Speaker A
hey welcome back to my channel it's been a couple weeks today we're here to talk about a combination of two of my favorite systems which are the drama triangle and the empowerment dynamic which i kind of like linked together as one system
Heidi Priebe introduces the Drama Triangle (victim, persecutor, savior) and its healthy counterpart, the Empowerment Dynamic, arguing you must leave the triangle before doing attachment work.
Key Takeaways
- Insecure attachment naturally places people inside the Drama Triangle.
- Attachment work must begin by recognizing the tendency to blame others and place the locus of change outside yourself.
- Each Drama Triangle role has an empowered Empowerment Dynamic counterpart.
- Stepping out of the triangle requires repeatedly catching yourself in victim, persecutor, or savior mode and choosing an empowered stance.
What the video covers
- The video is Part 1 of a series combining the Drama Triangle and the Empowerment Dynamic, which the speaker presents as an antidote to unhealthy conflict patterns.
- The speaker argues that you cannot work on your attachment style until you step out of the Drama Triangle, since insecure attachment places people in the middle of it.
- Online attachment communities often feature people blaming their partners rather than examining themselves, a pattern tied to attachment trauma.
- Anxious, dismissive, and fearful-avoidant attachment styles each show distinct ways of feeling wronged or blaming others.
- The Drama Triangle, a conflict model with roots in transactional analysis, describes three roles: victim, persecutor, and savior.
- Everyone plays all three roles during conflict but usually has a preferred 'starting gate' role.
- The Empowerment Dynamic offers healthy counterparts: creator (for victim), challenger (for persecutor), and coach (for savior).
- The victim role outsources well-being to someone else, while the persecutor role does so aggressively; both are disempowered stances.
- The savior role seeks to be needed and feels good only by fixing others, which keeps them in the triangle.
- The core shift is to stop waiting for others to change and recognize that you are the one who needs to change, catching and reversing the pattern repeatedly.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to the Drama Triangle and Empowerment Dynamic
- 00:56Attachment Styles and Blaming Others
- 01:49Origins of the Drama Triangle
- 02:41The Speaker's Personal Story and Counselor Insight
- 03:38The Victim Role
- 04:35The Persecutor Role
- 05:38The Savior Role and Staying in the Triangle
- 07:11The Empowerment Dynamic: Creator, Challenger, Coach
- 09:00Stepping Out of the Triangle and Next Steps
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
because the empowerment dynamic is the antidote to the drama triangle and attachment styles so i am of the opinion that you absolutely cannot begin to work on your attachment style until you step out of the drama triangle and i'll explain in a minute what that
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means but basically when i started doing attachment work i started looking for communities online where people were also doing attachment work and i noticed that a lot of the communities out there were just full of people talking about the other attachment
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style so you'd get a whole bunch of anxiously attached people just talking about dismissive avoidance and being like how do i deal with this relationship with the dismissive avoidance they're devaluing me they're not paying enough attention to me
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how do i get them to love me and i'm like okay this is not attachment work and that's not to say that um anxiously attached people are the only people who are kind of doing that talking and not doing the work
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people everywhere are not doing the work just dismissive avoidance are more quiet about it and fearful avoidance are too busy tending to their own chaotic relationships generally to go online and project that much i'm guessing um but it is to say
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that there is this very strong theme that's inherent to attachment trauma of wanting it to be about the other so you have to first recognize the bias that you have before you begin working on your attachment style to blame
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everyone else and take the blame off yourself so anxiously attached people tend to feel like oh their partners are just never giving them enough they're giving so much love and attention but they're never getting enough back avoidant people tend to feel like oh i'm
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keeping myself good and okay and i'm not putting my own problems on other people but other people are always putting their problems on me fearful avoidance kind of feel like they're getting a mix of both things like they're kind of
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getting hit from every angle and the reason that all of that is happening is because being insecurely attached kind of puts you automatically in the middle of the drama triangle so the drama triangle for those of you who
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aren't familiar with it is a conflict model that was invented by a man named steven cartman back in i believe it was 1968 and it has its roots in transactional analysis which is basically the field of study that looks at how we project
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all of our unresolved traumas and problems from childhood onto other people and the drama triangle kind of outlines these three roles that most of us tend to take on during conflict and all of us will play all of these three roles during conflict
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so it's not like oh you do one or the other but most of us have what we call a starting gate so a role that we prefer to enter into conflict in and then as the conflict goes on we'll
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switch roles and to move it into healthy territory you have to look at the sister system which is the empowerment dynamic and it talks about these three roles that mirror the roles of the drama triangle but they're healthy ways of
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approaching conflict as opposed to the drama triangle which is just kind of this never-ending cluster of everyone blaming everyone else and no one wanting to take any responsibility for making a change for themselves so i kind of discovered the drama
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triangle when i was 25 and i was at the tail end of this like eight year long relationship that went on a good five years longer than it should have if not longer than that and i went to this counselor in kind of a
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last-ditch attempt to see if i could gain some conflict resolution skills that would help me save the relationship and i sat down and just told him everything about how horrible my partner was how they didn't understand me and they
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didn't try to understand me and they were doing all these things that were keeping us unhappy and in conflict and in stress mode and the counselor just kind of heard me out and then was like i hear that you are in a really unhealthy
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and toxic relationship and i was like yes you get me my partner is the entire problem i'm gonna send my partner in for therapy and i will just see myself out and then he goes but i'm not interested
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in what your partner is doing wrong what i'm interested in is why you're in this relationship that is so bad and yet you're not leaving what is it within you that's causing you to stay and that was this question that stumped me
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because i was like goddammit are you asking me to take responsibility for my own actions i was responsible for choosing the kind of partnership where someone didn't let me down choosing the kind of partnership where someone was honest with me choosing the
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kind of partnership where there was mutual trust and where nobody needed to go on a one-hour long rant to their counselor about the other because they could sit down and discuss things calmly and the fact that i was endlessly going after
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partnerships that were unhealthy was a me problem and that's when i started initially looking into attachment styles in relation to myself and it was also when i got really intimately acquainted with the drama triangle so the three roles in the drama triangle
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are called victim persecutor and savior and when i walked into the counselor's room that day i was in victim mode so i thought all of this bad stuff is happening to me i'm powerless to change it my partner
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needs to change it because they caused it when you're in victim mode that's the exact mindset that you have you think that unless you caused a problem you are powerless to change it or that you shouldn't be the one to
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change it and what that plays on is this kind of deep desire for justice that most of us have like we think if someone did something wrong to us they should be the ones to fix it we shouldn't have to fix it but the truth
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of the matter is that when you're in that headspace and you're waiting for this savior to come along and fix your life and fix your problems and fix the way you feel you are completely disempowered your happiness and your well-being is
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completely in someone else's hands and a lot of us get stuck in that position in relationships when our partner does something wrong real or imagined and then we give them this mindset of well there's nothing i can do until they change and that is the
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victim mindset going into a conflict situation in a victim mindset means you're trying everything you can think of under the sun to get someone else to see how badly they hurt you and how they need to be the one to
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change and to restore the relationship to equilibrium the second role is persecutor and persecutor is similar to the victim in that they feel like they've been wronged but instead of taking a kind of passive aggressive stance where they're playing
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the poor me game they're going aggressive and they're walking into the conflict going you did this wrong you need to fix this x y and z needs to change i don't need to change you're the one who needs to get your act
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together and here's how you can do it the persecutor takes a very direct and a very harsh approach and they're trying to very bluntly call out the other person for what they've done wrong and what they need to do in order to fix
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things so the persecutor like the victim is outsourcing their well-being they're telling someone okay i won't be okay until you fix this this and this so i need you to do that so that i can return to equilibrium and
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once again that's a very disempowered stance even though it feels empowering in the moment like you can go into persecution mode and feel strong and in control because you're telling someone exactly what you need but unless you're capable of getting
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that thing without someone else's participation you're not really in the position of power you're in a position where you're outsourcing your needs just a lot more aggressively than the victim is the third role in the drama triangle is the savior so the savior is
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constantly on the hunt for people who they perceive to be broken or flawed or who have some kind of deep need that needs filling in some way and the savior only feels good about themselves when they're acting as kind
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of a martyr and putting their own needs aside to help or support someone else and that sounds nice in theory but what it really is is the creation of a co-dependent relationship because the savior is not looking to empower someone
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they're not looking to truly help someone in a lasting way they're unconsciously looking to create dependency in a relationship by finding someone who they trick into needing them the savior kind of thinks i'll be loved if i'm needed so they go
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out looking for people who need saving and in a conflict we'll all take on these three different roles at various points so when someone enters into conflict in one of these roles the other person is automatically forced into one of the other two roles
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so let's say someone comes to you playing victim and they're going oh you know i'm so hurt i'm so upset because of these things that you did and you're not taking responsibility for it but can't you see my life is falling apart because
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of these choices you made a better relationship that forces you into either persecution mode so you can point the finger back at them and go well actually you did this this and this that led to that or you can go into savior mode and
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you can put your own needs aside and put your own feelings aside and go okay let me change the situation and give up what i need in favor of what you need so that i can kind of rescue you but the
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problem is that that breeds resentment so the savior often lives in this position of kind of ongoing chronic resentment because they felt as though fixing someone else's problems meant that they should get love in return now so the savior
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will savor someone and then immediately put themselves mentally in the victim status because they're going well i put my needs aside but now this person isn't attending to my needs which was the kind of unconscious contract that i'd entered into when i agreed to
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help them i expected them to then turn around and go okay now i'll meet your needs so now the savior has moved to the victim position and they're walking around in their heads feeling victimized and like someone else has to come now
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meet their needs before they'll feel happy and okay so you are in the drama triangle without exception no exceptions to this anytime you feel like i won't be happy until someone else changes now your resentment your anger your
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victimization might be valid maybe someone truly did hurt you maybe you are really in a position where you are unfortunate and down on your luck and it's someone else's fault but as long as you are waiting for someone to come
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along and save you from the responsibility of figuring out a solution to that you're in the drama triangle so position where you are not taking responsibility are not showing up for yourself and are instead outsourcing the things you need to other people and asking
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other people to restore you to health and happiness insanity and it's just not a fun position to be in because it doesn't really get you to where you want to go very efficiently at best it kind of gets you halfway to somewhere
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with a whole bunch of resentment and it just never works out for the best so to take yourself out of the drama triangle you a have to realize you're in it and then b look at what the mirroring
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role is in the empowerment dynamics so again the empowerment dynamic is a system that mirrors the drama triangles so where we have the victim in the drama triangle we have the creator in the empowerment dynamic the creator is someone who believes that
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they have endless options available to them that they can call upon at any point in time so the creator is always asking themselves the question even if things are bad even if things have gone wrong even if someone else has
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wronged me what options are still available to me so my counselor looked at me that day that i came into his office and listened to my story and then went okay even if this relationship is that bad even if your partner is the
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devil incarnate which options do you have available to yourself he was inviting me to step into the creator role and look at options like i could leave the relationship i could learn some better boundary setting skills i could learn to stop playing savior and
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then feeling victimized afterwards so i had all of these options available to me that i didn't even notice because i was so stuck in this disempowered position that i wasn't taking stock of what i still had control over
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the role in the empowerment dynamic that mirrors the role of the persecutor is the role of the challenger so when you're in persecution mode you're always pointing the finger at the other and going here's what you're doing wrong
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here's what you need to change when you're in challenger position you're looking at how can i learn from this situation even if someone else doesn't change so how can this conflict teach me something how can i learn new skills
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through this how can i make it through this experience and become a better person because of it even if the experience itself was negative so rather than asking your environment to change on your behalf you're inviting yourself to change and learn and grow
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even if your environment stays constant third position in the empowerment dynamic is the coach coach is a position that mirrors the savior role in the drama triangle so while the savior looks to create codependent relationships the coach encourages themselves and
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other people to be independent so the coach sees both themselves and other people as creators so they think i have endless opportunities to make my life better available to me and other people have endless opportunities to make their
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lives better available to them now we don't all have the same opportunities we don't all have the same advantages but they believe that every single person is capable inherently of showing up for themselves and making their lives better
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and that's very different from the savior who thinks oh other people need me to be okay the coach thinks other people don't need me to be okay and i'm gonna remind them of that if they've forgotten that so
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that we don't get trapped in this codependent dynamic where everyone feels enmeshed and uncomfortable and resentful of each other because no one's fully expressing themselves and setting proper boundaries so we've all played victim we've all played persecutor we've all played
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savior but most of us have a preferred starting point so we're going to talk now about the three insecurely attached styles so anxious avoidant and fearful avoidant and what their starting gate role is in the drama triangle and how they can
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change that tendency to an empowered version of it to put themselves into the middle of the empowerment dynamic rather than staying stuck in the drama triangle because again you cannot begin to work on your attachment style until you start acknowledging that you
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need to change not the other and i'm going to say that again because it's so important the number one thing you need to do in order to begin working on your attachment style is stop waiting for other people to
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change if you are waiting for your partner to change your parents to change your friends to change your situation to change you are in the middle of the drama triangle and you will stay there your entire life lots of people do but
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if you're willing to recognize that all of that stuff may never change but you can and you can start responding to those things differently showing up differently showing up for yourself differently engaging with your environment differently then you have a giant almost endless
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amount of opportunity available to you that you did not have available to you before but you have to make that very firm decision to stop waiting for everyone else to change and to decide that you are going to
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change even if no one else does and obviously that looks a little bit different for each of us it's not this thing where you realize the drama triangle exists and then you step out of it and then you're out of it forever
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you will have to catch yourself doing this over and over and over and over and over again for your entire life but the more often you catch yourself doing it and the more often you then switch yourself into empowered position
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the better and better your life gets because the more control you have over your own happiness and health and well-being and that's an awesome thing so let me know where you're at in this process in the comments i'm gonna have a
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lot more videos coming up about how to do the work on each of the attachment styles specifically but this is step one for each of them also before we go remember that if you are an infp or an enfp personality type
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i run bootcamps for your personality types at www.heidipreeb.com i'll put the link in the description as well as on the bottom of this video and i will see you there if that calls to you otherwise i will see you here
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later this week as we keep the attachment style conversations going
Topics:drama triangleempowerment dynamicattachment stylesattachment traumavictim persecutor saviorconflict resolutiontransactional analysisanxious attachmentavoidant attachmentpersonal empowerment
