This week we talked about Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle, and the roles we often take on without realising.
It started as a roleplay between Sue, Gloria and I, but turned into a more informal chat towards the end. I purposefully played the Victim at the start by saying how I didn’t like my life at the moment, disliked my job, was unhappy at home, and both Sue and Gloria responded as Rescuers and Persecutors, by offering solutions, reassuring me by saying that surely it wasn’t that bad and that I should toughen up, and then offering their condolences. After this initial phase I realised that both Gloria and Sue had slipped into counsellor-style roles; Rational, adult ego-state roles, if you will. They were asking questions rather than offering solutions, trying to understand my viewpoint rather than come at the problem with their own frames or reference and pre-conceived notions, or tell me what they’d do in that situation. We all switched roles as the conversation went on, both Sue and Gloria airing their grievances and playing the Victim, and I had a go at Rescuing them. I don’t think any of us truly embraced the role of Persecutor in our group though.
our tutor also introduced us briefly to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which I found fascinating, and very much enjoyed researching for my Learning Log this week. I very much enjoy this kind of deep diving into theory looking at how humans interact with each other and with themselves. For me, it is the theoretic nature of these abstract principles and systems that I like.
Take the Drama Triangle for example: No-one can say that they “invented” the Drama Triangle, as it already existed as a way people interact. It was only when Stephen Karpman noticed the roles people play and the patterns their behaviour falls into, investigated those roles and behaviours, observed how they interact with each other and as a whole and gained understanding over their parameters, then conceived it as a social model of interaction and put names to the roles that it became a recognised social game we play as human beings. I enjoy noticing patterns and looking for hidden meanings.
We were given a quiz to complete to discover our primary role on the Drama Triangle – my results were fairly middling. I scored 4 points as a Victim, 3 points as a Rescuer and 5 points as a Persecutor. We, as a group, did decide that it was a fairly inaccurate quiz as where you are on the Triangle at any one point is very dependent on a lot of factors, and in my case it did not highlight what my primary role was as my results were low on all fronts, as well as being quite balanced.
I have had Eric Berne’s book “The Games People Play” for a while on my Kindle waiting to be read. Having had an introduction to some aspects of Transactional Analysis during the past couple of lessons, I am looking forward to reading that book by the Father of Transactional Analysis next. Stephen Karpman was a student of Eric Berne.
