The Karpman Drama Triangle

The drama triangle is a model of triadic roles or three ways to explore how dysfunctional roles of individuals in relationships can be consciously or unconsciously played as well as the great relationships can be maintained. Relationship and situation is created among family (Fulkerson, 2003; Zerin, 1988), couple (Taibbi, 2011), school (Kruse et al., 1994), police (McDowell, 1975), the business manager, the alcoholic person (Karpman, 2017) and so forth.

Drama triangle or Karpman triangle is originated by Dr. Stephen Karpman in 1968 (L'Abate, 2009). At that time, he was a basketball player and a psychiatrist in the Navy. In his prime, he had an analytic view to formulate strategies of rivals in the basketball game. So, he doodled “30 pages of the popular three-way fakes in basketball and football” (Karpman, 2017, P. 17). Meanwhile, he was attending Dr. Eric Berne’s seminars, the founder of transactional analysis [TA], in San Francisco. Berne encouraged him to simplify his diagrams in an understandable layman’s language. Finally, Dr. Karpman reduced his diagrams to three corners as the drama triangle (Karpman, 2017).

According to this model, there are three ways or triadic main roles that switch between people to build a game among the role players. Namely, the “Victim” role [V] is a person who plays the role of helplessness and unable to cope with his/her issues dependently and strongly. For persecutor players [P], however, they pretend to be responsible to teach others or force them on something as well as behave violently against weak and needy individuals (Karpman, 2017, P. 25). Rescuer as the third player tries to help others, even if no one asks them (Karpman, 2017, P. 26). More interestingly, these patterns are not fixed between persons in the relationship as well as one person’s behavior as mentioned in figure 1. In other words, players can perform continuously another role when they aren’t satisfied with the former role. For example, when the needy victim’s demand is neglected by others, she/he plays at the role of persecutor and change her/his behavior to a violent player (Karpman, 2017).

As a deeper view, identifying roles save individual to get trapped at the player’s game and improves their self-awareness by analyzing the others’ roles in the workplace, family, school and the like. Assume that a bully and controller boss who picked on you. But, he/she claims that “I am the boss” and “I know what is right for employees”. In this triangle, the boss wants to lead everything and everyone (persecutor) as much as does not seem to be unable to defend herself (victim) (Karpman, 2017).

On the other hand, David Emerald (2010) addressed P, R and V roles to the challenger, the coach and the creator respectively. Moreover, Acey Choy named assertiveness, caring and vulnerable as three peaks of the triangle (Choy, 1990). many scholars, also, renamed these three roles in some other ways.

Reference

Choy, A. (1990). The winner's triangle. Transactional Analysis Journal, 20(1), 40-46.

Emerald, D. (2010). The power of TED: The empowerment dynamic. Polaris Pub.

Fulkerson, M. (2003). Integrating The Karpman Drama Triangle with Choice Theory and Reality Therapy. International Journal of Reality Therapy, 23(1).

Karpman, S. (2017). A game free life: The definition book on the drama triangle and compassion triangle and author (3^rd printing). Drama triangle publication, San Francisco, CA.

Kruse, T. L., & Kruse, J. L. (1994). Suzuki and the drama triangle. Transactional Analysis Journal, 24(3), 211-215.

L'Abate, L. (2009). The drama triangle: An attempt to resurrect a neglected pathogenic model in family therapy theory and practice. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 37(1), 1-11.

McDowell, C. P. (1975). Victims, persecutors and rescuers: A challenge to police performance. Journal of Police Science & Administration.

Taibbi, R. (2011). The Relationship Triangle. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fixing-families/201106/the-relationship-triangle

Zerin, M. (1988). An application of the drama triangle to family therapy. Transactional Analysis Journal, 18(2), 94-101.