Is someone you know:
Always talking about how awful their life is and how everyone always lets them down?
Is always critical and blaming of others?
Is always trying help people even when helping them might not be, er, helpful?
Does anyone you know seem to oscillate between these roles?
Welcome to the world of the Karpman Drama Triangle.
So. Much. Drama.
Stephen Karpman was a psychiatrist studying under Eric Berne and also a member of the Screen Actors Guild. A psychiatrist and an actor. Of course there is going to be drama. Berne was the founder of transactional analysis and the author of Games People Play. That book is well worth reading although some elements have not aged well.
Berne describes a game as: “an ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set of transactions… with a concealed motivation… or gimmick.”
A game happens between two or more people. E.g. “If it weren't for you” (IIWFY) involves a partner in a relationship complaining that the other (their commitment to the other) is a block to what they really want in life.
People play games because they get some sort of emotional payoff. In IIWFY, the playing partner gets to feel like a victim and someone making a noble sacrifice. One person can be playing a game with someone else. Two or more people can be playing the same game. Two or more people can be playing different, interlocking games - e.g. “Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch” (NIGYSOB) partnered with “Why Does This Always Happen to Me?” (WAHM).
These games are in some sense insane - if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Importantly that later statement is often attributed to Einstein but it more likely comes from people struggling with addiction. Addiction is itself often a series of games being replayed and also the games themselves become addictive because of their payoffs.
These games are not good for you in the long term. If you keep on playing the same game then you won’t grow. And you may hurt yourself and others. Games are often toxic.
The drama triangle is itself a set of games with three roles:
Victim. The payoff being escaping responsibility for your actions. After all, it’s not your fault.
Persecutor. The payoff being the righteous exercising of justice. After all, you are right.
Rescuer. The payoff being feeling like a saviour. After all, you only want the best for people.
There may not be three people involved however. What often happens if that people switch the roles that they play. I have often seen people who start of seeing themselves as victims move on the be persecutors - turning on those what would help them if they make a mistake.
These dynamics play out in families. They play out workplaces. They play out in all kinds of relationships. They are everywhere.
If you find yourself in a drama triangle then the main thing to do is to be aware that often someone wants you to play a particular role but that you are under no obligation to do so.
Have you seen a drama triangle? Been part of one? How did you get out?
At work I've witnessed the interchanging victim-persecutor thing play out many times, always by people with greater positional power (and gnawing insecurity). And, unsurprisingly, people don't like to be called on it ...