NB: all situations are hypothetical!
Karpman drama triangle is a very useful concept to remember IMHO.
Let’s take a business situation as an example. Imagine an employee V gets upset from feedback from the boss P. V takes it personally and goes into a victim mode: being very sorry for him/herself. Those emotions take all available space, and instead of figuring out what can be done differently V blames everything and everyone around. At the same time P is also not really helping the resolution of the situation, so P becomes a prosecutor from V’s perspective. If V, for example, reacts emotionally and shuts the door and behaves in an aggressive manner towards the boss, this might turn the situation around, and now V becomes a prosecutor, and P is a victim. It all depends on the perspective.
Now imagine that there is a third person R – who observed the situation, felt sorry for V and goes to P to share opinion and fix the situation. From V’s perspective R is a rescuer. The problem here is that V actually has not asked for this way of helping and in the longer term that might create even more harm for V. From P’s perspective R is a prosecutor and based on P’s reaction R can easily become a victim as well.
How this can be turned around? For example, R can offer support to V, and then V is in control of the actions. And at the same time P can look at the way of sharing feedback to make it more like a challenge than a blame.
Personally, I find it very helpful to keep this triangle in mind and check my actions against it, to make sure I am not falling into any of those three modes.
And from coaching perspective it is very important not to jump into rescuer mode, rather provide support and help V and even P to explore the situation, thinking, outcomes and actions.
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