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Drama triangle, also called the victim triangle was developed as a social model in 1968 by a psychologist named Stephen Karpman. Karpman’s drama triangle is a powerful framework to understand the dysfunctional roles we adopt to deal with the conflict.
Each role in the drama triangle, victim, persecutor, rescuer represents our state of mind, how we think and the way we act when dealing with differences of opinion or disagreements with our own self or others.
The flawed thinking that we adopt stems from an internal desire to be right — right in how we feel, what we do and how we expect others to behave. The strong belief in the righteousness of our state leads to destructive interactions that drains our energy and devoids us from taking responsibility and creating possibility of a better life for ourselves and others.
Drama triangle provides an escape path to hide our underlying feelings and prevent us from addressing our real problems. Provoked by a personal conflict, the dysfunctional drama arises from latching on to one of the roles of the drama triangle that binds us in a co-dependency trap as we switch across the different roles of the triangle.
To learn how to shift the dynamics from drama to empowerment, it’s critical to understand the different roles of the…
