Drama Triangle R&N V1

Nadine: [00:00:00] You are listening to this Won't Fix you. I'm your host, Nadine Pittam. And this show is a curation of interesting models, metaphors, and images discovered or manifested through my work as an accredited psychotherapist. You can expect to hear nifty ideas, clever language, and thought provoking ways of looking at life.

Nadine: Each episode, you'll get one of two alternating perspectives. First, a conversation which introduces and discusses the theory or idea, and we call this the A side. And then the B side, which, while not therapy, is a deeper exploration. of that theory or idea from a more therapeutic standpoint.

Nadine: Hello everybody, and today we are talking about the drama triangle, which is a really sort of fundamentally basic bit of [00:01:00] theory for psychotherapy. It was invented or maybe rather identified in the 1960s by a man called Stephen Cartman. So some people also call it the Cartman triangle. And before I get into the details of it, let me introduce my co host for the day.

Nadine: We've got Richard Chadwick. Hi Richard. Hello Nadine. Richard is a person centered therapist who works in Greater Manchester, the North West, generally. Um, he works online, so wherever you are in the country, you can have access to, to Richard's work. And you can find him on all the directories, but we'll come back to that, uh, at the end of the show.

Nadine: Um, so Richard Drama Triangle. Yeah. It's everywhere, isn't it? 

Richard: It's everywhere, and I was thinking about it. It's a bit like, you know, if you buy a green Mini, Not that I've ever bought a green mini, but if you buy a green mini and then you suddenly see green minis everywhere, it's like that, isn't it? It's like, once you know about it, you kind of can't unlearn it.

Nadine: That's super. [00:02:00] And actually, uh, that's perhaps going to be of use to people listening as well, isn't it? Because once, once you've heard this episode, once you know this bit of theory, you won't be able to watch a soap opera. You won't be able to listen to a fairy tale. You won't be able to have a conversation with your least favorite relatives without realizing and noticing how this plays out.

Richard: Absolutely. Yeah. In so many different areas of life, like you said, fiction and nonfiction as well. 

Nadine: Hopefully we'll come into that later on. I read a statistic that 80 percent of human relationships or at least 80 percent of human relating can be attributed or placed onto the drama triangle or overlaid on the drama triangle, which is terrifying.

Nadine: I suppose I should introduce what it is before we go any further. So what I want everybody to do is picture an an equilateral triangle. Is that, are you a mathematician, Richard? It is an equilateral triangle. 

Richard: Certainly not. Okay. No, but I get the concept of a triangle. 

Nadine: [00:03:00] Okay. We've got an equilateral triangle with the three points and Cartman identified that in ineffective, dysfunctional ways of relating, that one person will occupy the persecutor role, one person will occupy the victim role, and one person will occupy the rescuer role.

Nadine: And they're not rigid roles. People move around in every sentence. People can move around in a conversation. People can move around unlimited number of times. And they also, am I right? Richard suggested that we can be on the drama triangle in ourselves, that we can be persecutor, victim and rescuer or all.

Nadine: In our own head. 

Richard: Yes. You and you, like you rightly said, you can move between, you can move between the three of them, can't you? 

Nadine: Hmm. In your own head too. Yeah. So you're in your own head too. Yeah. Constantly changing. So let's go into a little bit more detail. Um, do you [00:04:00] have a particular favorite, Richard, on the, on the drama triangle?

Richard: I do actually. It's the rescuer and I, I think. The reason I've mentioned The Rescuer is because it's, it's the, it sounds like the most complicated one in that you get the idea of a persecutor, you get the idea of a victim, very clear cut. But The Rescuer is quite intriguing because initially you think, oh, that's a really helpful role.

Richard: Why would you not want to be The Rescuer? But actually, when you learn more about it, It's not as positive as it first seems. So that kind of draws me to it. Yeah, none of them are, but, but you have to kind of unpick the rescuer role to uncover that. 

Nadine: Okay. Well, let's start with the rescuer then. Uh, so the rescuer is the person who saves vulnerable people, but they do it without the vulnerable person's consent.

Nadine: I said the vulnerable person is actually the victim that they're saving, isn't it? And they save them without consent. Uh, and it, it comes from. A need to feel [00:05:00] needed. And we get our validation if we are rescuers and I too ping to the rescuer spot on the triangle. That's one of my favourite little places.

Nadine: I wonder if all counsellors perhaps in stressful situations and our validation as human beings and relationally comes from our selfless devotion to the other people, predominantly the victim in the situation. Does that description kind of resonate with you, Richard? Is there anything Else that you'd like to say?

Richard: I, I think I, I agree in terms of outta the three, that's the one that seems to fit most with the idea of being a counselor. But of course, you know, we're not rescuers and we're not supposed to be rescuers. But that, well, for me, speaking personally, I think that's, that's the role that I would have to fight against to some degree in a counseling situation.

Richard: Mm-hmm . And challenge, challenge myself on, you know, to give an example. I had a client [00:06:00] who was in a abusive relationship and he was very much the victim and the, you know, his partner was the perpetrator in the way he was portraying it. And I felt this urge to be a rescuer. But of course, didn't want to be because I couldn't be as a counsellor.

Richard: But there was that kind of slight pull towards that role, if you see what I mean. 

Nadine: Yeah, you feel that in, in the relationship. We will all feel pulled to, to ping towards that role. Yeah, and I think that's probably 

Richard: quite common for counsellors. 

Nadine: So you mentioned the victim and this client that you mentioned was the victim, which is if we explain a little bit more, that the victim is often, uh, say overwhelmed by their own vulnerability.

Nadine: They've never kind of found a way to have agency or to resolve their own situations, to take power, not power over people, but to just take power for their own lives, for the responsibility for their own life. It's like life [00:07:00] happens to the victim. I find victims. Really, really difficult to be around in my personal life.

Nadine: Definitely because I find that kind of helplessness really frustrating and I could easily ping to persecutor if I'm, if I encounter a victim in my personal life, if I encounter one in the counseling room, I too would be pulled towards being a rescuer and have to kind of be aware of that draw. 

Richard: Yeah, I can, I can, I can see how that can happen.

Richard: And like you said, the victim, you know, if we're going off the drama triangle, the victim is quite powerless and helpless and almost falls back on that, falls back on that role. 

Nadine: Yeah. Falls back on it is, and they do fall back a lot, don't they? The victims. Okay. So persecutor, this is the person who has to prove themselves right all the and they dismiss other people, other people's.

Nadine: thoughts, feelings, perspectives, and they do that [00:08:00] in order to protect or defend themselves against feelings of insignificance. So the persecutor is, is the aggressor. They're very, it is often a very aggressive role that they take. Again, any, any comments there, Richard? 

Richard: Um, well, I think it's, it's quite, it feels like quite a binary role.

Richard: Like I said earlier, rescue is probably, feels like the most nuanced, you know, you've got your persecutor and you've got your victim. And you mentioned right at the start about how this is seen in, in, um, storytelling. So in the story of Red Riding Hood, you might have the, um, wolf who is the persecutor and, um, Red Riding Hood is the victim and then the woodcutter would be the rescuer.

Richard: So I think, I think it's almost an obvious. role to pick out the persecutor one. But then I think, you know, modern life examples, and you mentioned as well about, you can be One person could be all three. 

Nadine: And I think politicians as well, [00:09:00] politicians can also, uh, fall into these categories, can't they?

Nadine: Particularly politicians who perhaps are, uh, are less thoughtful. 

Richard: Politicians can fit into all three roles. Yes, there can be a persecutor, they can be a victim and they can be a rescuer. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, persecutor in, you know, if they target one group in society, for example, migrants. They can be a persecutor.

Richard: Uh, they can be a victim, for example, if they think that they, uh, the victim of fake news, uh, and there could be a rescuer as well, you know, I will save you, I will, I will save you, um, and I will save the country. So I think in a politician, you can see all three roles. Yeah, sure. 

Nadine: And all of it is to avoid feeling things, basically.

Nadine: It's all to avoid feeling pain, feeling trauma. That's why we ping onto the drama triangle is because there is something that is too overwhelming. Our [00:10:00] insignificance, if we're the persecutor, our insignificance is too overwhelming, or our lack of control is too overwhelming, or the feelings of neglect and abandonment are too overwhelming, and so we need to rescue other people in order to feel needed and worthy.

Nadine: It's those feelings that playing those roles is kind of saving us from, isn't it? 

Richard: Yes, and similarly there with the rescuer role. Um, you know, there, there is a theory that that, that the rescuer wants to help people all the time because they want to make themselves feel more adequate because they have feelings of inadequacy and therefore by being a rescuer that will kind of overcome that.

Richard: But of course, I think at the heart of all these roles is a sense of their needs being met at some point. You know, and this can apply to all of us. Perhaps in childhood we had unmet needs and that therefore we, like, like a lot of people played out these different roles. Um, so yeah, I think, I think it's interesting to [00:11:00] kind of look at what is the need behind the role.

Nadine: Oh, that seems, I kind of want to push you a bit further on that. What do you mean? What is the need behind the role? 

Richard: Because it's all, you know, my understanding is that this comes from transactional analysis. So it's all role playing. It's the games that people play, isn't it? And. And therefore, what seems like on the surface to be the role, has a kind of hidden, perhaps subconscious intention behind it.

Richard: You know, it might be like said that the rescuer feels that they want to feel more worthy and therefore they rescue people, but then you have to look at what is the unmet need there, but the persecutor might feel better by bullying people. I think bullying is a good example of a 

persecutor. 

Richard: Why does somebody bully somebody?

Richard: You know, there's some, some need behind that. And then the victim is relying on the fact that they're not taking responsibility for their own situation. So I think, I [00:12:00] think all of them. There is, there is, there are things going on behind the scenes that could be looked at, that could be explored to explain their behaviour, because, because essentially, I think you've already said this, they are not helpful roles, they're, they're roles to be avoided, but the roles that we can all fall into.

Richard: I guess the question is, why are we falling into that particular role? What is it doing for us? 

Nadine: Exactly, that it's serving us in some way to, yeah, yeah, to absolve ourselves of all responsibility in the victim role. That's serving us in some ways. And even though on the surface from the outside, it looks ridiculous prospect, but of course it's not.

Nadine: And let's come back to that. I like that. How to heal from the unmet needs 

and 

Nadine: what that might look like, how we can get off the drama triangle. I've made a note of that. Let's come back at the end. Cause I think that that's, that's a really good place to kind of conclude. Really what I'd like to do is explore a little bit more.

Nadine: Maybe using more examples. You've given a fantastic example of a [00:13:00] very famous fairy tale, the Little Red Riding Hood and, uh, the notion of, of politicians, some well known politicians potentially falling into that, into that category. But the Little Red Riding Hood, I thought was a great example because. In our society, we, we absolutely love a rescuer.

Nadine: We, all our films are about, not all, of course, not all. Many of our films are about the hero and the hero rescues. The hero saves the day. They literally save the world in so many of our stories. And in so doing often become the persecutor. They ping around, don't they? Like the. the woodcutter does, because he turns the wolf into the victim.

Richard: Absolutely. Yeah. And you can see it in, you can see it in other films as well. Batman, for example, um, you've got Batman who is obviously the rescuer and arguably the victim is the city of Gotham and the persecutor is the Joker. 

Nadine: And it doesn't have to be an [00:14:00] individual victim. You're saying that the victim is Gotham, that everybody is.

Nadine: And that, I love the fact that you brought up Batman because of, of, uh, I've just recently seen Joker. Oh yeah. Part one and part two. I saw part one when it first came out years ago, but I watched it again in advance of the second film coming out. And by the time our podcast here, by the time this airs for everybody, then the joke will be old news.

Nadine: But, but certainly the. Joaquin Phoenix character, Joker, what's he called? Arthur. It's Arthur. Arthur Fleck, because he's just, he's just a Fleck. He's just nothing. And he starts the film as a victim. He is literally beaten up in the opening scene. So he, he starts the film as a victim. He remains a victim all the way through until he rescues a woman.

Nadine: on the tube, the, uh, like the Metro train, he rescues a woman and then something clicks in him and he, and he, it kind of opens up the persecutor in him and the persecutor [00:15:00] kind of then runs his life and, and, and he is constantly, the persecutor at least feels more empowered than the victim. And so he spends the rest of the film kind of, Yeah.

Nadine: Struggling to get out of, well, he can't get off the drama triangle, but he's struggling to get out of any of the roles because he's just jumping from, from victim to persecutor all the time. And having had that sort of pivotal role as rescuer in the middle that pings him out. 

Richard: Yeah. It's interesting how the, the role of the victim and the persecutor can kind of interchange, can't they?

Richard: You know, they say, and you know, it's another discussion about how much truth there is in this, but someone who's bullied perhaps goes on to bully, you know, and that will apply to some people and not to others, but there is this sense that somebody who's been a victim becomes a persecutor. And it's almost a kind of yin and yang situation, two sides of the same coin.

Richard: And I find that really, a really interesting dynamic. But then the rescuer is this, this other party, [00:16:00] who on the, on the outside looks well intentioned, but actually they have their own needs as well. Like I said before. And 

Nadine: they are, yeah, they're disempowering the victim, aren't they? Even though 

Richard: Yeah. 

Nadine: And anybody who's ever received, in inverted commas, help from somebody without, without really wanting it, unsolicited help.

Nadine: Brené Brown says that help is the sunny side of control. And so the rescuer does have a controlling role. In, in, in their operations, that's actually what they're trying to do. They're trying to, they're trying to get control. And perhaps if we all think about it, just for everybody listening, if you are thinking about people in your own life, there will be people who like that control, but they don't take it in a traditional persecutory way.

Nadine: And so it's difficult to kind of, to point a finger to it and say, that feels controlling. Can you just back off? That that's, that can be really. That can be, it's quite a subtle control. 

Richard: It's, it, it, and so, so less easy to call out. You can call out a persecutor, can't you? You can [00:17:00] call out a bully. But it's harder to call out a rescuer.

Richard: I think that makes it interesting. 

Nadine: Yes. There's a guy I'd like to talk about who I know in my personal life who, who is a rescuer and everybody thinks he's a lovely man. And he is a lovely man. He's absolutely gorgeous man, but he's really, really struggling at the moment because he's rescued somebody in his life so many times that they are now reliant on him.

Nadine: rescuing them. And now he can't stop. He doesn't know how to stop because if he stops, then he feels like he's going to be a bad person. And that people will think he's, he's then treating this person unfairly. So he's kind of, and he's caught in a trap of his own making. 

Richard: So, so therefore is the answer for a rescuer to, to not be as such, diving in and helping someone, but helping the person, the victim to feel more empowered to take control of their own lives and, and to be able to grow themselves [00:18:00] rather than having to rely on the rescuer.

Richard: Which is what, this is a situation you seem to have just painted. 

Nadine: I think that's interesting. Let's talk about that. So how the rescuer basically chooses to take themselves off the drama triangle. Um, what you're saying is that they have to give the power to the victim. That's what we're saying, that the power has to be given to the victim in order for them to still be supportive.

Nadine: So they're still channeling that part of them that wants to help, that wants to support. that cares for somebody, but they, they have to learn how to do it in a way that doesn't disempower that what you're saying? 

Richard: Yes. It's a bit like a very simple example, I guess, would be, you know, a child hasn't done the homework for school and one of the parents does it for them.

Richard: That's a rescuer role. They've just leapt in and done the homework for them. And the child learns nothing from that other than the fact they can get one of the parents to do the homework, but actually what would be, Better would be for one of the parents to show the child how to [00:19:00] do the homework, or at least to do the first step, to empower them, to encourage them, that kind of thing.

Richard: Mm-hmm. That's a simple example of it. 

Nadine: Yeah. I like that. And or or to sit and say, how can I help you? What, what is it that you need me to do? 

Richard: Yeah. What do you think? What do you think you could do to get this done? More of a coaching role. Coaching empowering. Yeah, I think, I think if I can, if I may give another example as well, somebody from somebody that I used to know who was addicted to alcohol, it was untypical of him, but I once got a text from him asking for some money, which you never used to do.

Richard: Uh, and initially the rescuer in me thought, Oh, I need to, I need to send him 10, 20 quid, whatever you wanted. But then obviously realising that when this happened more than once, it wasn't a good idea to send him [00:20:00] money. He was intending to spend that on alcohol. So I moved from the rescuer role to one that was trying to encourage and empower him, you know, as well as I could with, with, in a very limited situation.

Richard: But I think that's just an example of how rescuing isn't always a good thing. Because you can, you can almost encourage people to be in a cycle that they're already in. 

Nadine: I'm pretty sure we do enable that. That cycle, we do enable that cycle to, to continue. 

Richard: So I wonder if addiction is a good example of how the rescuer role can not be helpful.

Nadine: And let's speak a little bit then to the difficulty, the real challenge of, and in that situation there, and particularly if I imagine if it's a parent with an alcoholic child as well, I think I'm saying child, you know, grown up child, one would hope, but, um, a child nonetheless, and that, or any addiction that if we love somebody.

Nadine: Who has an addiction, how hard it is to draw that boundary [00:21:00] and say, no, I'm not going to do that thing. I'm not going to lend that money. 

Richard: Yes. Yeah. Uh, yeah. And you, and you hear of families that were so torn by that, you know, not, not being able to, you know, rescue whoever it is because they've just done it so many times before that they just realize it's a road to nowhere.

Richard: And what springs to my mind right now is that idea of tough love, you hear that, don't you? Tough love. But what a, what a challenging position for anybody to be in. But I think, bringing it back to the drama triangle, it just kind of typifies the rescuer role, and why that is not always helpful, if it keeps somebody in a cycle.

Nadine: And so what does keep them there, I imagine, and you clearly have your own experiences here too, is that I imagine that the rescuer who, who has enabled, who has rescued and done for another person so many times, that as soon as they stop doing that, Even if they're sort of stepping [00:22:00] down their support, that's going to generate a reaction in the victim because the victim, as we know, could easily ping to persecutor.

Nadine: So if the rescuer suddenly says, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to lend that money. I'm not going to allow you to do that thing anymore that is ruining our family. I'm not going to allow that anymore. I mean, that's huge. So the victim then pings to persecutor and then the rescuer is getting aggression in a way that they cannot bear because for the rescuer, the most important thing is those is sustaining those relationships and just helping and smoothing and calming everything down.

Nadine: And so if then the victim pings to persecutor, the rescuer will feel terrible and it's a perfect, perfect, perfect dynamic to really, really rip apart. The feeling that the rescuers got in the heart is like, 

Richard: no, I'm a good person. I'm a good person. Yes. I think it's, there's, there's a massive dichotomy, isn't there?

Richard: It's like, how, how can this person continue to like me versus what do I [00:23:00] do that is for the best? And I think the rescuer is almost still wanting to be liked. 

Nadine: Right. So you're saying that that's one thing that the therapy can work on? 

Richard: Yes. It's like, this is not about being liked. This is about doing the right thing.

Richard: But, but the rescuer, as far as I understand the theory is serving some kind of need to be liked to, well, or to be needed, to be wanted. And if that need surpasses the other person's needs, then it's not a helpful relationship. 

Nadine: Well, maybe now is the time to look at this I feel like that is a really hard thing to do if, if, if you are a rescuer, I think it's a really hard thing to do.

Nadine: I mean, indeed, in any of the roles to step outside it, because in stepping outside, I think I mentioned it earlier, we have to, we have to face pain somewhere along the line. Most of the time in therapy, in order to get to the truth [00:24:00] of something, we have to face something that we've not faced before. And so the rescuer has come to make themselves feel needed by rescuing everybody else, by removing need of all kind in everybody else and making sure that they are, yeah, somebody's first port of call.

Nadine: I can help. Elevates a sense of self. And so what that person has to do, I imagine, and certainly in my experience of working with people who they don't necessarily identify as a rescuer, but whose tendency would be to ping to that place, the work that we have to do is to look at. why they generated that role in the first place.

Nadine: And that works for rescuer, victim or persecutor that they had to, they had to become a rescuer at some point because they felt so insignificant. 

Richard: Yeah, I can relate to it personally. You know, I can see how I would try to, um, become that role, you know, and I've referred to it earlier, didn't I? When I [00:25:00] felt the need to try and.

Richard: Um, rescue a client, but of course, of course we don't do that, but I can, I can see, I can, I can appreciate the pull of it. 

And 

Richard: what it does for somebody who is rescuing. 

Nadine: And maybe it's a sensitive person as well, who becomes a rescuer. Because if I speak from my experience, there was a drama triangle that I grew up with between me, my dad and my gran, his mother.

Nadine: Uh, and, and my dad was often the persecutor often, often, not always. My gran was often the victim. And I was sitting in the middle going, can we all just be friends? Can we not all just, and trying to listen to everybody and trying to calm the whole situation down. It's like I was the communications department for the family.

Nadine: And if I failed. Then I felt like I had failed as a person. And I remember when I was doing my counseling training and kind of learning about the drama triangle, and then suddenly, like you said, [00:26:00] right at the beginning, suddenly seeing it clear as day, Oh my Lord, this has been playing out for years without me knowing it.

Nadine: And so. Next time I was with them, and it was just the three of us, I could see it. It was happening. I could see my gran drifting into victim. Nobody loves me. Nobody comes for long enough. You don't stay as long as you should do. And my dad going, Oh, stop being so whingy, rah, rah, rah. And me feeling that pull to rescue.

Nadine: And I thought, Oh, I wonder what would happen. If I moved to one of the other roles, let's just see. And I did. And I played the victim and I said, it's just not fair though, because I've got, I'm the only one of the three of us who's working full time. I'm the only one who, and I was sort of laying it on thick.

Nadine: bit of a pantomime really, but immediately, immediately the other two jumped roles. I can't remember how it happened, but it was like, I was a little bit, yeah, really powerful that simply by, you know, moving along that drama triangle to a different [00:27:00] I could essentially manipulate or engineer the conversation to go in a completely different direction.

Nadine: Obviously I didn't do that because I don't want to do that because I love my dad. I love my gran. 

So 

Nadine: I didn't want to, I didn't want to do that, but it was a bit of an experiment that blew my mind. It took minutes. It was, it was a five minute little experiment, but it was shockingly true in how it played.

Richard: How did their roles change them? 

Nadine: I think, I think Gran went to rescue her. I think that's what happened. I think dad actually stayed as persecutor. I think she went to rescue her and said, oh, I'm so sorry. I've probably done it all wrong. You're absolutely right. You do so much for me. And she was rescuing me from an inver as my own feelings, which were manufactured.

Nadine: I'd played them up, like I said, like some ham actor, I'd done a super job and managed to convince her. So I, I can't, I can't quite remember what my dad did, but I definitely remember Grant, one of them pinging immediately to. to rescue her. 

Richard: That's interesting. And so that was [00:28:00] very much the drama triangle in action that you saw it firsthand in that exchange here.

Nadine: And yeah, maybe for, for those listening to, it'd be really interesting for you to, to see if you, if you can identify this dynamic in your own life, that, that is there a way that you could just play with it just, just once, just for a few moments, just to see, is it, is this what's playing out at the moment?

Nadine: And if you move, what happens to the other people? And bear in mind, like Richard and I have both said, there is no role here that's kind of healthy. There's no role here that is good or better than the others, even though we might feel the rescuer. Kind of has some sort of virtue. None of these roles are, are, are especially positive.

Nadine: They are all defences against pain. 

Richard: And that being the case then, the only way to move forward with it then I guess is to step out of the particular role that you're playing. Once you're aware of it, you can step out of it then. 

Nadine: Yeah. Yeah. Which I, [00:29:00] I think genuinely that was the last time I ever played the game.

Nadine: Wow. You know, moved around with those two people. I think, I'm sure that I still pinged to it in other situations, but I became so aware of it that. It was so much easier to not fall into it. And it did mean that I had to, you know, kind of allow my grand to talk herself out of her victim role. You know, she was sort of stuck in it and I had to allow her to be there and, and, and challenge her to tell me what it was that she needed.

Nadine: If you're not happy, then tell me, you know, what would make you happy? What time do you want me to come? And what time do you want me to leave? Give me some clear boundaries. And, and yeah, she didn't want that. She just wanted to, to feel like she was badly done too. 

Richard: Okay. So a question then I realize I'm currently asking more questions than I'm answering, but, um, a question then, is it about better communication?

Richard: Is that how we lift ourselves out of these roles is we communicate better? 

Nadine: I [00:30:00] think first of all, we've got to notice that we're caught in it. That's what I think we have to notice. Yeah. That we're caught in that, in that role. Um, I think we have to notice that we're doing that. And then I think we have to be brave enough to look at what, what's in the way of us being, cause maybe now would be a good time to introduce what is also known as the empowerment dynamic, which is the kind of the antithesis of the drama triangle, which is the power that each of the three parts.

Nadine: Could have, if we weren't rescuing them, we could be coaching people. We could be supporting in a very different way. If we weren't persecuting people, then we could be challenging them and arguably helping them develop and grow. and look at their areas of weakness or flaws. And we can do that from a position of challenging them, but without necessarily persecuting them.

Nadine: And the victim can become vulnerable or potentially the creator of their own kind of escape route. 

Richard: The [00:31:00] victim can recognize that they do have some power. They're not powerless. They're not helpless. They do have, they do have some stake in the game. 

Nadine: Yeah. And so I think what they have to do, I think what we all have to do, what I had to do, what you will have to do, um, not, not you, Richard, although maybe, but also people listening who, for whom this resonates is.

Nadine: is, is to look then at the real thing. So if we take someone who's very good at persecuting, somebody who's potentially pings quite happily to being aggressive with somebody else, maybe you have to look at the moments in your life where you did feel so insignificant, where you felt so overpowered or like.

Nadine: Maybe bullied, like you say yourself and not necessarily directly bullied, but maybe there was something about your socioeconomic status that meant that your, your class was bullied in your school environment and that felt like an inescapable [00:32:00] trap, or maybe you had neglectful parents or aggressive parents.

Nadine: And then you were moved to another family or your grandparents, and they were aggressive too. And so the way that you learn to survive was through a kind of a feisty fighting. Maybe that was the kind of language that you grew up in. And so you've got to look at all of that. You have to look at all of that and then you've got to, and this is the hard bit, we've got to feel it.

Nadine: We've got to feel the impact of all of those relationships and those experiences in school or those experiences with our parents or our grandparents or wherever it was that we learned those feelings of insignificance. We then have to go back to those and we have to feel them truthfully actually for what they were and then we can somehow be a bit more in touch with our own vulnerability.

Richard: Ah, you've hit on it there haven't you, the vulnerability of it, and it's that vulnerability that makes people act in a certain way, so it almost feels like a bit of a defence mechanism then to be a [00:33:00] persecutor, or a rescuer, or a victim, it's a kind of defence mechanism. Does that sound like the right term to use?

Nadine: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it just keeps everything painful at bay, doesn't it? 

Richard: Yeah. A comfort zone in a way. Hmm. 

Nadine: Yeah. And we see it in soap operas all the time, don't we? We can. Um, I don't follow soap operas, but maybe my listener doesn't follow soap operas actually either. But, uh, it's, it, we do have these tropes in our society, and, and we do, we perpetuate them so much that it's difficult to see that there's another way.

Nadine: There was one program called, oh, it's that, 

Richard: oh, on Un Unforgotten. 

Nadine: Yeah, UN unforgotten. That's absolutely it. And I believe that when they were making that series, they said, we're going to make the first cop drama that doesn't, that doesn't have ego, 

that doesn't 

Nadine: have anybody in that persecutor rescue a victim roles that they, and they do, they speak to each other [00:34:00] with such respect.

Nadine: It's such a beautiful dialogue that the writers have crafted because they're deliberately trying to not play into these kind of easy drama, kind of. roles that, I mean, they're just cheap, they're just cheap telly, aren't they? Just have, and it happens all the time in soaps because they have to churn out so many.

Nadine: So they just, yeah, send people off into these roles because it creates good drama. Cause that's the other thing, isn't it? Is that when it's each time somebody moves around the triangle, each time somebody moves around the triangle, each movement increases the drama, increases the level of tension. 

Richard: And it's a narrative, like you said about soap operas, it's a narrative device then, isn't it, used by storytellers.

Richard: Because it increases tension, it's a way of creating tension, which is great for drama. Great for drama. Not so much for real life. 

Nadine: Not 

Richard: so much for 

Nadine: real life. [00:35:00] 

Richard: We create dramas of our own, don't we? 

Nadine: Yeah, good lord, please no. Stop. 

Richard: Yeah, it is fascinating. The more you dig into it, I think the more interesting it gets.

Richard: Just because it is replicated. It's a pattern that's replicated so often throughout our culture. Yes, it is. I mean, I think it's important talking as therapists, how we, how we help people. Get out of that, but you've addressed that because you've talked about people getting in touch with the true feelings or the feeling behind the role.

Richard: So I think essentially it's about empowerment, empowerment, isn't it? Empowering people to have more insight into their life and more control over their life and therefore avoid these roles. Because there's always a different way to do things. As you said, you don't have to be a persecutor. You don't have to be a victim.

Richard: You don't have to be a rescuer. There is another way. 

So I 

Richard: think, I think in a therapy room, it's about empowerment, isn't it? And insight. [00:36:00] 

Nadine: Because when you're faced with a therapist, faced with, that sounds aggressive. Because when you're in, when you're in the company of a therapist, the therapist, as you and I have both said, we are trying really hard to not be any of those roles.

Nadine: We're trying to be authentic and true. And so, because we refuse to, in inverted commas, play. Then what we can do is we challenge the other person to see this dynamic, arguably educating them as well and telling people what the drama triangle is, and then allowing the other person to see. How they, how they fall on it.

Nadine: Hold up the mirror. Yeah. And because, and that's the other thing, isn't it? That if, if it, it is because it permeates our culture in so many different media forms, that actually it's unusual. People don't have relationships. We can easily have reached adulthood and not have actually had a relationship with anybody.

Nadine: And I don't mean intimate relationship. I mean, we can have not had conversations with people that, that are [00:37:00] healthy, that are not maladaptive. 

Richard: Yes. I find it very hard to kind of pin down the times when I've been in the drama triangle, but I know I have. Because it is so familiar, but it's sometimes quite difficult to pin down which, which role you were.

Richard: But I think, I think the joy of therapy is that it would help you to do that, you know, because you're actually slowing down, your experience out here and having time to reflect on, on the role that you did play. 

Nadine: Yeah. So you've, and you've got somebody honest there who's, who's arguably. Got the capacity and the strength to be able to say, well, it feels like you're relinquishing responsibility there.

Nadine: And you know, do you, do you feel like that there is some victim kind of behavior coming out in you? That you are trying to relinquish responsibility, you are trying to not engage here and, and a therapist is able to see. see the role of perhaps a little bit more [00:38:00] omnipotently and see the movement. Yeah, see 

Richard: the dance that's taking place.

Richard: The dance, of course. Yeah, the dance. And if this were to be a drama square, not a drama triangle, would the fourth role then be the challenger? And that's the therapist who's challenging the other three. 

Nadine: Well, that's the interesting thing, isn't it? Because there is a fourth, there is a drama triangle with a fourth And it's the bystander, isn't it?

Nadine: Okay. So, but the bystander does nothing. The bystander just watches. Right. So the, I think the empowerment dynamic would be, we, that we would be bringing the therapist in as an observer to identify all that rather than the bystander who is kind of almost rubbing their hands together with glee at the way the drama is unfolding in front of them.

Nadine: An audience is a bystander. Yeah, essentially. Yes. Yeah. The audience getting, getting more from the drama and the dysfunction of it then, then arguably then they should. So can we talk, 

Richard: oh, sorry, go on. I was gonna say perhaps then we can [00:39:00] replace the bystander with, with being a, a helpful challenger and facilitator 

Nadine: Yeah.

Nadine: To watch what's going on and be able to point out when we're slipping around all those roles. Mm, absolutely.

Nadine: So Richard, I think I've covered everything on my list. Uh, is there anything else that you'd like to say? 

Richard: Now I'm going to go watch the police drama now and just see what drama triangles is playing out. 

Nadine: Oh, and watch Joker. It's such a phenomenal film. And I found the second one more challenging, but the first one I thought was Was, yeah, it was an exquisite presentation of the drama triangle.

Nadine: I didn't watch it for that reason, but there it is. Uh, Richard, it's been an absolute pleasure. Where can people find you then? If they, if they're interested in you and your style, where can they find you? 

Richard: So I'm on the BACP website. It's Richard Chadwick. I'm also on Psychology Today, and, um, because I.[00:40:00] 

Richard: support the LGBT community. I'm also a member of the pink therapy directory as well. So that's a third place that people can look out for me if they wish. 

Nadine: Excellent. Well, thanks ever so much for talking to me. This has been fantastic. Thank you. 

Richard: I've really enjoyed it. Thank you. 

Nadine: Super.

Nadine: Thanks for being with us this episode. The B side, which takes one aspect of this episode and digs a little deeper into how that might be explored in the therapy room, will drop very soon. In the meantime, if you'd like to have more of our conversations and metaphorical excavations, it would be grand for you and grand for us if you would subscribe to the podcast or share a favourite episode with a friend.