I haven’t written anything since before Election Day. At the time I’m writing this, that’s quite nearly a month. There’s been a national holiday and some massive work projects in that month as well, but those sorts of things haven’t cut off my writing before. If anything, struggle usually fuels me going to the page.
But I’ve found it nearly impossible to write over this past month, with the attempts I have in fact made thwarted by everything from the thought that I have nothing left to say to a brain that feels mushy and inert to anger so big that my hands would shake at the keyboard. Mostly, I’ve felt a sort of numbness, a disconnection from both myself (kind of essential to me for writing well) and – I’m sad to admit – from the larger community with whom I share that writing.
Through all that, though, there’s been a part of me that longs to get back to putting messy things into words. It’s my way of making sense, after all. And when I’ve asked myself what could get me writing again – what my re-entry point could me – I knew it had to be the Drama Triangle.
The Drama Triangle has been influencing my life and my work for a while now – one of those things that I can’t help but share with most of my patients – and I realized recently too that it was, not surprisingly, a helpful way of understanding my reactions over this past month. I’ll commit to you that I’m not going too far into election stress or grief to explain this framework – that feels like a different essay, honestly. But once you have the framework, I think you’ll see how it could help you make sense of your own responses to it too. It might help make sense of your responses to lots of hard things, in fact.
So let’s dive in.
Below vs. Above the Line
Let’s start with an example that will be so niche that I’m sure most of us would struggle to relate: you’re frustrated that your partner never seems to take initiative of the miles-long family to-do list. He’s not asking how he can help. He seems to assume that it will all get done without any seeming awareness of how that will happen. Let’s say it’s the holidays and the list is extra long, and your senses of dread, overwhelm, and resentment are growing. Unrelatable, I know, but bear with me.
The first element of the Drama Triangle that you need to understand is the idea of being what we call above the line or below the line. The line in this case is an internal sense of power and agency. When we are below the line, we essentially feel that everything is happening to or upon us. We are, as a brilliant coach who works a lot with the Drama Triangle, Courtney Smith, says, at the effect of the world.
Feeling at the effect of the world, as you might imagine, isn’t particularly comfortable. It means we are experiencing a sense of threat – that something that we value feels at risk. That something could be our sense of control, predictability, autonomy, identity, or anything else that we hold dear. This ties in to my favorite definition of human stress, in fact, which is that stress is the physiological state we experience when something we value is under threat. Thus, we can think of being below the line as being under stress and at the effect of the world.
Feeling dread (threatened by the future), overwhelm (that our capacity is threatened), and resentment (that our identity and integrity are threatened) in our example with our spouse are signs that we are currently below the line.
We’d all much rather be above the line. Being above the line, however, is not to be confused with things being hunky-dory. The circumstances don’t dictate whether we are above or below the line; our sense of ourselves relative to the circumstances does. Being above the line means that while shit may be hitting the fan, we aren’t grasping on to the edge of the fan getting flung around. We have two feet planted firmly on the ground.
You might call being above the line a mindset, and perhaps it is. I have a bit of an aversion to the word mindset, though, given the way so many of us have had it used as a way to seemingly belittle our legitimately devastating experiences. I associate mindset with the word “just” – as in “just change your mindset and all will be well.”
There’s a risk in this below and above the line talk to fall into that trap too, and so I want to say explicitly that our propensity for falling below the line is not something else to bludgeon ourselves about. As we’ll soon learn, that would in fact be a below the line thing to do.
To be fair, someone who has an easier time staying above the line – without the conscious work that most of us have to do – probably had some really great parenting and a life that made it possible. For the rest of us, and again that’s almost all of us, noticing and addressing when we fall below the line takes a lot of work.
So what happens when we do fall below this proverbial line? That’s when we find ourselves tumbling onto the Drama Triangle.
The Drama Triangle
Right below that line, sitting there just waiting to catch us, is the Drama Triangle. The triangle is composed of three primary positions or roles that we play when we are caught in the “drama” – or conflict – of being below the line. We’ll go through each of those in just a moment, but first I want you to understand how to think about these roles.
When Stephen Karpman first conceived of this framework back in the late 1960s, it was part of a field of study called transactional analysis. You don’t need to know much more about that, other than that he was developing this model to explain what happens in interactions among people. As such, when I first learned about the Drama Triangle in graduate school while learning how to work with couples, it was taught to me that people take on the different roles on the triangle.
What I’ve since come to understand and actually find even more useful is that these roles are in no way static. As individuals, we all take on all of these roles – and not just in different dynamics with different people or situations – but within the very same situation. Over the course of just a few minutes – sometimes a few seconds – we might be moving all around the triangle and between roles. It can happen so fast, it’s disorienting.
So, what are these roles?
The Victim
The Victim on the triangle represents the most literal interpretation of being below the line, but it’s important to remember that all of the roles are acting below the line. The Victim, though, is most directly embodying that sense of being at the will of someone or something else. The Victim sees themself as trying hard, but experiencing futility. The Victim feels that they have no options, no recourse, and can’t change the other person or outcome of the situation. They might feel demoralized, helpless, and even martyr-like in some cases. From the outside, the Victim might appear fairly passive and unable or unwilling to make choices or solve the problem at hand.
The Prosecutor
Karpman actually called this role the “Persecutor” or “Villain,” but I’ve changed it to Prosecutor because I actually find it a little more descriptive of how this position on the triangle functions. Plus, no one wants to own up to being a villain.
When we step into the Prosecutor role, we are in blaming and shaming mode. We are projecting our frustrations and the responsibility for what’s happening outwardly and often through accusations and anger. In this role, we become fairly rigid in our thinking about how things should be, and we can get critical and disdainful of others who disagree or can’t see this. In our Prosecutor role, we feel protected by our shield and sword, which we authoritatively display.
Here’s the kicker about the Prosecutor. The one we are prosecuting (or villainizing) isn’t always another person. We can be our own Prosecutor, turning our disdain and harsh accusations at ourselves. This often happens when it’s not safe to turn our anger outward.
The Rescuer
What makes this a triangle rather than a line is that as in any good “drama,” we find a Rescuer on the scene attempting to save the day. The Rescuer works hard to fix the situation, but not from an empowered or grounded place above the line. Instead, the Rescuer is often over-functioning to make it all go away or otherwise trying to minimize or eliminate the problem from a place of anxiety. Like any good enabler, the Rescuer might take solace in thinking that they are just there to help, but they inadvertently worsen the situation because the core issue isn’t addressed. Further, the Rescuer’s efforts ensure that the Victim doesn’t learn to step into their own power, and when the Rescuer gets fed up enough at their hard work not being effective or recognized, they can slide into the Prosecutor role.
How the Roles Interact
Let’s go back to our example. When we’re feeling totally bogged down by the weight of our Sisyphean to-do list and feeling ignored and unseen by our partner, we might find ourselves starting out in the Victim position. Once again, acknowledging that we are in this position is not denying the very legitimate reality of the to-do list or the oblivious partner. It’s simply noticing how we feel relative to the situation at hand.
What’s true for many of us is that staying for too long in the Victim position is mightily uncomfortable. We unconsciously want out of that vulnerable and powerless-feeling place, and our inner Rescuer or Prosecutor comes in to take over.
Let’s say that in this case, it’s the Rescuer first (we all seem to have a most common order of operations; it could be either that comes next). When the Rescuer steps it, we start working double-time to tackle the tasks. We exhaust ourselves trying to get through everything and help our inner Victim not feel so alone and defeated. Maybe we get through a good portion, but it’s unlikely that we’ll ever be able to get it all done, and so at some point we wind up frustrated, guilty, and… angry?
This might be where we shift into the Prosecutor position. We’re now connecting with those feelings of frustration and the sense of being taken advantage of or for granted. Our mind starts boiling with all of the ways that our partner has not shown up for us not only in this holiday season, but for a very long time now. We’ve now made another list alongside our to-do list, this one full of our partner’s thoughtless behaviors. We may start lobbing angry text messages or demonstrating our displeasure with ignoring or exasperated sighs. In short, we are pissed. Depending on the situation and the duration, maybe we’re even enraged.
Let’s say we shoot off an accusatory text to our partner and he replies back with an agitated and defensive response. He retorts that we never do anything but nag him about his shortcomings and did we even see how he had repaired the basement sink?! At this point, assuming we are still activated and below the line – which we likely are – we can go in any of the three directions on the triangle. We might be launched back into a feeling of despair and helplessness (Victim). We might feel guilty and apologize because maybe we have been failing to see his contributions, and it’s better if we just move on at this point (Rescuer). Or we might double down and tell him that the basement sink can go to hell (Prosecutor).
Where we go on the triangle may have a lot to do with our early adaptive responses – the way that we learned to show up early in life when conflict was brewing. That will often be our most common or default response, but again, we all tend to play in each of these roles and vacillate among them quickly. It’s as if each of the roles are people inside of us who are vying for who is in charge. They may not agree, but they all have a single mission – keep us safe from what feels unbearable.
I can’t overstate this part of the explanation, so I’ll say it again. At the end of the day, none of these roles are better or worse than the other, and they all are attempts at navigating the suffering that is being below the line. We can move our way around the triangle six ways to Sunday, but the only way to effect real change in the dynamic – and perhaps most importantly, in how we feel about ourselves – is to get above the line.
Caught in the Triangle
Getting above the line can feel almost impossible when we are stuck in the swirl of the triangle. We can think that we are making our way out of it when we shift roles, as it can seem much more empowered to feel angry versus helpless, for example. But in fact we might just be moving from one corner to the next. Recognizing that we’re in the triangle, what role we’re in, and then getting above the line can be nuanced work.
If we’re wondering if we’re caught in the triangle, there are some questions we can ask ourselves to shed light on whether we’re below the line.
- Do I feel like this person’s actions or this situation is forcing me to react in a certain way?
- Do I see only one or a very limited number of ways I can respond?
- Do I feel almost driven in my response as if by a motor or some outside force, as if it’s happening without thinking?
- Do I feel intense urgency to react in a particular way, like it has to happen now?
- Do I feel resentful, agitated, out of control, or despondent?
Resentment, in particular, is a sure sign of being below the line. It’s a valid emotion (as they all are), but it tells us something slightly different than what most of us were taught to believe. Resentment signals to us that we allowed our own boundaries to be crossed. It’s related to anger, but it has a particular flavor of self-betrayal. With resentment, there’s a sense not just that you hurt me, but that I’m stuck and have conceded some sense of power.
Another telltale sign that we are in the triangle is when we see the other person involved in sharp, singular terms. When we are below the line, that person often feels to us all good (and so I’m terrible) or all bad (and so I’m helpless). This highlights an important part of the Drama Triangle experience: we necessarily pull others into it with us. We don’t mean to, of course, but that’s how this patterning works. If I’m the Victim, I’ve unwittingly made you the Prosecutor/Villain. If I’m the Rescuer, it’s because I’ve made you into the Victim that I need to over-function for or save.
From down here below the line, I can only see my less-than-helpful partner in our example as one thing, which may be the biggest risk of this whole dynamic. When we start pigeon-holing each other into roles, lacking curiosity and nuance, we’re doomed to go round and round the triangle.
Getting Above the Line
But for real – how do we get above the line? I know I’ve belabored this a bit, and you’re ready to get out of this damn triangle. Really, you’re ready for your partner to get off the couch, but since this framework starts with us and not them, we’ll turn our attention where it belongs.
The first step, as may not surprise you, is to recognize that you are indeed in the triangle. It takes time and intentionality to start seeing this in action, but I find that there are a few good way to start integrating it. First, tell your partner or close friend or colleague about the model and ask them to help you see when it’s happening. Give them gracious permission to notice it with you and then don’t lash out when they do. You might also put some triangles in places where you’ll see them – on your phone screen or on a post-it in your office, just to subtly signal to you to be on the lookout for the pattern.
Once you notice that you’re below the line, you’ll want to do something to physiologically help you move from threat to safety. As a reminder, the essence of being below the line is that we are feeling that something we value is at risk, and that means our bodies are in an anxiety or fear state. We’ll move to thinking and reframing in just a moment, but we want to start in the body. Consider what helps you trigger your own safety system, like getting outside, deep breathing, or looking at photos of someone you love.
When your body has gotten the message that you’re not being chased by a lion, take a few minutes to consider some questions. I’m suggesting these as ways to help you widen your lens, as our perspective gets inherently narrow below the line.
- How am I complicit in creating the conditions for this situation that I am saying I don’t want? (Ouch, I know… but try to sit with it.)
- Who do I want to be in this situation?
- What is the smallest single action I can take right now to be acting as the person I want to be?
If you’re particularly agitated by the questions, that’s another sign you are below the line (sorry, don’t hate me). Again, that doesn’t mean anything terrible about you. It just means that this is hard, because it is.
The Drama Triangle isn’t an attempt to diminish how much some situations suck. It’s an attempt to get us to a place of perspective and agency, so that we can respond instead of react and feel empowered in our experience.
Because here’s the thing: when we get out of the Drama Triangle and above the line, we’re in the driver’s seat. When we can see clearly and make choices, we might find that our partner has been helping more than we realized (fabulous!), or that it’s less about him and more about the ridiculous standards we set for ourselves to make holiday magic (so we change that), or that he’s actually a deadbeat and not going to change and now we have some decisions to make (ugh, but finally!). The point is, when we get above the line, we can see what needs to be done and decide what we want to do about it. We’re not siphoning off our energy.
Final Thoughts
If I hadn’t made this so massively long already, I’d end by describing how I think this can be a useful tool in our post-election reflections (among lots of other things). I know it’s been handy for me to notice the way I’ve been spinning around the triangle, and to ask myself some of the questions above. If this resonates or you give it some thought and want to share, I’d love to hear your own reflections.
Final bonus thought for Enneagram nerds: It’s been noted by Courtney Smith that we could potentially map the triangle on to the Enneagram Types, and I think that’s true. The nine Types can be broken down into three groups – where the instinctual response pattern is one of the three positions on the Drama Triangle. To learn more about the Enneagram, check out our trainings here.
