Do you ever find yourself reacting to your partner in a moment of strong emotion?
Obviously, yes – this happens to all of us. But you may not know that, in situations like that, you may find yourself unwittingly in the middle of Karpman’s Drama Triangle!
What is that you ask? It’s a way of looking at negative roles we can embody during strong, negative interactions (“drama”).
The Drama Triangle roles include being The Victim (“You/Everyone is doing this to me!”) The Persecutor (“Oh yeah? %*@#@ you!!”) or The Rescuer (“Let me fix you, because it’ll make ME feel better!”).
Tammy Jones (licensed marriage and family therapist) and Debbie Reid (licensed clinical social worker) help explain how we fall into The Drama Triangle and, more importantly, how we get out!
Rich and Celeste discuss and (appropriately) fix Coldplay’s song “Fix You” and Rich does his darndest to sing it in a falsetto singing voice!
Show Notes
(Tammy and Debbie both work here)
Rich’s Lyrics
When you try and try but you don’t succeed
And I decide that I know what you really need
When take it and make it all about me
I make it worse
And at times there’s other roles I do
I get convinced that I am a victim of you
But I can switch and persecute you too
And then reverse.
It might be time to own
That I live out these toxic roles
So I won’t try … to fix you.
I think I will try a better way
Not numb my feelings or project them away
But try being mindful when I feel that way
I’ll try first
It’s something we alllll should own
That we get stuuck in toxic roles
We won’t try …. To fix you.