A friend of mine described the Karpman Triangle to me one day after I told her about a bad fight I'd had with hubby. Since then, it has fascinated me. Here is a brief explanation for those that haven't heard of it.
Stephen Karpman, a teacher of Transactional Analysis, named the three roles on the Drama Triangle: Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim and placed them on an upside down triangle representing the three faces of victim. Even though only one is called Victim, all three originate out of and end up back there. Therefore they are all stopping places on the road to victim-hood. We each have a most familiar, or what is called, starting gate position
"You might notice that both the Persecutor and Rescuer are on the upper end of the triangle. Whenever we assume either of those stances, we come across as one-up. From either position we are relating as though we are better, stronger, smarter, or more-together than the victim. Sooner or later the victim, who is in a one-down position, develops a metaphorical "crick in the neck" from looking up. Feeling"looked down upon", resentment builds and some form of retaliation inevitably follows. At that point the victim moves into a persecutor role. Reminiscent of a not-so-musical game of musical chairs, all players sooner or later rotate positions."
- The Three Faces of Victim, by Lynn Forrest
http://lynneforrest.com/html/the_faces_of_victim.html
In a dysfunctional relationship, the person or persons involved may start at any of the three points, and end up at any of the three points. As an example:
My husband is the typical Persecutor:
PERSECUTOR - "It's All Your Fault"
In the past, my first response to his Persecutor attitude was to jump into victim mode:
VICTIM - "Poor Me"
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Feels victimized, oppressed, helpless, hopeless, powerless, ashamed
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Looks for a Rescuer that will perpetuate their negative feelings.
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If stays in Victim position, will block self from making decisions, solving problems, pleasure and self-understanding.
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"Dejected" stance.
Husband makes me cry, realizes what an ass he's been so he jumps into rescuer mode:
RESCUER - "Let Me Help You"
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Rescues when really doesn't want to.
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Feels guilty if doesn't rescue.
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Keeps victim dependent.
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Gives permission to fail.
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Expects to fail in rescue attempts.
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"Marshmallow" Parent
When I realized I was participating in this weird merry-go-round, I made a conscious decision to STOP. I no longer played victim when he came out of the starting gate of Persecutor. A funny thing happened.
Suddenly he began jumping from Persecutor to Victim and back again. It's amazing to watch. I've also seen him jump into the Rescuer position more than once. One of the things that makes me the most sad, is that he tends to want to be the Rescuer through sex. In other words, he is thinking "we had this bad fight. Now let's make up by having sex and I be this great and wonderful lover for you."
Lynn Forrest explains this cycle as well...
"We not only act out these triangular distortions in our everyday relations with others, but also internally. We move around the triangle as rapidly inside our minds as we do out in the world. We trap ourselves with dishonest and dysfunctional internal dialogue. For example, we may come down hard on ourselves for not completing a project. Perhaps we lambaste ourselves as being lazy, inadequate or defective, causing us to spiral into feelings of anger and self-worthlessness. Inwardly, we cow to this persecutory voice, fearing it may be right. Can you see the persecutor/victim exchange happening here? As soon as we begin to blame or insult, a victim is created. And in this case, we're it!"
Perhaps of everything Lynn Forrest stated on her website, this is what struck me the most, "Similar to the way a generator produces electricity, the Drama Triangle generates shame. Whether through internal interaction or external communication, moving around the triangle keeps the self-disparaging messages going. The Drama Triangle becomes our own personal shame machine."
Throughout Hubby's life, I've watched him blame himself for a myriad of things that are just a matter of circumstance.
For example, obviously when we moved into our current house twelve years ago, we sold our old house. We could barely afford to move into our new house. We were fairly young. We didn't have a life's savings. Of course we sold our old house! Sheesh. I don't think we could have gotten a mortgage if we had that stone hanging around our necks.
For some reason as of late, he's glommed onto this idea that we should have kept that house. We should have rented it out. It is true that the price of property in our area has skyrocketed in the last five years. But, we couldn't have afforded to own two pieces of property. He hates maintainance on our current house, which is almost nil. Can you imagine if he had to keep up ANOTHER piece of property? Still, even though all these factors are pointed out to him, he still thinks he was stupid.
My way of looking at things that happened eleven years ago is that it is water over the dam. You can't go back and relive it. What is the point of stewing over it. What you do is take what you learned from it, and use it in the future!
But for hubby, "moving around the triangle keeps the self-disparaging messages going. The Drama Triangle becomes his own personal shame machine."
I think it kind of goes back to that post about drama. The Karpman Triangle is his personal drama. It is what he has lived his whole life. He doesn't know how to jump off. It gives him a sense of purpose to feel anxious, to lay blame, to jump to victim, to be the rescuer, to jump back to persecutor.
Man, I'm getting dizzy. LOL.
P.S. Hey Graffiti, while I was googling info for this blog post, I came across a link to something you posted a month back. But when I clicked on it, it had nothing to do with the Karpman Triangle. Wierd, huh?
