of Victim — An Overview of the Drama Triangle. Transforming Victim Consciousness
• Choy, Acey (1990). The Winner's Triangle Transactional Analysis Journal 20(1):40