The Wellspring Logo
wellness workbookWellness Workbook
How To Achieve Enduring Health and Vitality
John W. Travis, M.D. & Regina Sara Ryan
 
top_img1
top_img2
  Home  > Helping Professionals  > The Drama Triangle

The Drama Triangle

Transactional Analysis (TA) offers a useful concept for helping us recognize how we deceive ourselves (and how we can become more honest). The Drama Triangle (Figure 1) has three corners: Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. Developed by Dr. Stephen Karpman, the triangle is also described in the Wellness Workbook.

Burnout is a manifestation of the Victim position. Since Rescuers always become Victims, and most helping professionals have strong Rescuing scripts, our approach is to uncover Rescuing tendencies. Though detecting Rescuing behaviors in yourself is more difficult, self-awareness of these patterns is the key to preventing getting to the burned-out (Victim) position.

Psychological games, as Eric Berne described in Games People Play, involve one person starting communications from one position on the triangle, with another person taking a different corner. Eventually there is a shift in which at least two players switch to a different position, or role. These switches make the drama interesting and provide the players with something to occupy their time. "Poor Me," "See What You Made Me Do," "Kick Me," "I Was Only Trying To Help You," or "Harried" are typical games played by helping professionals.

Television soap operas provide blatant examples of these dynamics. In all cases, games are covert ways of getting attention, albeit negative attention. Because we've made a computation that we cannot ask for the kind of attention we really need and want, we will settle for negative strokes rather than none at all. On the social level, games appear to be acceptable, but underneath, at the psychological level, an undercurrent of deception is always present.

All of us can play the Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer roles with great skill, though we may do it so subtly that neither we nor our partners recognize that the game is in motion. As we become more conscious of these three roles, we can see how deeply and subtly they pervade our life. They begin even before we are a year old, with attempts to control or manipulate mother (or her substitute).




top_img3
links_heading
Home
right_link_sep
Personal Wellness
right_link_sep
Personal Wellness Lite
right_link_sep
Child / Family
right_link_sep
Global Wellness
right_link_sep
For Professionals
   Introduction
   The Wellness Paradigm
   History: A Paradigm Shift
   Professional Integration
   Wellness Presentations
right_link_sep
About
right_link_sep
Contact Us
right_link_sep
right_link_sep
right_link_sep
right_link_bottom
feature_topics_heading
An Introduction
Meryn and John candidly share how they came to the field of child/family wellness from their background in adult wellness. more...
sep
Helping Professionals
This area consists of text from Wellness for Helping Professionals, by John W. Travis, MD, and Meryn Callander. more...
sep
Child/Family Wellness
Honoring the heart, soul, and spirit of our children, our families, and our future. After more than three decades of pioneering work in adult wellness, and giving birth to a daughter, Siena, in 1993, Meryn and John realized that the  more...
sep
right_box_top
left_box_bottom

 

top_img4
left_box_bottom
© 2018, Wellness Associates, Inc, All Rights Reserved. Home | Personal Wellness | Personal Wellness Lite | Child/Family | Global Wellness | For Professionals | Resources | About The Wellspring | Contact Us | Advertising Disclaimer | Another site & Search Engine Marketing (SEO) by webko.com.au Byron Bay - Web Design Australia