Victim in Drama Triangle with Abuser, Savior: Karpman's Drama Triangle
Summary
TLDRThe script delves into the concept of the 'Drama Triangle,' a social model illustrating destructive interactions in conflicts. It features three roles: the oppressor, the victim, and the rescuer. The video explains how individuals can shift between these roles, often leading to codependency and perpetuating negative behaviors. It also touches on the idea of 'learned helplessness' and the importance of personal responsibility and self-efficacy in overcoming victimhood and breaking free from destructive cycles.
Takeaways
- 🔺 The 'Drama Triangle' is a social model that maps destructive interactions in conflicts, consisting of three roles: the Persecutor, the Victim, and the Rescuer.
- 🎭 Stephen Karpman, an actor and psychologist, developed the Drama Triangle concept, emphasizing that the roles are performative rather than fixed identities.
- 👥 The roles within the Drama Triangle can shift, with individuals potentially moving between Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer, often in a destructive manner.
- 🚫 The Victim role is characterized by feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and a constant sense of being oppressed or persecuted.
- 🆘 The Rescuer role is often enabled by the Victim and can lead to codependency, where the Rescuer's need to help perpetuates the Victim's state of helplessness.
- 🚨 The Persecutor role can manifest as controlling, blaming, and oppressive behavior, often stemming from narcissistic tendencies.
- 🔄 The dynamics within the Drama Triangle are cyclical and can perpetuate conflict without resolution, as each role reinforces the others' existence.
- 💔 The concept of 'Victim Playing' is distinguished from being an authentic victim; it involves manipulative behavior to gain sympathy or avoid responsibility.
- 📚 Transactional Analysis, a form of psychotherapy, is mentioned as a tool to understand and potentially disrupt the Drama Triangle's harmful patterns.
- 🛑 Learned helplessness, a state of perceived powerlessness, is linked to depression and can result from continuous negative experiences, such as abuse.
Q & A
What is the Drama Triangle?
-The Drama Triangle is a social model of destructive interactions among people in conflict, consisting of three roles: the Persecutor, the Victim, and the Rescuer. It was developed by Stephen Karpman, who was influenced by transactional analysis.
How does the Drama Triangle relate to personal responsibility?
-The Drama Triangle connects personal responsibility and power in conflict situations. It suggests that individuals are playing roles, often without acknowledging a broader dysfunction, which can impede personal growth and accountability.
What is the role of the Victim in the Drama Triangle?
-The Victim in the Drama Triangle feels and acts like a victim, often perceiving themselves as oppressed, helpless, and powerless. They may seek out a Persecutor and a Rescuer to maintain the dynamic of the triangle.
Can roles within the Drama Triangle change?
-Yes, roles within the Drama Triangle can shift suddenly. For example, a Victim may become a Persecutor, or a Rescuer may turn into a Persecutor. These shifts are often part of the destructive cycle of the triangle.
What is the role of the Rescuer in the Drama Triangle?
-The Rescuer in the Drama Triangle is someone who enables the victim's dependency by offering help and solutions. They may feel guilty if they do not rescue, and their actions can perpetuate the victim's helplessness.
How does the concept of the Drama Triangle connect to family systems theory?
-In family systems theory, the Drama Triangle illustrates how individuals can take on emergent roles within a family dynamic, which can lead to destructive patterns of interaction if not addressed.
What is the difference between authentic victims and those playing the victim role?
-Authentic victims seek to overcome their situation and stop being victims, while those playing the victim role actively maintain their victimhood because it serves their interests, such as gaining sympathy or avoiding responsibility.
How does learned helplessness relate to the Drama Triangle?
-Learned helplessness can be a result of persistent victimhood within the Drama Triangle, where an individual comes to expect negative outcomes and perceives themselves as powerless to change their situation.
What is the fundamental attribution error as it pertains to the Drama Triangle?
-The fundamental attribution error in the context of the Drama Triangle is the tendency to attribute the negative behaviors of others to their inherent characteristics while attributing one's own negative behaviors to situational factors.
How can one break free from the Drama Triangle?
-Breaking free from the Drama Triangle involves recognizing one's role in it, taking personal responsibility, and making conscious choices to change destructive patterns. This may include therapy, self-reflection, and setting boundaries.
Outlines
🔍 Introduction to the Drama Triangle
The paragraph introduces the concept of the 'drama triangle,' a social model of human interaction that illustrates destructive patterns in conflict. It consists of three roles: oppressors (persecutors), victims, and rescuers (saviors). The model is attributed to Stephen Karpman, who emphasized that roles are not fixed but are 'acted' by individuals. The paragraph also mentions the importance of personal responsibility in conflict situations and the idea that these roles can shift, often leading to further conflict.
🎭 The Roles Within the Drama Triangle
This section delves deeper into the roles of the drama triangle. It explains that victims actively seek out persecutors and rescuers to maintain their role within the triangle, a process known as projective identification. The paragraph discusses how rescuers, despite appearing helpful, can hinder personal growth and maintain a victim's dependency. It also touches on the psychological motivations and consequences of playing the roles of rescuer and persecutor.
🔁 The Fluidity and Dysfunction of the Drama Triangle
The fluidity of roles within the drama triangle is explored here, with examples of how roles can shift and the triangle can perpetuate itself. The paragraph discusses how each role seeks to involve others to maintain the triangle's dynamic. It also highlights the psychological needs that the drama triangle fulfills for each participant, often at the cost of broader dysfunction and the exacerbation of mental health issues.
🧩 The Origin and Impact of the Drama Triangle
This paragraph discusses the origins of the drama triangle concept, linking it to family systems theory and the work of Eric Berne. It also touches on the idea of triangulation as a broader concept in psychology, introduced by Marie Bowen, which explains how引入第三方可以缓解紧张关系。The paragraph emphasizes the potential for both constructive and destructive triangles and the importance of understanding one's role in conflict.
🔮 Bowen's Theory of Triangulation
The paragraph focuses on Bowen's theory of triangulation, explaining how it functions as a mechanism to reduce tension in relationships by involving third parties. It discusses the dynamics of how a third party can provide stability and balance to a relationship under stress, and how this process can be both constructive and destructive, depending on the nature of the triangle formed.
🚫 The Dark Side of Triangulation: Pathological Triangles
This section contrasts the constructive view of triangulation with the concept of pathological triangles, where destructive patterns emerge. It introduces the work of Nathan Ackerman, who identified specific roles within these triangles that lead to harmful family dynamics. The paragraph also distinguishes between authentic victims and those who play the victim role in bad faith.
🤔 The Psychology of Victim Playing
The paragraph examines the concept of 'victim playing,' where individuals adopt the victim role to manipulate others or justify their own abusive behavior. It discusses the psychological mechanisms behind this behavior, including the seeking of attention and the avoidance of responsibility. The paragraph also touches on the role of external observers in reinforcing or challenging victim playing.
🧲 The Appeal and Dangers of Victim Playing
This section delves into the appeal of victim playing as a strategy for gaining sympathy and avoiding responsibility. It outlines the dangers of this approach, including the potential for固化受害者身份 and the associated risks to mental health. The paragraph also discusses the role of external 'rescuers' in enabling victim playing and the importance of challenging this dynamic.
🔓 Breaking Free from Victimhood
The paragraph discusses the process of breaking free from the victim mentality, emphasizing the importance of recognizing one's own power and capacity to effect change. It touches on the psychological concepts of self-efficacy and learned helplessness, and how overcoming a victim mindset involves learning to take responsibility and control over one's life.
📉 The Downward Spiral of Learned Helplessness
This section explores the concept of learned helplessness, its connection to depression, and the impact of perceived control on mental health. It discusses the findings from experiments on helplessness and the importance of believing in one's ability to influence outcomes. The paragraph also addresses the role of attributional style in shaping an individual's experience of helplessness and victimhood.
🔄 The Attributional Style and Its Impact on Victimhood
The paragraph delves into the attributional style, explaining how individuals' tendencies to attribute events to internal or external factors can influence their experience of victimhood. It discusses the concept of the fundamental attribution error and how it can lead to victim blaming. The section also touches on the just world hypothesis and its psychological implications for understanding and reacting to victimhood.
🔮 The Just World Phenomenon and Its Psychological Effects
This section discusses the just world phenomenon, which is the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. It explains how this belief can lead to victim blaming and how it serves as a psychological defense mechanism to protect one's sense of control and security. The paragraph also addresses the dangers of this mindset, including its potential to contribute to depression and mental illness.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Drama Triangle
💡Victim
💡Persecutor
💡Rescuer
💡Triangulation
💡Transactional Analysis
💡Narcissism
💡Learned Helplessness
💡Personal Responsibility
💡Attributional Style
Highlights
The concept of the 'drama triangle' is introduced as a social model of destructive human interaction.
The drama triangle consists of three roles: oppressors, victims, and rescuers.
The model suggests that individuals act out roles rather than being static identities.
The 'victim' in the drama triangle is someone who feels and acts like a victim, rather than an actual victim.
The role of 'rescuer' is described as potentially harmful as it can keep the victim in a dependent state.
The 'persecutor' role is characterized by blame, control, and a lack of responsibility.
Roles within the drama triangle can shift, leading to a dynamic and often destructive cycle.
The drama triangle illustrates the connection between personal responsibility, response, and power in conflict.
The concept of 'projective identification' is used by victims to seek out persecutors and rescuers.
The lecture discusses the psychological impact of participating in the drama triangle on all parties involved.
The idea that the drama triangle can be both destructive and constructive is explored.
The concept of 'triangulation' by Marie Bowen is introduced as a way to reduce tension in relationships.
Triangulation is presented as a natural process in relationships to involve third parties for tension reduction.
The difference between constructive and destructive triangles is examined.
The role of the family of origin in conditioning individuals to adopt certain roles in the drama triangle is discussed.
The lecture addresses how to break free from the drama triangle by depriving the actors of their payoff.
The concept of 'learned helplessness' and its link to depression is explored, with an emphasis on overcoming it.
The importance of teaching self-efficacy to overcome helplessness and victimhood is highlighted.
The lecture concludes with a discussion on the dangers of self-victimization and the path to empowerment.
Transcripts
today
is the vacant trifecta three strikes
and you're out so i'm out
a proper trifecta and three strikes
are you caught in a drama triangle
vachnin you ask what is a drama triangle
well that's what i'm here for your
favorite professor of psychology
and the author of malignant self-love
narcissism
revisited and revisited and revisited
the karman drama triangle
is a particular case of triangles and
triangulation in general
which we're going to discuss a little
later the drama triangle
is actually a social model and it's a
social model of
any human interaction it maps a type of
destructive interaction
that occurs among people in conflict now
the conflict could be
in an interpersonal relationship could
be in business
could be among friends even technically
among nations
so there are three actors in the drama
which is why triangle
the first class of actors are the
oppressors or the
um persecutors the second class
are victims the third class are rescuers
or saviors and the reason it's called a
drama
triangle is that stephen cartman
who came up with the eponymous cartman
triangle
wasn't actually an actor and he didn't
want to call it a conflict triangle
because it was
you know not new wave enough so he
called it a drama triangle because he
was an actor
and the thing is that in his model
people are acting
it's very important to understand the
victim in his model
is not an actual victim it's someone who
is feeling
like a victim and above all acting
as a victim cartman
clearly believed that people act
they are given roles and these roles are
known in family system theory as
emergent roles they are given rules they
are allocated roles
they are allocated roles by intimate
partners they are allocated roles by
society by friends
by family and then they either accept
these roles
or they reject these roles and once they
accept these roles
they act the roles his first article
stephen cartman's article was titled
fairy tales
and script drama analysis
and he analyzed believe it or not red
little red riding hood as a model of
conflict
reminiscent very much of bruno
bettelheim
who was both a con artist and a
brilliant
lay psychologist cartman
at the time was just a graduate
of duke university and he
he studied under eric byrne eric burn
wrote the seminal book games people
play which i cannot emphasize enough
that you should read
and he is the father of transactional
analysis
which is an extremely powerful form of
psychotherapy
and so they they kind of meshed together
and ben
took the concept of drama triangle and
introduced it into
structural analysis and transactional
analysis what is this drama trial
it's the connection between personal
responsibility
remember my previous lecture where i
kept calling you
to accept personal responsibility for
what's happening to you
so the triangle connects personal
response responsibility
and power in situations of conflict
and the triangle implies that people are
playing roles
and now these roles are shifting they
could shift suddenly
from victim to abuser they could shift
from abuser to rescuer
but usually these shifts are destructive
so we more commonly we discuss
destructive triangles
although in principle there could
definitely be constructive
triangles and so again i remind you
there are three roles in the triangle
there are two up positions persecutor
and rescuer and there's two one down
position the down position is victim and
of course if you organize two ups
and one down you get a triangle an
inverted
triangle what is a victim the victim is
not an
actual victim as i said someone is
feeling and acting like a victim and the
position of the victim in the triangle
is
poor me poor me i'm victimized i am
oppressed
i'm denied my needs i'm helpless i'm
hopeless i'm powerless
i'm ashamed i am unable to make
decisions i'm unable to solve problems
i'm unable to progress with my life
i don't take pleasure in life i'm
unhedonic i don't achieve inside
in short i'm dysphoric and if the victim
is not persecuted
that's bad because the victim has a role
and he is used to being a victim
it's like you were given a script and
then none of the actors showed up
the movie can't go on so what the victim
does
the victim goes and looks for a
persecutor
and this process is called projective
identification
it's when the victim tries to convert
people
for example an intimate partner to act
as an abuser
or to act as a persecutor in order to
preserve
the functioning of the triangle within a
comfort zone
and similarly the victim seeks a rescuer
so victims always seek two functions
persecutor and rescuer a savior
who will save the day but at the same
time
perpetuate the victim's negative
feelings
about himself or herself and the
environment and other people
because if you need if you need saving
if you need to be saved you're in really
really
problematic place the rescuer's line is
let me help you i'm here to help you
it's an enabler a rescuers actually feel
guilty
if they don't go to the rescue but
rescuing is a negative function
not a positive one because it keeps the
victim dependent
it doesn't allow the victim permission
to
experiment to fail to experience
consequences of choices and decisions to
go through
pain and hurt and process them all the
coaches
and self-styled experts online they are
rescuers
there in they enable your victim status
your victim mentality and your victim
stance
and that's exceedingly bad for you as
far as your mental health
and the rewards to the rescuer
are enormous the rewards are enormous
the focus first of all shifts from the
rescuer
to someone else so it's like
by taking over someone else's life
by micromanaging someone else's
decisions
choices um partners
they kind of fend off the need to think
about their own lives
to focus on their own problems and
responsibilities
and chores and functions and roles
it's a defense a rescuer engages in
defensive tactics
he cannot or she cannot actually cope
with her own life
so she's a busy body she takes over
other people's lives
and rescuers and studies
have been shown to have high anxiety and
multiple
mental health issues you're warned when
you find a rescuer online
who who poses as an expert or a coach or
whatever
that's someone with serious mental
health problems and extreme anxiety
and you are the instrument for reducing
this anxiety
you are their new addiction you are
their source of supply the rescue role
is
is pivotal because the actual primary
interest of the
of the rescuer is avoidance of their own
problems
it is disguised as altruism
empathy concern for victims needs but
it's none of the above
and finally there's a role of the
persecutor the villain it's a morality
play remember it's a drama because
cartman was an actor so the the
persecutor of the villain
his line is it's all your fault
alloplastic defenses
it's not my responsibility i did nothing
wrong
i'm either misunderstood or i'm aligned
and conspired against that's the
paranoid posture opposition
the prosecutor the prosecutor is
controlling
he's blaming his critical oppressive
angry authoritarian
rigid and superior in short a typical
persecutor would have very pronounced
narcissistic strings so the drama
triangle arises
when someone takes on the role of a
persecutor
another person takes on the role of a
victim and a third person takes on
the role of a savior and there the drama
unfolds
it's a theater play it's a movie
with three participants to eat drama not
monodrome
and the person each of these three
need wants to enlist others so
collaboration emerges
organically the persecutor also is
searching for a victim and a rescuer
the rescuer is searching for a victim
and a persecutor only when they are
all three of them are within the
triangle they feel whole
they feel whole because they identify
with their roles
they acquire identity through the
functioning
of the triangle studies have shown
that the rescuer is encouraged by both
the victim
and the persecutor to enter the
situation
it's not true that only the victim
enlists the savior
the persecutor has a hand in it too he
sometimes
pushes the victim towards the third
party
and that third party opposes or pretends
to be the
savior and so these players these three
players they take roles of their own and
these roles are not static
and so you could have multiple scenarios
the victim
suddenly can turn on the rescuer and
cast him as a bad guy
and the rescuer then will react by
becoming a persecutor
and then the persecutor will defend the
victim protect the victim and become a
savior
so the roles are in flux all the time
and the reason
the whole situation goes on the reason
the theater play
is never ending in in effect is that
each participant
have unconscious psychological wishes
and needs and the triangle meets
caters to these needs without having to
acknowledge a broader dysfunction
without having to point out the harm and
the damage done
in the situation as the whole and by the
way the damage is not limited to the
victim
the persecutor's mental mental
dysfunctions and mental disorders
are aggravated and amplified within the
triangle
the savior's mental dysfunctions and
disorders the same
everyone is worse off for having
participated
in the destructive triangle each
participant is acting upon
selfish needs each participant is highly
entitled
and narcissistic or egotistic at least
there's no genuine
altruistic response here there's no real
empathy it's all fake fake belief
make belief it's all not real it's all
unreal it's a renown it's renouncing
reality so as as cartman wrote
any character might ordinarily come on
like a plaintiff victim
it is now clear that the one can switch
into the role of persecutor
providing it is accidental and the one
apologizes for it
so victim can actually become an abuser
we call it today overlay
a victim can suddenly adopt the role of
a narcissist or a psychopath
and we know that victims of complex
trauma cptsd
are indistinguishable from borderline
and many of them display
behaviors which are actually the
behaviors of secondary psychopaths
psychopaths with empathy and emotion so
victims can and do become abusers within
the triangle
multiply but as opposed to the
persecutor
the victim would say this was an
accident or i was just reacting
that's reactive abuse i had the right to
react
this way the irony is that the
persecutor perceives himself to be the
victim
in the triangle and so he also is likely
to use the very same
arguments the motivations of the rescuer
are the least obvious we know victim
we're not persecuted these are classic
rules
what's the savior doing there why is he
there
he has covert motives he has mixed
motives
his benefits are what we call egoic
benefits
he being the one who rescues caters to
his grandiosity provides him with
narcissistic supply
he has a surface motive and the surface
motivism is trying to resolve the
problem
he is making great efforts to help
everybody
especially the victim but this is facade
this is a veneer it's fake it's fake
it's faint because the real reason
rescuers rescue
and saviors save and coaches and experts
help you
quote unquote is
actually to not save you to not rescue
you
to not succeed they they need to
perpetuate your victimhood status
because this caters to their grandiosity
and they need this they get a
self-esteem boost
uh to be a rescuer
is to to be in a rescue status that's
that's highly dignified
disrespected that's socially commendable
that they derive pride
satisfaction narcissistic supply
enjoyment
they love that people depend on them and
trust them
they love so they act in a way that
looks as though they are empathic and
trying really to help but at a deeper
level
they sabotage you they undermine your
healing
they prevent you from recovering
they don't let you grow up growing up
is only you can grow up only via crisis
and friction with reality and pain
pain is the engine of growth they don't
let you experience this
they shift the blame and the guilt and
everything onto the abuser
and absorb you like the old catholic
church used to do with indulgences
they absorb you from your all your sins
they take away your personal
responsibility they teach you
learned helplessness which is a topic
we're going to discuss
a bit later because they want to
continue to have
their payoff and so the relationship
between the victim and the rescuer
is actually what today we call
codependency
the rescuer keeps the victim dependent
by
encouraging her victimhood the victim
gets their needs met
as well by having the rescuer take care
of them the victim
infantilizes the victim regresses
to a childhood face she becomes a child
totally helpless and it is the savior or
the rescuer
who is there in the parental role
remember the shirt fantasy rescuers and
victims create
shared a shared fantasy very much
a replica of the shared fantasy with the
original abuser
it is therefore a form of narcissistic
abuse
and so people who participate in the
triangle
have a primary role let's call it a role
of habit
habitual role so they are either victims
usually
rescuers typically persecutors glad
gleefully when they enter the triangle
but
they they start with the habitual roles
because their habitual roles
are roles that they had studied as
children
in the family of origin they were
parentified so they become rescuers
they were rejected and ignored by a dead
mother
so they become victims or they become
persecutors
the family of origin conditions
the person teaches the person the
emergent role
in adulthood and this is the imagined
role that the adult brings into
the drama triangle and participants
each have a role that's very true they
identify with this role they usually
enact
this role but once you are in the
triangle the triangle has a life of its
own
it's like the bermuda triangle you
vanish
and you have a life of your and that
triangle has a life of his own in the
triangle
rotates you and before you know it you
find yourself a persecutor
and before you know it as a persecutor
you find yourself saving the victim
from the alleged savior who had become a
persecutor
are it's rotation each triangle is a
payoff
for the people playing inside the
triangle and
how to emerge from this triangle because
this triangle is is a it's just a giant
sucking sound you know
how to how to get rid of this uh
triangle is a good way of describing
trauma bonding for example so how do you
get rid of it
you deprive the actors of the payoff
and we will discuss it a bit later you
prevent them from getting any
payoff you don't give narcissistic
supply to the rescuer
you don't you don't um automatically
accept
the victimhood stunts and victim
mentality of the victim
and you punish or you incentivize the
persecutor to stop persecuting you take
the payoff away
you empower for example the victim the
persecutor
doesn't have power anymore so because
persecutors are addicted to power
to having power it's a power play like
in rape
now the kartman triangle is
one of many triangles there's a theory
of triangulation
it was first published in 1966 by marie
bowen
b-o-w-n and it's part of his family
systems theory
which to my mind is the most powerful
theory
of what's happening inside your head
most powerful theory of the mind
in in psychology and my favorite
my rebound uh
works mostly with schizophrenics and i
will not go into details now but
schizophrenias give you
a window into the mind that no other
mental disorder
can provide with the exception perhaps
of narcissists and borderlines
and that's why perhaps kernberg thought
that narcissists borderlines and
psychotics are one and the same almost
anyhow bowen came up with the concept of
triangulation
here is what he said originally
triangulation
is a process whereby a two-party
relationship that is experiencing
tension
will naturally involve third parties to
reduce
this tension so when people find
themselves in conflict
they reach out to someone else you know
you have a fight with your wife she goes
to her mother
uh you're in a fight with your wife your
brother butts him
you have to fight with your wife she
picks up another man in your face
so these are all forms of triangulation
introducing a third person
to regulate the environment of the diet
dyad
the environment of the couple and the
resulting triangle
actually is very functional and much
more comfortable than the original diet
the original couple
because it can contain much more tension
why because the tension is shifted
so even in case of cheating amazingly
actually cheating which is classic
triangulation it's introducing
a third intimate partner into what
should have been
an exclusive relationship even there
there are improvements in anxiety
tension and inter-intercoupled conflict
that's why many many men joke that their
cheating wives are much more easy to get
to get along with so
triangulation reduces anxiety
tension and increases enhances the
functioning
of the original couple strangely
so he bowen suggested
two concepts one is differentiation
and one is triangles and he said he used
the word triangle
and not triad because he said the
triangles
are integral part of relationships
even relationships of two people couples
so if you leave a couple to evolve
most couples oscillate between closeness
and distance
approach and avoidance these are minor
oscillations if one of the members of a
couple is a narcissist
or if he has any mental health issue
especially cluster b personality
disorders
the approach avoidance will be extreme
but approach avoidance
is a repetition compulsion feature of
most couples
we all feel suffocated at times and
withdraw
and avoid and we all feel the need for
intimacy and love and compassion
and being held and so we approach this
is
an integral part of the dynamics of of
any couple
and so this creates
imbalances and sometimes most of the
time the imbalances can be resolved
internally
especially if there is good
communication but sometimes they cannot
and then the only solution is to
introduce a third party
now the third party could be a family
member third party could be a couple
therapist
marital therapist but the third party
could be a lover
the third party could be someone to
flirt with
any third party actually brings brings
forward some resolution of the conflict
some resolution of the approach
avoidance now the resolution could be
a dissolution of the couple if the
couple is sufficiently dysfunctional
it causes harm to its members it's
better to dissolve it
and sometimes the trigger the push
necessary to dissolve it
is the introduction of a third party but
that's a positive development
not a negative development because
exiting a dysfunctional couple
exiting a dysfunctional diet where
there's a lot of tension
a lot of depression a lot of negative
emotionality and effectivity
what's wrong with it it's a good thing
and very often love affairs are the
bridges
to the dissolution of such couples which
are not good
not healthy and should be dissolved
so in general triangulation is actually
a good thing again
again again contradicting everything you
hear online from one of the experts and
self-styled experts bowen introduced it
as a good
as a good concept and so he said that to
stabilize the relationship the couple
often seek
the aid of a third party to help
re-establish closeness a triangle is the
smallest possible relationship system
that can restore balance in times of
stress
the third person assumes an outside
position even if he is a lover
it's still an outside position the
couple is primary
it has primacy and so even the lover
defers to the couple
if push comes to shot the lover walks
away the couple remains
when the stress the outside position is
very comfortable
and very desired position very
gratifying
the inside position has the anxiety the
inside position has the tension
the fights are between the members of
the couple
the lover or the outsider or the
therapist or the friend or the family
they benefit they benefit because
they're in position of a sage
of a guru they enjoy sex they i mean
they get the benefits
friends with benefits the all the
all the hard work goes on inside inside
the couple
and there but this is exactly
what generates the emotional closeness
that restores the couple
the outsider serves to preserve the
inside couple's relationship
bowen said that not all triangles are
constructive some are destructive but
most triangles are actually constructive
here's another new thing you're learning
triangulation is healthy what about
abusers narcissists psychopaths
run of the run-of-the-mill abusers
what about them well they tend to create
pathological or perverse
triangles nathan eckerman
in 1968 described a destructive triangle
and he wrote we observe certain
constellations of family interactions
which we have epitomized as the pattern
of family interdependence
roles those of destroyer or persecutor
the victim of the scapegoating attack
and the family healer or the family
doctor and so ackermann recognized the
pattern of attack
defense counter-attack as shifting roles
within a destructive or pathological
um the triangle
okay i said that cartman
and even i would say bowen and akerman
they all think that the victim is an act
it's
you're acting the role of a victim
tomorrow you can act the role of an
abuser
easily the decision is yours
the switch is possible totally it's 100
your decision your victim in other words
it is implied but not
said because it's politically incorrect
and it's taboo and you're not supposed
to say this
but the victim chooses to be a victim
the victim chooses her role in the
triangle she could easily shift
so what's the difference between this
and victim playing
we discussed victim blaming in the
previous video
this is not about victim blame it's
about understanding the intricacies
of being a victim the existential state
of victimhood
so what's the difference between cartman
bowen
ackerman the triangle and what is called
victim playing or playing the victim
card or
self-victimization the difference is
that
the victim in triangles maintains
reality testing
she usually remembers what had happened
she usually describes more or less
accurately she may exaggerate but there
will be
a kernel of truth to what she say
it will all be reality based
victim playing is the fabrication
lying about abuse exaggeration of
victimhood to the extreme
and this is done to in order to justify
the abuse of others
to manipulate other people as a coping
strategy
because of attention seeking or because
of a wish to
diffuse responsibility to push it away
to pass the back
so victim playing is very common with
abusers actually
abusers play the victim and with victims
who are essentially narcissistic
psychopathic borderline secondary
psychopaths
and they use victimhood to
kind of disguise their contributions and
their responsibility in what had
happened in the abuse
so we have a set of unsavory characters
and our empaths for example they engage
in victim playing
absolutely 100 in victim play it's a
powerful indicator that these people are
covert narcissists
or psychopathic or at the very least
borderline
because they are trying to create a
morality play
and they engage in splitting where
someone is on
bed the abuser and someone is all good
the empath
and they aggrandize themselves in the
process these are strong indications of
narcissistic
pathological narcissistic defenses
victim playing by abusers is done in a
variety of ways
by dehumanizing the victim by diverting
attention
away from acts of abuse by claiming that
the abuse was justified
because of the other person's bad
behavior the victim
made it happen she caused it she
provoked me
she asked for it grooming
abusive power and control by soliciting
sympathy and empathy and romantic
emotions from other people
in order to gain something assistant
access money sex whatever
supporting or enabling the the abuse of
a victim
proxy abused by proxy so
all these are forms of victim plane and
abusers frequently play the victim
and they play the victim for two reasons
first of all
justifications justification even
abusers
need to feel ego syntonic many abusers
have a self-image and self-perception
as good people morally upright people
people who would never harm a fly and so
they need to justify to themselves first
of all
why they had damaged caused pain
and hurt another person and this is
called in transactional analysis
existential validation so many abusers
would victim play in order to feel good
with themselves to justify themselves to
deal with the cognitive dissonance
because there's an inconsistency there's
a contradiction
there's a conflict between the way they
treat other people
and what they believe about themselves
they believe about themselves
they're good people good people don't
abuse
so if good people don't abuse and i'm a
good person i don't abuse
so what i do is not abuse it's something
else
um reactive abuse i've been victimized
i'm just reacting and similarly
victim playing justifies to others
and it's a strategy of avoiding or
evading evading blame and guilt and
shame
deflecting judgment or condemnation
and ultimately deflecting punishment
social punishment or legal punishment
manipulators play the victim role
who is me poor me look what the look
what he's done to me look how he
destroyed my life look you know
this is to play the victim role they
portray themselves as victim
victims of circumstances as victims of
someone else's behavior
that they had no control over could not
have had knowledge of
and could not have predicted or
anticipated
like natural disaster like a virus just
happened to them
they're totally passive they didn't do
anything
they didn't contribute to anything they
are responsible for nothing
they're not adults they're poor and pure
children and so they this way they gain
pity or sympathy empathy compassion
comfort they get something from someone
when you see
victim behavior that is goal oriented
intended to secure
something from you emotional sustenance
narcissistic supply sympathy empathy if
the victim wants
something from you your feedback in some
way shape or form that's victim playing
caring and conscientious people cannot
altruistic people empathic people
cannot stand to see someone suffering
anyone
and so manipulators target such people
they find it easy and rewarding
to play the victim card and that way
they get cooperation
and sympathy and it's highly rewarding
and it's highly successful ryan williams
ryan william um i mean william ryan
wrote the following in 1971 in his book
blaming the victim
uh victim's talent for high drama
draws people to them like moths to a
flame
their permanent dire state brings out
the altruistic motives
in other people it is difficult to
ignore
constant cries for help in most
instances however the help given
is short of or is of short duration
and like moths in a flame helpers
quickly get burned
nothing seems to work to alleviate the
victim's miserable situation
there is no movement for the battle any
efforts
rescuers make are ignored belittled
or met with hostility no wonder that the
rescuers become increasingly frustrated
and
ultimately walk away
jordan peterson has a whole chapter
dedicated
to this in his book twelve rules
okay victim playing is therefore an
attention seeking technique
and for example mitch hausen syndrome is
a form of victim play
it's a strategy to elicit
rescue and being saved and of course
it's a it's a mechanism to obtain a
variety of emotional rewards like
narcissistic supply sympathy empathy
etc etc you
secure feedback
input from their environment and you are
enabled and empowered
via victim playing victim playing
actually empowers and enables people but
in a bad way
in a bad way because it doesn't allow
progress evolution
personal growth and development it gets
you stuck in the same place
it's like a one one trick dog one trick
pony
it's the only trick you know i need
something i'll play a victim i need
money i play a victim i need empathy i
play a victim
i need to get rid of my husband i play a
victim you know i play victim it's the
only thing i know how to do
and the language of playing playing the
victim
is all over i mean you can find it in
corporate settings
you can find it in in
when you when you interact with your
children it's a boundary issue
it's a boundary issue because the victim
invades
breaches and violates your boundaries in
many many ways it's she's
the typical victim is very dis-empathic
she lacks empathy
she watched the previous lecture and is
very demanding
very clinging and very needy and it's a
bit of a dishonest
strategy means it elicits an empowering
response
but the victim is not seeking to be
empowered
on the very contrary the victim wants
you to perpetuate her state
as a victim because it gets you to do
things for her
okay transactional
analysis distinguishes real victims from
people who had
adopted the role of victim in bad faith
authenticity versus bad faith that's an
existentialist approach
jean-paul sartre so there are authentic
victims
and they're bad faith victims what's the
difference between the two
authentic victims want to stop being
victims
they dedicate all their energy all their
thoughts
everything to leverage their capacities
to improve their situation and stop
being a victim bad faith victims
also leverage all their capacities on
all their resources
in order to remain victims because
victimhood
works for them and you will always find
any number of unscrupulous gurus coaches
and experts
who will help you to remain a bad faith
victim
will help you to to get stuck in your
victimhood stunts
because it pays it's profitable
and so among the most predictable
interpersonal games described by eric
byrne
he he described the game a more
common among victim players
and he said so eric burns has a book
called games people play where he
describes
games he he casts recasts
reframes reformulates interpersonal
relationships as games
and one of the games is victim plane and
he said this game
revolves around the sentence look how
hard i've tried
look how hard i've tried and i'm still a
victim
the psychiatrist r.d ling
who was an iconoclastic figure
in the 60s and 70s he said it will be
difficult in practice to determine
whether or not
or to what extent a relationship is
collusive
where one person is predominantly the
passive victim
by consent and when there are these
people
are not real victims but merely playing
the victims this is
almost impossible just by observing and
analyzing
we can't really tell if someone is an
authentic victim or a bad faith victim
you need to observe that person a very
long period of time
and if that person remains a victim for
years or months
something's wrong it's probably a person
who is acting the victim
because to be a victim is gratifying
aggrandizing
functional and guarantees favorable
outcomes
from an empathic altruistic environment
a problem
is even more intense more egregious
once a pattern of victimization has been
internalized
it's kind of double bind when
victim victimhood becomes your identity
becomes who you are
not what you do but who you are it's
like an
actor in a film in a movie
and the actor gets confused and he
thinks suddenly that he is the character
not that he is acting the character but
that he is the character
object relations theory explored
the way that the false self
possesses and creates a permanent sense
of victimization a sense of always being
at the hands of something external
because what is the false self the false
self is not you
it's out there it's an external entity
and you are fully hostage
of that false self from it from the age
of two or four or six or nine
at the maximum you had become
you had been kidnapped by the false self
you had become a hostage
so of course you will naturally evolve
into a victim and adopt a victim
mentality that's why all narcissists
would tell you
that they are victims because they are
victims they are
they self-victimize they surrender
themselves
subjugate themselves to the hands of
this moloch
this idol this god
the false self it's a form of human
sacrifice
they sacrifice the true self to this new
in this form of idolatry and to break
the hold
of the negative complex and to escape
the passivity of victimhood
that that requires to take
responsibility of your
own life your choices your decisions
your desires
your long-term actions and taking
responsibility is very frightening
the existentially starting with
kierkegaard
sartre i mean you name it all the
existentialists will tell you
that angst existential anxiety
is because you have a choice because you
can
choose and why do we why do we elect
dictators why do we give power to
dictators
because together with the power
dictators take away from us
personal responsibility the message of
the dictator is
leave it to me you're no longer
responsible things go bad
it's not your fault you're not to blame
you're not guilty
we want to get rid of personal
responsibility and one of the major ways
we avail ourselves of the burden of
responsibility and angst
is by becoming a victim these victims
are passive
they're not responsible poor me
and this is of course what is known as
learned helplessness
learn helplessness is when someone
endured had endured repeated aversive
stimuli
in other words when someone had been
exposed to very unpleasant situations
time and again and again that's why it's
learned
it's learned because you learn to expect
bad things to happen to you
bad things happen also to good people so
learn hopelessness
is your reaction your fatalistic
reaction your deterministic reaction
your belief that the world will only
meet
out to you give you bad cards that you
will always experience
only bad things that things will never
be right
that you will you will endure only pain
and hurt
and that's what you can expect from your
relationships from your intimate
partners from your children from a
business colleagues from
from the world at large this is learned
helplessness
and until recently we thought that
people accept their powerlessness
they at the beginning they try they
flail about you know they try to escape
they try to change things they try to
avoid
uh unpleasant aversive hurtful and
painful situations
they try everything but if and when
they had failed in everything they had
tried they learned to accept that
they're helpless
and even when we show them that they are
not helpless
that there are other options they have
already learned helplessness
so they want countenance they won't even
consider
our advice they want they would deny
that there are any options any exit
strategies
they are deeply enmeshed mired in
immersed and embedded in helplessness
end of story
they are unable to contemplate any
alternative
and so this is what we had believed
until recently but recently we are
coming to the conclusion
that it is helplessness that is learned
our natural state is a state of
helplessness
so sorry let me uh repeat
lately we have come to the conclusion
that it is helpfulness
that is learned we learn helpfulness
we learn that we can help ourselves we
learn that there are solutions
options exit strategies ways out
this we learn we are born
and we spend the first few years of our
lives helpless
so helplessness is not learned
it's the natural state we need to emerge
from helplessness to emerge from
victimhood
by learning that we can help ourselves
and so in human beings helplessness
is intimately connected with
self-efficacy
the more we learn skills
the more we acquire knowledge the more
efficient we become in obtaining goals
securing favorable outcomes from the
environment from our environment human
environment
natural environment the more efficacious
we are
the less helpless we feel helplessness
and self-efficacy
counterbalance each other the higher
this one is the lower this one is and
vice versa
we are born with helplessness and we
acquire
learned self-efficacy and the
individual's belief
in the innate ability capacity to obtain
goals
is the foundation of self-efficacy
sometimes called itself esteem
or self-confidence it's wrong but it's
close approximation
the more helpless you feel and you are
100 helpless as a victim
let it be clear the message that you are
getting from coaches and experts and
all these con artists crowd of con
artists online
is you're helpless you're a victim
there's nothing you could have done
they teach you helplessness and
over time helplessness always
leads to and resolves in
clinical depression and other mental
illnesses
i want you to understand that you are
risking your mental health
a state of victimhood is a state of
learned helplessness
is a state of incipient depression and
other severe mental illnesses if you
have a real or perceived absence of
control over your life
over the outcomes of situations you want
to die
life is not worth living an external
locus of control is most horrible thing
that can happen to a person that's why
narcissists
in many ways should be pitied because
they have 100
total external locus on control and they
really can't do anything about it
unless they use cold therapy so
recently so this is
a death verdict a psychological death
verdict
american psychologist martin seligman
initiated research on learned
helplessness in 1967
at the university of pennsylvania and he
was actually an expert on depression
he saw so many cases of learned
helplessness and depression that he said
well let's
let's get to grips with it let's study
what this is what this thing is it seems
to be
the core of depression self-victimizing
victimhood and helplessness of the core
of depression
and so he and and later many others mire
others they experimented with dogs and
and these are amazing experiments
i advise you to go online and look for
videos
uh on seligman meyer experiments with
learned helplessness and they reach a
conclusion that there is only one cure
for helplessness zeligman discovered
that
dogs don't try to escape he administered
to them all kinds of sharks and bulldogs
and they didn't try to escape and he
asked himself why the dogs are not
trying to escape
he made it possible for them to escape
they wanted to but they didn't want to
and he asked why they decided to not
escape
why they decided to endure suffering why
they decide in other words when these
dogs
had decided to become victims
and his answer was because they expect
that nothing they
they do will stop the shocks the dogs
lost all self-efficacy
the dog said to himself listen here
there's nothing i can do about this
cruel sadistic human
seligman nothing i can do i have to
sit here in the cage and be electric
electrocuted
i'm at his mercy is my abuser i'm a
victim
i'm a canine victim and i'm sure
that had these dogs live today there
would have been coaches and experts
online catering to their victimhood
status
and so what they the experimenters
tried to teach the dogs to get rid of
learned helplessness so what they did
they took the dogs and they moved their
legs
replicating escape replicating running
away
and gradually the dogs learned
to move their legs and they ran away
so you need to teach victims
and people with learned helplessness you
need to teach them
how to help themselves you don't need to
tell them yes you were victims yes
you're passive
yes you're nobodies yes the abuser uh
you know you you
you couldn't do anything you were
helpless i mean it's the wrong messages
catastrophic messages you need to tell
them of the country
you're strong resilient people you could
have done some things but you
you made the mistake of not doing them
here's what you could have done one two
three
you need to teach help helpfulness
threats don't work rewards don't work
helplessness and victimhood very
addictive
you need rehab victim rehab
where you get rid of your victimhood as
you would get rid of your drinking
or drug addiction and so
there are numerous experiments conducted
later in the 70s 80s 90s
to this very day linking depressive
effects depressive states
with a lack of control or a perceived
lack of control
over abuse and other aversive stimulus
so people for example perform
mental tasks even if they're subjected
to
torturing noise and and pain and so on
they perform mental tasks perfectly if
they believe that they can stop the
noise
if people have a sense of i am
empowered i am strong i'm resilient i
can solve my own problems
i'm in control of myself internal locus
of control
they can endure anything the same
group of people when they were told
there is nothing they can do
about the noise or the pain
[Music]
deteriorated their functioning
deteriorated dramatically
simply being aware that there is an
option there is a way out there is an
exit strategy
was substantially enough to counter
any abuse any torture any pain
any aversive stimulus there was an
animal study not long ago
nine years ago when animals were given
control
over stressful stimuli they were
stressed they were
shocked and other things they were
deprived of food
but when they were given to believe that
they had control over these situations
their whole brain activity changed and
many of them
didn't use the solution humans and
animals
they had options they had exits they had
ways out
and yet they preferred to endure the
torture and the pain
from a position of strength not as
victims they
chose to not avoid the stimuli
animals that lacked control failed to
to act at all
and their brain activity is very
different
so a human's reaction to a lack to
perceived lack of control
is both universal
helplessness victimhood but
with individual idiosyncrasies
so land helplessness is very specific to
individuals and very specific to
situations
it can be sufficiently generalized
but still we need to inspect each case
another reason
why self-styled coaches self-styled
experts and gurus and other forms of
corn artists
are doing you a disservice because they
generalize the victim state
they generalized learned helplessness
and it is
expressly untrue so
the variations between the way we
experience victimhood and learned
helplessness
is that they depend these variations
depend on what we call
attributional or explanatory style
towards the end of the lecture i will
discuss attribution errors
and how they affect helplessness and
victimhood
how someone interprets or explains what
has happened
how someone perceives the abuse refrains
it and
analyzes it understands it it affects
the likelihood of acquiring learned
helplessness
and subsequent depression people with
pessimistic
negativistic explanatory style tend to
see
negative events such as abuse they tend
to see them as permanent
it will never change i will never change
i will keep attracting narcissists they
will keep abusing me it's my fault
i can't do anything correctly so it's
personal it's pervasive it's permanent
and they're likely to suffer from
learned helplessness and depression
there was a scholar by the name of
bernard weiner
w w-e-i-n-e-r and he
he published the most detailed account
of
attributional approach to learned
helplessness
he has an attribution theory and there
he discusses
globality specificity stability
instability internality
externality these are all features that
determine
how you experience helplessness and
whether you adopt
a victimhood stance for example global
attribution occurs when the individual
believes
that the cause of negative events is
consistent across
different contexts specific attribution
is when the individual believes that the
cause of a negative event
is unique to a particular situation
stable attribution is when the
individual believes the cause to be
consistent across time
unstable attribution is when the
individual thinks that the cause is
specific
to one point in time a result of some
circumstance
external attribution assign
assigns causality to situational or
external factors of people
internal attribution assigns causality
to factors within the person
it's very close to locus of control and
so those
with internal stable and global
attributional style
for negative events are more at risk
for depressive reaction to failure
defeat abuse
other aversive experiences learned
helplessness is a factor in a wide range
of situations not only in interpersonal
relationships
not only in in abuse
in emotionally abusive relationships the
victim often develops
learned helplessness it's when the
victim confronts the abuser tries to
leave the abuser
but the abuser dismisses or trivializes
the victim's feelings
invalidates the abuse pretends to care
but does not change
impedes the abuse the victim from living
somehow
so it's true that emotionally or abusive
relationships
involve learned helplessness but learn
helplessness
is everywhere in the classroom in my
classroom
students some students repeatedly fail
and
i can't convince them that they can
improve their performance
because they attribute the failure to
themselves they say i'm like that and
i can't succeed so continued failure
loss of self-esteem social consequences
only enhance
the learned helplessness which then
leads to failure
et cetera et cetera it's a vicious cycle
it's very difficult to break
and in all this there's a fundamental
attribution error
one famous attribution error is what we
call the dunning-kruger effect
the dunning-kruger effect is when people
believe themselves to be
less fallible and more clever than other
people
when in in actuality that's not the case
in social psychology the fundamental
attribution error also known as
correspondence bias attribution effect
it's the tendency to overvalue
dispositional or personality based
explanations
for the observed behaviors of others and
at the same time
undervalue situational explanations for
those behaviors
lee ross coined coined the phrase
after some uh seri a classic experiment
by edward
jones and victor harris in 1967
so fundamental attribution error when is
when people explain the behaviors of
others
and when they do it um they don't
explain
um so it's like when they explain the
behavior of other people
they would explain it the behavior of
other people
because these other people are like that
this is their essence
this is the psychology they behave in
certain ways because they are like that
he's abusing me because he's an abuser
but when they explain their own behavior
they they attribute it to some
circumstances
i abused him because he abused me i
abused him because i was in a bad mood
so it's like he's abusing people because
that is his essence
it's his quiddity it's who he is who is
he's an abuser i'm abusing people
because things happen to me
circumstances change
i'm reacting i'm provoked and so this is
called attributional
attributional error situational factors
you attribute to yourself psychological
factors
you attribute to other and this is the
actor observer bias
so let's take an example you see someone
who is very clumsy and he fell over and
broke
a tray with with many glasses and so
okay then you judge his behavior you say
oh he's clumsy he's careless
it's a dispositional judgment he broke
the glasses
not because he tripped over something
not because of something that
external but because of something
internal he broke the glasses
because he is like that he's a glass
breaker
is clumsy but if a minute later
you were to trip over and break the same
number of glasses
you would tell yourself that something
was wrong with
with the way the glasses were arranged
on the tree or someone left something
and you tripped over it you would try to
find clues
cues in the environment not inside
yourself you wouldn't say
oh i tripped over because i'm clumsy in
most cases
you would say oh i tripped over because
abc
in the environment so victims
victim promise or victim blaming
that i've mentioned in the previous
lecture it's a form of fundamental
attribution error
it's known as the just world phenomenon
i
recommend that you read articles by
aronson wilson akert and sommers
article published in 2016. the just
world phenomenon
is the belief that people get what they
deserve and they deserve
what they get and this was first
described by melvin lerner
it's also known as the just desserts
attributing failures to dispositional
causes
attributing failures to someone else's
psychology makeup
relevant to situational causes which are
unchangeable and uncontrollable
this satisfies our need to believe that
the world is fair
and we have control over our lives we
are motivated to see a just
world because this reduces perceived
threats reduces anxiety
gives us a sense of security helps us to
find meaning in difficult and unsettling
circumstances
benefits us psychologically so we would
say
he broke the glasses because he is like
that
now that i know this about him i can
predict his future behavior
and i can control it i can never give
him glasses again
he is an abuser now i can control it i
know who he is i know what it's going to
do
what he's going to do i know how he's
going to behave like i'm in control
but the just world hypothesis also
results in a tendency for people
to blame and disparage others
victims blame and disparage abusers and
abusers
blame and disparage victims even victims
of a tragedy even
victims of an accident even victims of
rape or domestic abuse
so we tend to blame them in order to
reassure ourselves
of their of of our insusceptibility to
such
events she got traiped because she is
provocative and promiscuous i am not
provocative and promiscuous
i will never get raped you know
i abused her because she provoked me if
i were to live with another woman she
would not provoke me
i would not abuse her so these are
defenses
we we attribute to other people badness
corruption we attribute to other people
negative things
and when it comes to us
we are passive victims of circumstances
of others of abusers we are in a way
eternal victims
of the world and this is where you don't
want to end
because this leads to depression and
severe mental illness
you can go from bad to worse
you can exit an abusive relationship but
if you understand it wrongly
if you refrain it wrongly if you catch
cast yourself in the role of an eternal
victim
who did nothing wrong could have done
nothing wrong could do nothing wrong
he's not responsible and contributed
nothing
you're gonna end up with mental illness
and i'm not sure which is worse
when your abuser is external or when
your abuser is internal
in the form of a mental illness that is
really
who you are
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