Drama Triangle II

The Victim is a person who seeks the help of other people expressly for his own needs, typically in a one-down position, as opposed to the above two

role-takers. He acts from a helpless child ego-state and takes the I'm not OK, You're OK life position. He projects himself of being incapable, powerless and always needing help and support.

While placing the three role-takers on the triangle, Karpman described them as being the three aspects or faces of a victim. Wherever we start out on this triangle while playing a TA game, we always end up as the Victim. Victim placed on the bottom of the triangle is generally in the one-down position while the two other role-takers take a one-up position.

However, during the course of a game, and after certain predictable set of interactions, a switching of roles usually follows and it proceeds in the counter-clockwise direction. That is, the Victim now takes the role of the Persecutor; the Persecutor takes the role of the Rescuer and the Rescuer that of the Victim. This interaction goes on in a cyclical fashion. This switch of roles gives room for a great drama between the two parties involved in the game. It comes rather as a surprise, an unexpected turn of events. This drama unfolds painful feelings if there are hidden motives or agendas which are manipulated for dysfunctional personal advantage.

Karpman's Drama Triangle works at the social level and the inter-dynamic level. Thus it sometimes presents a different picture to the outside world about one's self by throwing up projections of a different role. The Victim might be perceived as others by Persecutor and vice versa.

The Drama Triangle was originally devised by Karpman as a therapeutic tool, but it has evolved in to a communication device for plotting the moves of the game that take place between people. But this TA tool is now used for conceptual development and awareness about one's own attitudes, while promoting the team-building capacities at workplaces.

(Continued from Part I)