Navigating the Drama Triangle
By Nance Leonhardt
The holidays are here–the time of year when families reunite for seasonal celebrations, meals, and cozy winter activities together. My own mother looks forward to this season starting around July 18. She goes into high-gear in September, asking me in our weekly check-ins, “What’s the plan for Christmas?” (setting aside the fact that we are secular Jews.) Or, “Fred Meyer is running a sale on Stove Top and cranberry sauce this week, you should stock up, they’re predicting snow for Thanksgiving.”
Like many parents in our community, I am in the sandwich between launching my 18-year-old and taking increasing responsibility for the needs of an aging parent. It’s a seasonal side-hustle where I scour AirBnb for a wheelchair-accessible spot to host our interstate gatherings with enough room for us to be together and, more importantly, to be separate. It’s meal-planning for a diabetic, a celiac-sufferer, and those with dairy allergies. If my daughter’s boyfriend joins us, factoring in a picky eater poses another menu challenge (note to self - pick up extra ramen.)
November heralds a return to traditions, expectations, and old patterns of interacting. We welcome our burgeoning adults home expecting hugs and help in the kitchen; instead we may not see them until they text us from their rooms at 2:00 p.m., wondering when they can eat. And when our own family of origin shows up (in person or via our expectations), we may find ourselves saying and doing things that haven’t crossed our minds since the mid 1980s, “UGH, Whatever, Mom!”
In 1968, psychologist Stephen Karpman published a now commonly used framework to describe relational conflict, The Drama Triangle (DT). If you’d like to nerd out on the research check out this link. In this model, people participating in a conflict assume one of three roles: Victim, Persecutor, or Rescuer. In so doing, a person who launches the triangle from any position snares their conversation-mates into the other roles. Let me illustrate this by reenacting a conversation I had with my mother earlier this school year. DT roles are in bold.
Scene: I am commuting home from a busy day in early September. It’s 87 degrees. I’m stuck in a ferry line, waiting to board. The phone rings.
Me: (answers phone) Hey. What’s up?
Mom: Hi there, just wondering if you’ve given any thought to Christmas?
Me: … um… no… it’s September. It’s like 96 degrees. (P)
Mom: (long pause, clipped response)…Oh…okay. (V)
Me: (silence)
Mom: (longer silence) (V)
Me: Sorry, I’ve just had a really lousy day. (R)
Mom: (sigh) I know it’s not as important to you as it is to me. (V)
Me: (eye roll) We do this every year. (P)
Mom: I’m sorry it’s such a burden to make plans with me. (V)
Me: You’re not a burden (R)
Mom: I’ve got to go (hangs up) (P)
Me: (starts googling flower delivery)
Now, please understand I am a professional. I have spent a great deal of time and money learning how to ninja my way out of these kinds of relational dynamics, and yet when it comes down to it, my mom has the power to make me 14 again.
I spend a chunk of time coaching the young people who come through my office each week on how to navigate family drama. Specifically, they vent frustrations that arise from wanting autonomy to think and act and do what they want to do while also needing to stay aligned within their family system. Tensions creep up at this time of year when parents, like me, react to the attitude of our own kids while also gripping with heat from the back side of the generational sandwich: pressure and expectation that come from our own family-of-origin.
On one side—the need for predictability and ritual, versus the desire to do things our own way. In between is the hope for harmony and connection. Spread a thick layer of the older generation’s perspective on your parenting—“I would NEVER have let you stay in your room until 2:00 p.m.” “Oh, they’re a vegan now….” Pepper with favorite mealtime prompts, “How’s school?” “Where are you going to college?” “Are you dating anyone?” Go ahead and grab that second helping of potatoes with a side of drama!
There are a variety of antidotes to neutralize drama in your own family dynamics, but nearly all of them require your recognition of that moment you’re IN the Drama Triangle. For me, I feel it in my throat, like an overripe onion creeping back up my esophagus. My husband will place his hands on my shoulders, cueing me to lower them and my rising vocal pitch.
Where do you feel it?
In next week’s blog post, I will pick up this narrative to explore positive ways to move forward when in the Drama Triangle: The Empowerment Dynamic. Stay tuned!