JW45 - The Drama Cycle (Triangle)
Understanding how we are playing life
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to Thee, O’ Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer! (My morning and evening prayer)
The Drama Cycle (Triangle) Understanding how we are playing life
[Editor's note: It might be useful to review Episodes JW14 ,15, &16, where I introduce the concepts that I will be freely referring to in this discussion.]
In the study of how people interact with each other in groups, they will tend to act in one of three ways: as a persecutor, as a victim, and as a rescuer. Generally, there are three different individuals or groups (if we are observing organizational behavior) playing these parts.
The persecutor who criticizes, blames, and generally acts to put down and minimize the target of his/her condemnations and wrath. The persecutor is the doer of the dastardly deeds on the victim
There is a victim, who is the target of the negative attention of the persecutor and who is dumping on them in one way or another. In a family, it could be a younger or smaller sibling is picked on by the older brother; in school, the playground bully; in communities, a stronger majority intimidating a minority, etc.
And coming to the rescue, the Rescuer who works to protect the Victim and attempts to deliver them from their losing state of being.
In the classical scenario, a third party, the Rescuer, comes to the aid of the victim,
Interestingly, all of these roles can be played [00:01:00] by a single person. They beat themselves up about some perceived fault, then feel terribly sad about that, and then choose to do something to feel OK again, and if that choice of feel-good activity is similar to the original fault, their internal persecutor will do a beat-up again, starting a new drama cycle. This is a typical problem for people with low self-esteem, such as most practicing addicts, who can beat themselves up at the drop of a hat, then rescue themselves by doing something to feel better, like using again and starting a new cycle of drama.
One of my all-time favorite newspaper cartoon strips illustrates how this unfolds in a family setting. See if you can pick out who is playing what role, and as the drama plays out, notice that the roles shift.
The life skill to master, here, is to become very aware when one of these Drama Triangles is playing out, either with your group of players or with you playing all the parts. Once you become aware, it will be way easier to detach your emotions and extract yourself from the.
As a certified recovered loser, whose default mode was to be a self-persecutor, I was an expert in beating myself up and then playing out the other two roles, ad infinitum.
To be aware is to be alive! I continually monitor my thinking to ensure that my self-talk stays away from drama analysis. As soon as the victim voice appears, the recovered part of me questions with, "Oh, really?" and gets me back on a positive path.
©2025, Jason Wittman, M.P.S., LAADC, CATC-IV
[Permission to reproduce this article is granted as long as this notice and the “About the Author and the copyright information are included.]
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©2025 Jason Wittman, M.P.S., LAADC, CATC-IV