Thought experiment with Karpman's Drama Triangle

Introduction to a new series

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Dear Readers,

I have been writing about power struggles that shows up in every type of relationship that prompted me to do a thought experiment with you. I use Karpman’s Drama Triangle to illustrate the different roles that any of us can play in interactions that maintain power imbalances and struggles.

Here it is again in case you haven’t seen it:

Here is my breakdown of Karpman’s Drama Triad:

I’ve discussed this framework in the context of helping or coaching others, dealing with our own reactions to people’s behaviour, explaining another’s reactivity, Social Injustice Warriors, how to break out of the cycle of reactivity and disappointing interactions.

I also mentioned in my recent article on Saviour burnout that I will be releasing a new series aimed at enhancing critical thinking, reflection and self-regulation skills. The goal is to reduce your risk of triggered outrage, cynicism and emotional exhaustion while improving your quality of interactions with others in person and online.

Why bother?

It fits with my overarching goal to alleviate suffering caused by disconnected, dehumanising, demoralising, depersonalised interactions and relationships compounded by the influences in our social, professional and cultural contexts that reinforce poor quality relationships.

What are these influences?

Workplace conditions, financial stresses, normalised toxic behaviours in family/friends group/community, exposure to traumatic experiences, political instability, health issues, barriers to accessing necessary resources, discrimination, systems of supremacy, changes in life circumstances and the list goes on. These compound and add to your mental and emotional load, compromising your ability to relate and behave with integrity when stress is high.

I’ve witnessed (and continue to witness) lasting shifts in attitude, mindsets, decision-making, reflective capacity and prosocial behaviour as a result of the framework and tools I share in this new series.

The framework and tools I will share in this online series-course was trialled to establish proof of concept with 70 medical and health-affiliated professionals a few years ago as part of a tech-assisted coaching startup. I’m now making this broadly available to navigate and combat:

• reactivity and outrage

• interpersonal aggression

• moral and ethical dilemmas

• activism and Saviour burnout

• trusting poor quality information sources

• problematic cognitive and unconscious biases

• hopelessness, powerlessness, learned helplessness

My skills lie in helping people translate theory into practice to bridge the know-do gap to improve relating, interpersonal communication and behaviour while exposing hidden biases, narratives, beliefs and other barriers to bridging that gap.

The Thinker on the verge of realising that he continues to affirm his own biases and that’s why he’s stuck. Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Without examining our actions through discovering the perceptions, assumptions, biases, interpretations — constructs — that feed our beliefs, we might living quite incongruently with our values and expressing this incongruence in our interactions with others. The first step is gaining self-awareness of our constructs that drive reactions to information and events.

Let’s get started!

Thought Experiment

My news feed has been filled with updates on two events: attempted mutiny against Putin in Russia and the implosion of the Titan submersible, killing its CEO and several others on board.

Tragedies occur every day but very few are deemed newsworthy enough to capture headlines and our attention. But this is a topic for another day.

Spectators of world events have things to say. They assert preferred explanations of the cause while pointing to the Perpetrator with a degree of confidence and certainty. This tweet is one such example.

Here’s the entire thread if you’re interested. Please check it out AFTER the thought experiment to minimise influences on your current thinking.

Here are a few points to consider:

• You view information and events through your own unique lens.

• You interpret the same information and events in different ways to another.

• You prioritise values that reflect what matters to you. These values influence your interpretation of information and events.

• You will do what you think is best and want to believe you’re doing what’s right for you and others who rely on you.

• Your initial reaction to information and events involve identifying the Persecutor and the Victim (as I described about the framework above) to work out what happened and how to respond. This can make you or someone (or something) else the Saviour (Rescuer).

If these points are true, here are some questions to you to discuss below:

Discuss below

1. According to the author in the tweet above, please identify who or what is the Persecutor, Victim and Rescuer. Share the first thought that pops into your awareness and stop yourself from going into an analysis.

2. How did you arrive at this interpretation?

3. Based on the knowledge you already have about this event, who or what is the Perpetrator, the Victim and the Rescuer? What values, beliefs or rules informed your interpretation?

I’m curious to see the diversity and overlap of interpretations as well as challenges to to using this framework to view this event.

Thanks for playing!

Thanks for reading, sharing, stacking, subscribing and discussing this piece,

Nathalie Martinek, PhD

The Narcissism Hacker

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I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.

While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting, overriding and deprogramming our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.

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