Getting Out Of Drama's Way

A therapeutic model to understand yourself and others better

Good morning my friend,

Once a week or so I am going to focus on therapeutic models that can help us better understand ourselves and our personality archetypes. Once we can deepen our understanding of the way in which our personality operates we can loosen the strong binds it can have on us, and move into more expansive ways of showing up for ourselves and those we love. For our paid subscribers these posts will involve bonuses like guided meditations, journal prompts and mechanisms for a deeper understanding of the model and yourself - so consider signing up for as little as $1.50AUD a week (about 80cUSD).

Before we get into this, next weekend I have a global online course in Integrated Meditation happening 22nd-24th August, and if you’re ready for a really steady practice that will shift your nervous system, defrag your brain and allow your mind to access greater lateral thinking, clarity and enhance your consciousness, this is the practice for you. If your nervous system is disregulated, you’re experiencing overwhelm or burnout, I haven’t seen a practice as efficient in bringing about daily harmony as IM does.

We are offering some partial scholarships to those in need just email us info@thebroadplace.com.au to enquire. I am offering different times each day for varying time zones so wherever you are you should be able to join a morning or an afternoon session!

Excellent, not onto this fabulous model, The Drama Triangle, which is a psychological model that was first developed by Dr Stephen Karpman in the 1960s. Karpman, a student of Eric Berne - the psychiatrist behind Transactional Analysis - was fascinated by the hidden roles and scripts we play in relationships. He noticed a repeating pattern in human interaction, especially during conflict: people tended to fall into one of three roles - Victim, Rescuer, or Blamer (Persecutor) - and would unconsciously rotate through them, often keeping tension alive rather than resolving it.

Since its introduction, the Drama Triangle has become a cornerstone in psychology, family therapy, and leadership coaching because it so precisely maps the emotional theatre of human relationships. It’s called “drama” not because it’s frivolous, but because it’s a cycle of unconscious storytelling. Everyone involved ends up reinforcing each other’s roles in ways that feel familiar but rarely freeing. When Karpman developed this model, psychology was starting to look beyond the individual psyche and focus more on relational dynamics. Family systems theory, pioneered by Murray Bowen, was gaining traction, showing how early family patterns ripple into adult life. The Drama Triangle elegantly captures this inheritance. Most of us didn’t consciously choose our role—it was quietly assigned by the environment we grew up in. These roles show up in families, workplaces, friendships, and even in the way we speak to ourselves.

In modern psychology, the Drama Triangle is often linked to emotional regulation, attachment styles, and nervous system awareness. When we’re dysregulated - hyper-aroused in fight-or-flight, or hypo-aroused in collapse - we unconsciously slip into these roles as coping mechanisms. They help us avoid the discomfort of uncertainty, pain, or vulnerability. And here’s the confronting part: we don’t just play out the Drama Triangle with other people. We play it inside ourselves. We blame ourselves, rescue ourselves, and collapse into our own inner Victim. That’s why it can feel like we’re stuck in a loop that’s hard to name but exhausting to live in. Learning to recognise the Drama Triangle isn’t about self-shaming. It’s an invitation to step into awareness, to see the scripts we inherited, and to choose a different role: the Witness, the Self-Coach, the Self-Leader—the part of you that can see the pattern and step out of it.

THE THREE KEY ROLES

The Rescuer (Fixer/Saver)

This is the person who comes out of themselves to fix, save, or soothe a situation. Rescuers can’t stand the discomfort of someone else’s unhappiness. The anxiety of seeing someone in pain or tension drives them to do something - anything - to restore harmony. What the Rescuer gets:

A sense of pride or importance (“I’m the one who holds it all together”)
A sense of purpose or relevance
The rush of being dependable
Avoidance of their own pain by focusing on others

The shadow is that Rescuers often burn out, over-give, and quietly resent when no one rescues them in return. Helping can also become subtly controlling - done to feel safe rather than from clean generosity.

The Blamer (Persecutor)

The Blamer’s instinctive reaction to friction is to find out who is at fault. It doesn’t always matter who—it could be themselves or someone else - but the Blamer finds comfort in the clarity of blame over the uncertainty of “I don’t know.”

They might sound like:

“Who dropped the ball here?”
“Who made this decision? It was a bad one.”

Blamers often appear confident and decisive, but underneath is usually fear or hyper-arousal. What the Blamer gets:

Immediate release of pent-up anger or anxiety
The temporary relief of certainty
A sense of control in chaos

The Victim

The Victim role isn’t always dramatic or outwardly distressed. It can be subtle: a tone of “This always happens to me,” a sense of helplessness, or feeling perpetually unlucky or burdened. The Victim unconsciously draws the Rescuer to soothe them and can also trigger the Blamer. What the Victim gets:

Attention, sympathy, or understanding
Permission to access sadness, grief, or vulnerability
The comfort of powerlessness (“I can’t, so I don’t have to try”)

Victim energy can be quiet and internal, but it’s still part of the triangle. It might look like sighing loudly while doing chores no one else is helping with, over-functioning for others and then sulking about the lack of support, or spiralling into “This always happens to me” thinking when something goes wrong.

The Reward That Keeps It Running

Here’s the key: we stay in the Drama Triangle because we get something out of it. Rescuers get pride, purpose, control, and distraction from their own feelings.
Blamers get access to anger and the relief of certainty.
Victims get sympathy, validation, and the right to collapse.

Once you see the reward, you understand why it’s hard to step out. The “juice” is often unconscious until you name it.

Primary and Secondary Roles

Most of us have a primary role - a default hat we wear - and a secondary one we slip into when the opportunity arises. You might be a Rescuer at work, a Blamer in your family, and a Victim in your own self-talk. And yes, this runs internally: you can wake up, blame yourself for overcommitting, slip into Victim with “I can’t keep doing this,” and then rescue yourself by creating new systems—all before breakfast.

If you would like to read excellent prompts to deepen your understanding and listen to a guided meditation style exercise, please continue here…this is for our Paid Subscribers and you can sign up right away to access…

INTEGRATED COACHING

And if you would like to work with me one on one through Integrated Coaching, where we work through therapy, coaching and spiritual practices together I have 2 session bundles available at the moment, alongside my 3, 6 and 12 month containers.

From Drama to Self-Leadership

The aim is not to shame yourself for stepping into the triangle. We all do it. The practice is to spot it early and step into Self-Leadership.