It’s said that our cells regenerate over different timescales from days and weeks to months and years, in changing who we are as we stay the same. So, it’s a state of being, by-passing wonder as much as ignorance with a design taken for granted as people flop into measures to build self-esteem, to then realise a false economy. In fact, many if not most have sold out a few cells through times that are hard, if not cruel. Yet, just as those tiny parts are unique: the role that you play in dealing with your life reflects how you see yourself.

Well, maybe it’s frightening to see the reality but when it dawns that you have a choice as to whether or not you take part, anxiety descends at the real prospect of losing a part of yourself. An expression of something that may be a blanket or a burden in it’s familiarity while a truth reminds us that change is never far, which is a complex thing in itself. So, it’s a verbal portrait as you work from a script that must involve others, but whether you fail or succeed or just switch roles: the journey is really what matters.

It’s true, from the top down, it’s a daily play where you’re a mother a father or some kind of other, in carrying out duties to survive. Yet, as you go through your lines it sneaks up behind or hovers where history drives you and by that it means, your character and personality. So, of course, the world is a stage as Shakespeare said and in 1981, a columnist for The New York Times wrote a piece on the social roles we adopt. As Glen Collins quoted Dr Humphry Osmond, a clinical professor of psychiatry, he observed:

‘The roles that we play may vary with each person we encounter, and roles change throughout one’s life. “The normal person can, at very high speed, adopt the role that others expect,” said Dr. Osmond. “Much of one’s social assessment entails perceiving and judging the appropriate role and allowing other people to assume their roles with you.‘

It seems like a dance we’ll all step to, even if we try not to and it starts young as we fall into behaviour, testing the mettle of grown-ups. So, we’ll resist instructions and unseen care as we plant a flag while declaring intentions but only for as long as we’re bold. In fact, it’s a jump on authority which should be safe as it draws up a role reinforced by reactions, pulling you one way or another. So, by the time the demands of school are in place: your roles are well-formed with a moral focus and the wide-ranging qualities of character, and we see this clearly in Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages.

So, in reviewing your life and a course of decisions, it’s possible to trace the origins of some of the parts you chose to play. Obviously, for many it’s less of a choice which isn’t to be taken lightly, meaning the depths of whatever we plunder in the method of our theatre finds a stamp, left a while ago. Well, those roles may be reductive and addictive as well as negative, but in the end it takes others to read their lines well and that seems to be the basis of it all. In fact, a role, by definition, usually needs extras in bringing different kinds of drama to life.

In 1968, a psychiatrist in San Francisco, USA, developed a theory called the ‘Karpman Drama Triangle’ while suggesting that whenever it comes to a certain type of dynamic, three roles help to fuel an ongoing struggle. The ‘victim’, ‘rescuer’ and ‘persecutor’ each play a part when it comes to interacting and without insight into this relationship: it’s easy to keep making mistakes.

‘Among various models relevant to family theory and practise, two are relevant to both endeavours. The Attachment Model has been extremely fruitful in attracting world-wide attention and research. The Drama Triangle, on the other hand, composed by reactive and manipulative: victim, persecutor and rescuer roles – originating in 1968 by S.B Karpman – has not received the attention and interest it deserves from the family therapy profession.’

American Psychological Association

So, a person can move from one role to the next or, in fact, carry all three which seems complicated. The point is, when interacting with someone who operates similarly, a real coming together is expected. This means tension and stress are the new and not so nice norm as one party tries to dominate while the other accepts victimhood, in settling for an onslaught. That being said, it’s important to say that it’s never quite so simple as some victims end up in a place where the sheer length of suffering, leads to something called ‘learned helplessness’ and the Oxford Reference Online, describes it as:

‘An apathetic condition in an animal or a human being resulting from exposure to insoluble problems or inescapable physical or emotional stress, believed by some psychologists to underlie depression.’      

Meanwhile, a rescuer may arrive under a veil of good intentions that are sadly, anything but. For instance, the persecutor behaves in a way that standardises bullying and that leads to others being treated as though they’re non-existent. In effect, the rescuer does the same thing by ignoring a person’s agency or natural sense of autonomy, which allows them to take charge of someone else’s life or recovery. So, in the process, they may undermine an idea of self and all it entails which displaces a need to ‘fix’ something, usually within themselves.

The persecutor is a well-known role and archetype in an ancient tradition of imagery and it, amongst others, reflects dynamics we’ll adopt in relationships that are familiar. So, from Carl Jung’s model of unconscious symbolism, it’s an inherited idea shared across the globe irrespective of race and or culture. It’s fairly clear, too, how our socioeconomic roles are linked to the personal, like some kind of existential exchange rate. In fact, the strength or quality of your cognitive function settles the emotional price you pay, in addition to your relative status to others.

Yet, there are alternatives to ‘The Drama Triangle’, placing its roles in a different light and in line with that, the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy published a piece written by a humanistic counsellor, Emma Redfern:

‘My humanistic integrative training has taught me that the Healthy Triangle is a development of the Beneficial Triangle of Proctor and Tehrani (2001, p177). In the Healthy Triangle, the victim corner of the triangle is replaced with being vulnerable; the role of persecutor is replaced with being potent or powerful and instead of needing to rescue, one is responsive and responsible to oneself.’

At the same time and with our agency asleep or perhaps knocked out, we’ll find something to wake it up, so it can rush to our rescue. We may not recognise it at first but with a desire to overcome whatever ails us, those galloping hooves or at least a trot will arrive to give us a ride.  

In revisiting Shakespeare’s words, he said:

‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.’

It’s so true and for the men, women and children living out their roles internally and externally: reminders should be set to check in now and then, with no-one but themselves.

Copyright © 2024 | recoveryourwellbeing.com | All Rights Reserved

Images:

Galloping Horses, by SorcerysoapHP, Pixabay – Main Image
Parent-Child Moment, by Daria Obymaha, Pexels
Drama Students, by Pexels

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