You are listening to Take Out Therapy, speedy sessions for everyday problems. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. In my role as a private practice therapist, I don't really just tell people what to do, but in this podcast, I'm doing things differently.
In the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations. Keep listening for awesome tips on how to live a more intentional and less reactive life. Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee it might help you.
Listen up. Hi guys. I'm so happy you joined me today.
We're going to look in words a little bit and see if we can get some insight about how we are playing roles in our relationships. Today we're going to talk about something called the drama triangle. If you could, before I start this lesson, think back to the last kind of intense interaction that you had with somebody, or even you could think about an intense relationship that you have where there's conflict and it has to get worked out.
We're going to talk a little bit about the drama triangle because we all play roles in our relationships. Depending on what the subject matter is, we will generally start out in the same role within an interaction. The drama triangle is the idea that we will fall into one of three typical roles.
The first role is called the victim role, which frankly, I think outdated language and a little rude. I don't really like being called a victim. Thank you very much.
I don't know how you feel about it. But anywho, I can't just go around changing the drama triangle, you guys. Somebody else invented this thing.
We'll just keep it as is, knowing that the language is outdated. The victim role is basically the person who feels like one's getting put over on them, or they're helpless or powerless. They're kind of like, this is not cool.
Things always end up like this for me, or I never get heard or listened to or validated. That's kind of the victim role. Then the next role is the persecutor role.
This is kind of the bad guy. It's the troublemaker. A lot of times, it's the trouble starter.
But the persecutor, well, not all the time either, but a lot of the times, the persecutor is perceived as being kind of a bully, a self-righteous, like the bad guy by the other people in the exchange. Obviously, it's a perception. It's like saying anyone who is the persecutor in the triangle is an asshole.
That's not true. We all float around in each of these roles all the time. Even though I'm one of the nicest people you're ever going to meet, I definitely can go into persecutor mode.
Then the third role is the rescuer. We all know this because this is just like, for some of us, this is just being nice. But we basically kind of hop into this role of caretaking for the victim in the interaction.
We take responsibility a lot of times for other people's stuff. It's great because it distracts us from our own stuff, by the way. Because if in an interaction, I'm busy rescuing somebody else, then I don't really have to deal with what's happening for me.
Another thing about the rescuer is they're always kind of working from what they feel is the best thing for somebody else. That's kind of tricky. They kind of do the sympathy thing, like, oh, poor you, you need my help kind of thing.
We can all think about these three roles and just look around you in television shows or I don't know, like, the people in your life, right? You can kind of see who plays what role on a fairly consistent basis. It's kind of a fun thing to do. To start to notice in intense interactions, to start to notice what is your role, right? And typically, in each relationship, you'll take on a role.
We don't have the same role in all of our relationships. But typically, in a difficult interaction, for example, I would take on a different role in an interaction, like if I was still working in, say, community mental health versus the role that I play in, like, our family's interaction. They're two totally different roles that I typically start out with.
But it's our pattern, right? So it's not too hard to figure out whether we're playing the victim, the persecutor, or the rescuer. But we definitely, like, shift around into different roles throughout the interaction. So if you kind of just understand the model a little bit and make a note to just notice it, not with yourself, but just in other interactions, it's fascinating to kind of see if you can point out, like, where things are happening.
And so notice that there's, like, there's nothing wrong with any of the roles. I tend to not want to put things in good or bad boxes. Like, we're, we all end up feeling powerless and hopeless sometimes in relationship, you know, intensity.
And that's okay. Like, that's not a bad thing. So there's no sort of labeling, like, God, I want to be the persecutor.
Well, I'm sorry, but sometimes you're going to be and that's okay. So just so you know, there's no judgment within this. It's just about kind of seeing, is this a role that is necessary for me to play, basically.
So once you start to notice it in other people, then you can turn the lens onto you and your interactions and see what happens. Right. And so I'll give you an example in my own life, because you guys know I have some teenagers and sometimes things happen, right, that are not great.
And so our son came home the other day and he had something wasn't working with his car that was kind of important. And he drove it a really long ways anyways. And so we were kind of having this interaction that was pretty intense.
And we all fell into the roles, right. And so my son was feeling like pretty unheard, I think, in the interaction, because we kind of well, frankly, dad was the persecutor, right. He took a really strong approach, like, oh, my gosh, how could this happen? Right.
And then my son kind of shrank, you know, and that shrinking, you know, that feeling of just like, oh, and then, of course, I did, you know, feel like I have to like defend so he doesn't feel bad and help John communicate better, as if like the two of them couldn't do it on their own. And so here's where I'll critique the roles and say, like, sometimes we end up in roles and there's no judgment or it doesn't have to be like a negative thing, but we have to decide whether that's helpful, right, to us or to other people. So one of the things that I want to say, particularly about the rescuer role, because, frankly, a lot of people fall into a rescuer role in many of their relationships and the classic example, well, there is no classic example.
I was going to say the classic example is like women who rescue men. But I'm telling you, we rescue each other. Men feel like they need to help women as much as women feel.
Listen, we're all kind of messed up, but we like to feel like we're helpful. Does that make sense? And so the problem with being a rescuer is that it really disempowers everybody, basically anybody that we're feeling like we need to live their life for them or protect them from certain emotions, right, or kind of show them how to do life our way because we feel like we have it down pat and they don't. It's really disempowering for them.
So if we don't rescue people, then what tends to happen is they figure out what the hell they want to do in their life and they do it, right, or they fall flat on their face and they eventually pick themselves back up. And it's scary to not rescue sometimes, especially kind of when we're talking about addiction or, you know, just like not adult behavior, right, because there's a safety. We feel like I'm safe.
And so a lot of the reason that we rescue is because we just like people and we want them to be around, right. And so it's just important to know that that's not very empowering, nor is just being a bully or being self-righteous. So a lot of times when we get hacked off in an interaction, like I talked about last week, did you hear that episode? We can kind of tend to be self-righteous.
And that is like even the most, you know, person who's done a lot of self-work. I, you know, I hear people that are really emotionally intelligent being very self-righteous quite a bit of the time. And it's just because it feels like a power position.
So listen, if you have two choices, do you want to have power or do you not want to have power? Nine times out of ten, we're going to pick, oh, I would like some power, please. Right. And so the way we kind of get into this like persecutor mode is by being kind of narrow minded and not very open.
And so what I would say is that if you find yourself in a persecutor role, go ahead and just be open. Right. And and so I would just say, just ask open ended questions like, you know, what is it that you need from us or how could we have prevented this? Right.
Or or right. Instead of going into persecute, which is defend to just soften a little bit and be able to say, man, this is kind of scary. So I'm a little bit freaked out that this happened right now.
And this is what I would have liked, right, this is the choice that I would have felt was safer or whatever. So it's just nice to just kind of back away from being super defended. And then, you know, if you just can't help but stop yourself from rescuing, one of the things that you can do is just kind of move into more of like, again, an open ended question type of role.
Right. Like what would be what would be helpful for you right now? Or, yeah, just like how do you how do you want to handle this? I think we rescue a lot and we and we problem solve for each other. So we have to be careful not to do that because it's disempowering.
And then the victim. Right. How do we get out of feeling hopeless and powerless? Right.
That's hard. Is we can basically kind of say that that's how we're feeling and try to give ourself the validation that we need, because the problem with feeling kind of like people are trying to put one over on us or we're constantly getting victimized in our intense interactions is that we don't like self-support. And so it's really important in any intense interaction, even if you end up feeling like, damn, that was not OK.
That did not work out the way I wanted it to. Like, this feels really bad. Just to remember that you've got to get that validation from yourself.
So you have to self-support, meaning like this will blow over or I can, you know, kind of take care of myself in a different way today just to sort of like show some self love. Right. Because none of us want to get victimized.
And the other thing is like some just remember that some conversations and interactions, they take more than one session. They take more than one conversation is what I'm saying. So sometimes it's OK to chunk things up a little bit.
If you fall into a role that you don't really want to be in, you can kind of say, listen, I need to stop and think about this. And can we talk about it later? Just so you know, like I'm totally giving everyone the hall pass on that because I don't think we pause conversations enough. Pausing conversations is so smart.
It's emotionally intelligent. Try it sometime just to see is this even, you know, going to work basically. So in order to get out of the drama triangle, you want to basically figure out what your role is.
So go out in the world and like observe other interactions that are intense and like try to pick out who's playing what role. That's a good first step. And then bring it in and kind of see like, well, what role do you hop into in your intense interactions or what role do you just flat out play all the time in some of your relationships? And then just decide.
Do you want to be playing that role? Right. I don't necessarily love when I hop into a rescuer role. It's not empowering for my kids at all.
And it also like at times we can really undermine each other's relationships. Like John and I, like we both do it sometimes. It's really easy to do it when you have teens and they just throw your nervous system out of whack and you say all kinds of stuff.
You're like, oh, darn it. I was trying not to do that. Anywho, it's just really easy to get hooked in.
And so but no, I don't necessarily want to do that. So like I'm not really judgmental when I do it, but I also I see it and then I can take a step back and be like, oh, that's not this is really not a necessary or be helpful. So, yeah, just look at your role and then decide whether you feel connected to it or not.
And if you don't, I'm not saying like pick a different one, but just try to stay out of kind of these different dynamics that aren't serving you or the people you're in relationship with. So and always, you guys, it is always good to just slow down and reflect. That's kind of what we're doing here.
I appreciate you joining me for it. I hope you enjoyed my lecture on the drama triangle. Now go out there and play a role.
Hi, I'm just popping in to tell you that I started a new group on Facebook. It's a private group. It's called the Anxiety Recovery Club.
Come join us if you want to dig in a little bit deeper after my podcast episodes. And I'll be putting out content in that group that's really specific to people struggling with anxiety. So come join me.
The Anxiety Recovery Club. I'll see you in there. Thanks so much for listening.
This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I hope it was super helpful for you in any case. I want to be part of some much needed change, but I'm going to need your help. Please subscribe and review the podcast, recommend it to your friends and family, and share it on social media.
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Visit my website at RebeccaHunterMSW.com to have access to resources, videos and the show notes if that interests you. And again, I'm so grateful you're listening to Take Out Therapy. Thanks.
