Hello and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal. What's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve? Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without having it blow up in your face?

Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now let's dive in. 

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. Today, I wanted to dive more into the drama triangle. Now, we touched on this a little bit in the last episode, and it just got me thinking that I just really wanted to dive more into what is actually happening within a drama triangle. I just want to give you some more examples and really flesh this out a little bit more.

So let's start off with, well, what exactly is the drama triangle? So it's basically a psychological and social model that reveals the unconscious roles that people play during conflicts.  It was developed by Dr. Steven Cartman in the 1960s.  And these roles that happen within the drama triangle, they are the victim role, the persecutor, and the rescuer.

Understanding this dynamic is crucial for personal growth and healthier relationships because it sheds light on how easily one can get trapped in destructive patterns of interaction.  So let's start off with the victim role. I always think that's a nice, easy one to start off with, because it's a place where a lot of us have been into.

Specifically, a lot of my clients will come in and really feel like they're the victim in their situations, which I understand. And this isn't a way to dismiss the victim. But this is what ends up happening in the drama triangle. So the victim's stance is usually one that's coming from a poor me. Things keep happening to me.

They feel oppressed, helpless, hopeless, powerless, and ashamed. They see life as a series of challenges that they're unable to overcome. To the victims, life keeps happening to them instead of them being able to live their life. So victims believe that they lack the ability to change their circumstances, and they often seek someone to just come in and rescue them.

They love being rescued,  and this helps alleviate their suffering. So for an example, consider someone at work named Alex, and he feels very stuck in his job. He's overwhelmed by his tasks, and he's feeling underappreciated by his boss. His boss is just making him do all of these things, and he doesn't really get any joy and excitement out of it. 

So, instead of seeking solutions, right, what else could he be doing? He could be talking to his boss or voicing his concerns, maybe with HR or with someone else. Instead, what he does is he complains to his colleagues. He's starting to foster an atmosphere of negativity without taking action to improve his situation.

Can you see how this is happening here? The victim is stuck in this victim mode where they're constantly blaming everything else around them.  But then, let's talk about the persecutor role. The role that's putting the victim in their place. The persecutor is the one who insists it's all your fault. They adopt this position of blame and criticism and control Often masking feelings of inadequacy or vulnerability.

So someone who's doing this, they maybe they are just an asshole. I don't know. But also a lot of times it's just because they have their own woundy going on. And so they're coming out and masking a lot of these inadequate feelings.  The persecutor can be a person. But the interesting part is it can also be a condition like a health issue or a situation like at work, or maybe even a financial crisis  and that financial crisis or that work issue.

It's causing a lot of stress. So this is also the persecutor. See how it's not always a person. So if you're feeling like you're the victim and a drama triangle, but it doesn't really make sense to you because. You don't have a person that is the persecutor,  but let's say you're blaming your health issue, or you're blaming your financial situation.

That's the same thing. So let's do a totally different example here. Let's say Jamie, she's a project manager. She frequently criticizes her team members for their incompetence, or I guess what she would consider their incompetence. And she believes that maintaining high standards requires a strict approach.

But unaware that her behavior is creating this fear and resentment, and it's undermining the team. They're losing their lack of cohesion and their productivity. So in this, she would be in the persecutor mode. Let's look back at the previous example of Alex. In Alex's story, who would the persecutor be?

That's right. It would have been his boss. Alex is the victim and his boss is the persecutor. And in this new story, we see that Jamie, she is the persecutor and her employees, if they don't go to her with their issues, if they're complaining to one another, or they're starting rumors at work, what would they be?

They would be going into the victim mode. Do you see how this is working? So now, I think a lot of people understand the victim and the persecutor, and a lot of people, they see, okay, well, in conflict, it's just those two people. It's just the person who has been wronged and the person who is doing the wronging. 

But, within the drama triangle, there is one more role that plays a critical aspect to this, and that is the rescuer. The rescuer is a really important part of the drama triangle. And because the rescuers motto is, let me help you, rescuers seek to assist without being asked whatsoever. So they're helping, but nobody asked them to.

They believe that they know what's best for the victim. But see, this unrequested intervention, it actually prevents the victim from becoming empowered, and it fosters a sense of codependency.  Rescuers, in addition to coming in and helping when they're not asked,  also neglecting their own needs. And might use helping someone else as a strategy to seek validation. 

So as a coach, what I see happen is a lot of times an anxiously attached person will actually take on the role of the rescuer. And there's two reasons why this might be happening. One, they get the validation. Anxiously attached folks really, really love validation. And again, as a need validation, there's no problem with loving things like validation and vanity and all of these other needs that often get a bad rap.

But when they happen in these unhealthy ways, that's when it kind of can become a problem. So here the rescuers come in and then they help. So they get all of this greatness and all of this validation. Wow. You're amazing. Thank you so much. You saved me. And they really need that. And the other thing that I see with anxiously attached folks is that they actually come in as a rescuer in order to kind of create this  codependency.

Now, I'm not saying this has happened on a conscious level. I don't think anyone is actively coming in and saving someone and thinking, great, now I have them in mesh to me. But this can happen a lot because of the insecurities going on within the anxiously attached person. They come in and they save and they get the other person to see that, hey, you need me because if you need me, you won't leave me.

Do you see how that works? That's how we begin codependency.  We can also see this a lot within a parental situation. So let's say a mom swoops in and keeps saving their child from, let's say, the teacher. So now there's this dependency that's happening, and the victim, or the child in this situation, is not able to stand in their own power and fix it.

And instead, they start to become dependent on the rescuer. And so again, this creates a codependency. It creates enmeshment. Well, the victim They want this. That's why this is so hard to break. The victim wants someone to come in, swoop in, and take care of them. The victim needs this. They want this. The rescuer wants this.

They need it. So naturally, these two are attached to one another. But what's the consequence of having this happen? It means the victim stays in victim mode and the rescuer is neglecting their needs. So now the rescuer starts to feel resentment and the victim doesn't understand what's going on and all of this is blowing up in all of our faces over and over and over again.

It's a lot, 

but now that I've talked about what all three roles are of the drama triangle, let's talk about breaking the cycle of this triangle, because this is what we all really want to figure out.  We want to The path out of the drama triangle and the way we get there is by recognizing these roles, understanding their functions and adopting new and healthier ways of interacting.

So this involves moving towards rules of empowerment. This is where we're going to start shifting. Out of the drama triangle roles and into more empowering roles. So instead of the victim, we become the creator. Instead of the persecutor, we become the challenger. And instead of the rescuer, we become the coach.

So let's start at the top, right? Okay. So stay with me here. So we have the victim, but how do we become the creator? Well, the creator seeks solutions. They focus on what they can control and they take responsibility for their choices.  They view challenges as opportunities for growth. Can you see the difference between the creator and the victim?

The victim is stuck in their victim's story, and they think everything is happening to them. Whereas the creator is focusing on what they can control, so life isn't happening to them. They are essentially happening to life. They are understanding that there are some things they can control, and some things they can't.

So this breaks them out of the victim role.  But how about for the persecutor? So how do we go from being the persecutor in a conflict to being the challenger? Because hey, sometimes when you're a boss, or a parent, or someone who is leading, it is hard to try to get people to listen. To do what you need them to do. 

And so sometimes you might just think, Well, I guess I have to be the bad guy. I'm gonna have to be the persecutor here. There's no other way. Because, trust me, I've been there. As a parent myself, whenever it is that I need to get my son to do something, I immediately become the persecutor. But, there's another way around this. 

See, the challenger provides honest feedback and encourages personal growth. They respect others abilities to solve their own problems and they support them in doing so. So the difference with the challenger is they're still going to challenge people on being better and they're still going to hold them to higher standards and work towards growth.

But it's gonna come out as encouragement. It comes with a growth mindset. Not like the persecutor that is just putting people down all the time. Do you see the difference? Cause I don't know about you, but I've definitely had bosses that were way more persecutors than challengers. The kind that are just like, you're not doing enough, you suck at this, why can't you just be better?

But all of this stuff Whereas I've also had bosses that have come in and challenged me and they say, Jen, wow, you're doing a great job here, but here's where we can also be stepping up in these areas. How would you like to work on that? That feels so different, doesn't it? And so then let's move on to the rescuer.

So how do we become a rescuer? a coach instead of a rescuer. I know a lot of us out there want to come in and rescue people from their situations, but I'm going to tell you right now that's not actually helping them. See, the coach supports others and they help them in finding their own solutions. They ask empowering questions and encourage self reflection.

They foster independence and personal empowerment.  Now, I love this one, obviously, because I myself am a coach, but I love that we can actually be doing this outside of an actual coaching institute. You as a friend can be a coach to anyone. So instead of coming in and rescuing your friend from their boss, ask them questions.

Get them to start reflecting on what's going on. Help them find their own solutions. Don't do it for them. That's how we break out of the rescuer role and into the coaching role. 

So now that we understand what all the roles are and what roles we can be doing instead, let's look at the practical application of all of this. See, understanding the drama triangle and its alternatives can dramatically improve how we interact with others and confront our own issues.  By recognizing when we're slipping into one of these roles, we can pause,  reflect and choose a more constructive path. 

This not only enriches our relationships, but also promotes a sense of personal agency and fulfillment.  So as we wrap up our episode today, it's important to remember that escaping the drama triangle isn't about eliminating conflict or getting rid of all of our difficult emotions. It's about approaching these challenges and healthier and more constructive ways. 

By fostering awareness and practicing new behaviors, we can transform our interactions and build stronger, more positive relationships. And that's all I ever want for all of us here. I want us to be learning how we can be having happier and more fulfilling relationships.  So if you've ever been stuck in a drama triangle, I would love to help you through it.

You can jump in our free Facebook group. The information is in our show notes, or I would love to have you on as a guest on our podcast. I'm currently looking for more guests to come on and share their story with me, and I would love to coach you through any relationship situation that you're having. If this is anything that you're interested in, please reach out to me via email or jump into the Facebook group and reach out to me there.

Again, I'm All of this information is in the show notes, and I cannot wait to hear from you until next time. Take care. 

As we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination, and it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we covered today, Be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there.

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