Find the hidden corners in your own role

For the role others saw you play, find how you were also in the other two corners.

Perché funziona

Karpman's compassion triangle rests on the idea that once someone is in the drama triangle they are in all three roles at once, some visible and some hidden. His example is an angry boss: the identified Persecutor, but secretly a Victim of careless work and job insecurity, and secretly a Rescuer trying to train staff to a high standard. Seeing all three corners in yourself gives a fuller view of what you were doing, and he presents it as a way to monitor your own choices in any game.

Come farlo

1. Name the role others would say you played in a recent conflict.
2. Ask how you were also a Victim in it: what were you afraid of, hurt by or stuck with?
3. Ask how you were also a Rescuer: what good were you trying to do or protect?
4. Then give the other person three corners as well, and write one line for each.

Prove scientifiche

The three-corners-at-once idea and the identified-role examples come from Karpman's 2007 lecture; his 2019 article describes the same triangle as an individual way of monitoring oneself by considering three possibilities in oneself and three in the other person. It is a practitioner model with no controlled research behind it. (anecdotal)

Untested. Finding your hidden corners is a way of understanding your part, not a measure of who was right.

Fonti

• Karpman, S. B. (2007). The New Drama Triangles. USATAA/ITAA conference lecture, August 11, 2007 (worksheet published on the author's site).
• Karpman, S. B. (2019). Script drama analysis II. International Journal of Transactional Analysis Research & Practice, 10(1), 21-39.

Errore comune

Using the hidden corners to excuse the visible one ("I was only angry because I was trying to help"). Seeing the Rescuer inside a Persecutor move explains it; it does not cancel its effect on the other person.