The Drama Triangle
Some of the most common relational dynamics within power-over culture are helpfully described in a model called the Drama Triangle. Our collaborator Anthea Lawson describes it well in her book The Entangled Activist:
“Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle is a model of interpersonal roles derived from transactional analysis. This is a psychoanalytic* theory and practice developed by Eric Berne in the 1950’s that focuses on how people relate with each other… [It] explains the interdependence of the commonly adopted roles of ‘victim’, ‘rescuer’, ‘persecutor’, which for many people are learned in childhood through the workings of their family dynamics. The model is not static and … people … can ‘switch’ positions: a victim can become a persecutor and a rescuer can become a victim [for example].
The drama triangle does not map directly onto activist dynamics since the position of the ‘victim’ in particular was intended to suggest someone who is, in psychological terms, choosing to take the victim position in an interaction, even if the ‘choice’ is made subconsciously. This is obviously not the same as being the actual victim of an oppression or marginalisation, one that is the subject of activism. And nor is it inevitable that experiencing oppression or marginalisation necessarily turns us into a victim; one of the problems with rescuers is their tendency to push people into a victim role they do not wish to occupy.”
* It feels important to acknowledge that this model is rooted in western psychology and all of the limitations and cultural specificity that brings with it. So whilst we do find it useful, and resonate with the relational dynamics it points to, we are holding it lightly and recognise its inherent limitations.
The drama triangle describes the common protective strategies we tend to deploy when we are disconnected and dissociated. This is a disempowering and fraught way of relating with one another as it is rooted in a fear-based need to predict and control, which prevents true relationship and connection. And because these protective strategies are self-perpetuating, the three roles of the drama triangle keep us in a state of disconnection, distraction, addiction and suffering - all the while reinforcing power-over culture and the Civilisation Trauma at its heart.
Plenty of folk have adapted the Drama Triangle to become a truer fit of how they experience these dynamics playing out. We personally see value in the following version.
Drama Triangle:
Beyond the Drama Triangle:
And we find it useful to include an alternative model that expresses the roles and dynamics we experience when we are coming from a place of embodied presence and connection that creates the conditions to support relational culture.
Beyond the Drama Triangle
Life beyond the drama triangle requires us to compost power-over culture within ourselves and our groups. We need to heal and transform our individual and collective pain bodies so as to break the cycle of Civilisation Trauma and cultivate the conditions needed for regenerative relational cultures to be birthed through us.
When disconnection causes us to enact one or more of the protective strategies of the three roles of the drama triangle, we can invite compassion for ourselves and others, rather than blame or shame. We are not wrong for acting in this way, rather we do not yet have the inner and outer resources to respond from a place of connection and embodied presence. When tending to the crossroads where our inner and outer experiences meet, where both the personal and the collective are at play, we listen with compassionate curiosity, welcoming the wisdom of these protective parts and their good intentions to keep us safe.
Rupture and repair
A vital part of composting power-over culture into regenerative relational culture is the process of rupture and repair. Through opening our hearts and minds to the lived experience of one another, including our own feelings and experiences in the mix, we are able to engage in regenerative rupture and repair processes that deepen connection and trust and directly grow relational culture.
Relational Agreements
Our Relational Agreements are another vital part of our approach to going beyond the drama triangle. These are the ways of being and relating that we how found to become more aware of how power-over culture shows up in us, and to become increasingly able to choose other ways of relating.
