Mental health is about growth, taking responsibility for how you affect others, recognizing choices, and being willing to risk mistakes. The Karpman Drama Triangle is a game played all too often in relationships. If this game defines a pattern of your relationships with others, then you have serious work to do.


Original Source © 1968 by the Transactional Analysis Bulletin.

The Purpose of The Victim, Rescuer, Persecutor Game

1. Keeps responsibility out there.
2. There is a lack of internal conflict within the individual. It's all created in others.
3. Players lack empathy, are very self absorbed in their own role of the moment.
4. Patterns of the game prevent problem solving — the drama rules.
5. Maintains bad boundaries.
6. The game provides identity and fills emptiness, because two people can jump around in all three roles to fuel the drama.

Good guy/Bad guy split thinking leads to drama. Drama obscures the real issues. People are seduced by the false excitement the drama offers — all style, no substance. Manipulation is the core of the game. It creates confusion and upset, not solutions.

Playing Victim, Rescuer has become a powerful cultural pastime. It is at the core of all the repetitious plots of soap operas. This game could be used to describe Bill, Hillary, Monica, and Ken.

Here's how it works: Let’s suppose Bill was emotionally dependent on Hillary to feel good about himself. Perhaps Hillary was persecuting him through emotional distance because she lost the national health care bill and was licking her wounds after the Arkansas State Troopers reported Bill’s philandering.

Monica enters the White House, ripe for the role of Rescuer to Victim Bill. The beauty of the game is that roles can be switched to enhance the drama.

For example, Bill could rescue Monica by finding her attractive, while Monica feels like a victim because she’s a chubby girl no one would ever love. Enter Ken Starr to play Persecutor in his own over-the-top style.

Another example could be O.J. He was accused of being the Persecutor and Nicole was the Victim. One way to look at what O.J.’s attorneys did is that they flipped him from the Persecutor role to the Victim role. Then the Jury stepped in to play the rescuer.

This game is what operates in many relationships. It is all style and no substance. It has become a lifestyle for too many people. The game provides people with their identity as Victim, Rescuer, or Persecutor. People generally favor one or two roles.

Most of us in the helping professions (nurses, teachers, counselors) all begin with favoring the Rescuer role. (So be sure to choose a therapist who’s been a client and seriously worked on issues in their own backyard. This means they’ll more clearly see who you really are instead of projecting their own issues onto you.) Rescuers get caught up in enabling. They see themselves as good and have to learn to back up. Doing too much for someone else is rationalized because "I care so much." Rescuers are often unaware that pity and disrespect are the fuel for this role. "I know what's best for you." is illustrated in the mother's role in the movie  "The Deep End." The reality is that backing up from the rescuer role means learning that indifference can be a useful tool. Wait and see if the person you’re trying to rescue steps forward for themselves or how they do it differently.

Victims can be manipulative, particularly if they are operating on a "love me no matter what" basis. Being loved no matter what is not something two honest adults should expect from each other. After the age of 18, love me no matter what should be hard to come by. Victims are trying to remain blameless. Remember an unhappy relationship is always created by two people. Blame may be distributed 60/40 or 70/30, however it always takes two. The more blaming and finger pointing someone does, the more fragile the point of view. Noise simply creates smoke and mirrors, and it is less likely that an honest reality is being addressed. Elegant truth is generally never “I am good/You are bad,” it is usually a more complicated frame of reference. “I did this part and you did this part” etc. Finding the bravery to look at your own part in creating problems can change and transform your life. If you've been loving the victim role over many years it is time to face the truth - it is a boring way of life. One key to interupting this pattern would be to relocate your imagination, to find other ways of conducting your life.

Persecutors love the power of moving people around on the chess board of life. Brad Pitt in Fight Club is an extreme example of this. Everything is win or lose, with very little ability to be a part of a team. There is a desperate need to be right at all costs and you can end up doubting yourself even about the facts of what happens.

Playing in this drama triangle ultimately leads to a very boring life. Over and over again the game is repeated, and there are never any solutions. Nobody grows as all the players are very stuck in the cycle of repeating their tired lines, all for drama.

Movies that Illustrate VRP

Notes on a Scandal
Judi Dench plays a lonely woman who lives in a Star Trek parallel universe of her own creation. She favors the Persecutor, Rescuer roles. Cate Blanchette favors the Victim, Persecutor roles. Despite the consequences of playing VRP twice, the end of the movie suggests that Judi Dench will continue on unchanged.

Shattered Glass
Hayden Christensen portrays the true story of Stephen Glass who was an expert in all three roles.


House of Sand and Fog
The two main characters play VRP until the very dismal end and of course nobody wins.


Mystic River
Powerful movie about the futility of taking the persecutor role to the threshold of murder.


Monster
It was clear that Charlize Theron brought some personal reality to her role when she describes her childhood (while riding in a car). This role brought her an Oscar.


Weight of Water
Starring Sean Penn is a movie that demonstrates the drama triangle in both the stories that are woven together. Watch Sean Penn flip through all three roles (victim, rescuer, persecutor) right through his final scene.

Books

Learn about the game in management:
Power with People by Greg Lester Ph.D.

The game is defined in the 70's classic:
What Do You Say After You Say Hello by Eric Berne