Are you always the victim, persecutor or rescuer in conflict situations? - Understanding the drama triangle

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In conflict situations we tend to step into familiar roles and often endlessly repeat the same unhelpful behaviour patterns. Karpman's Drama Triangle offers a useful model to understand the three roles that play out in these situations and what needs to be done to find a way out of these repetitive conflict scenarios.

The three roles we can step into are that of The Victim, The Persecutor and The Rescuer.

The person in the role of the victim feels oppressed, helpless and powerless and inferior. The stance in life is 'Poor Me'.

The person in the role of the persecutor is blaming, oppressive, critical and superior. Their stance is 'It's all your fault'.

The person in the rescuer role needs to help, find solutions, be supportive and allows the victim to fail. Their stance is "Let me help you'.

We tend to have a preferred role that we play in conflict situations. This role was usually formed in our family of origin and is therefore very familiar. However, in the drama triangle we also switch roles from time to time when one position becomes untenable. A victim can become a rescuer or persecutor; a persecutor can become a rescuer or victim.

Depending on the nature of your relationship you may be stuck in a particular familiar dance: one of you is always the victim, the other always the rescuer. One of you is always hard done by or helpless and the other needs to always support the other and enable your partner's difficulties.

When stepping out of the drama triangle the aim is to act in a more adult way, rather than from the perspective of child or parent. For more background info on the adult/child/parent model listen to our podcast of 7 March 2021, How to use Transactional Analysis to communicate better.

Nobody wins in being stuck in the Drama Triangle.  To step out of it you will need to develop more awareness of the role that you play and to take responsibility for your own feelings and behaviours.  Persecutors will need to learn to be more assertive rather than aggressive,  victims will need to learn to recognise their vulnerabilities and learn how to address them and rescuers will need to set more boundaries, allowing the other person to make their own decisions.

We explore ways of communicating more effectively and dealing with conflict in much more detail in our online course The Relationship Maze. Check out our website to find out more and to access other resources.

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