Nicole Berg explores the complex and multifaceted nature of relationships to maximise fulfilment and quality of life for coaching and mentoring clients. This issue: Raising awareness of disruptive roles in a challenging relationship
The quality of our lives will never be greater than the quality of our relationships. This is true for us, and it is true for our clients.
I adore my mum. Recently my partner and I spent nearly two months living with her as we travelled back home to Canada to obtain new visas for the UK.
For some people this would have been a bit much (perhaps for my husband, if there’s something he’s not telling me?), but I can’t wait to see her again when she comes to stay with us in London to help with the new baby this month (September – yes, it’s all been going on in the Berg household.)
But not everyone is as lucky to have a great relationship with their mum.
A client of mine, Melanie (not her real name), was one of the unlucky ones. She had a good relationship with her dad but a strained one with her mum. In fact, Melanie hadn’t spoken with her mother in six months, despite seeing her frequently.
Notably, she described the relationship between her parents as an unhealthy one – in which her mother would consistently treat her father poorly, and her father would fail to defend himself. When she witnessed this in progress, Melanie would eventually come to her father’s defence time and again.
Such was the pattern they found themselves entrenched in.
Disruptive roles
I asked Melanie what the impact of her role – coming to her father’s rescue – had on their family dynamic. She reflected that this not only increased the tension between her and her mum, but also between her parents themselves.
I asked what her father thought of her actions, and she acknowledged increased tension between herself and her dad following these arguments – particularly as he’d requested for her not to interfere in this way.
The Karpman Drama Triangle1 applies perfectly in this situation. For those unfamiliar with this, the drama triangle describes three roles that individuals can take within a conflict: persecutor, victim and rescuer.
The persecutor blames and abuses; the victim placates and experiences abuse; and the rescuer enables the dynamic while at the same time seeking to fix it.
From her perspective, Melanie was Rescuer to her father’s Victim, while her mother was Persecutor – who would also make a Victim of Melanie when she confronted her mum, whose wrath would then turn to her.
Melanie could also see herself playing Persecutor in these confrontations in the way she expressed herself. Dramatic indeed!
The way forward
Recognition of this dynamic is the start of a solution to it. To quote US inventor Charles F Kettering, “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.”
Nina Bainbridge, executive coach and co-creator of Charis Coaching’s new Managing Challenging Relationships workshop (recently piloted with Euronext, the pan-European stock exchange) suggests four practical steps to raising awareness of the dynamic and creating change:
- Notice the ‘hooks’
For Melanie, hearing the ‘persecutor’ in her mother’s comments, noticing her father’s disempowered ‘victim’ behaviour and feeling her own urge to rescue are signals. Raising her own awareness so she can see the dynamic beneath the words is key.
- Step outside the triangle
Create a conscious decision not to engage in any of these disruptive roles that progress the drama. Until we can re-wire the pathways in our brain with new behaviours this can feel tricky. Resist your default pattern of behaviour, the things you would normally say and do, no matter how right or necessary they feel in the moment. This gives space to create alternative responses.
- Form a new response
Trying out a new response can feel a little messy at first and might need a bit of practice. Melanie can learn to reframe what she wants to say, so that she’s not rescuing her father, or being a victim to her mother’s wrath or indeed hearing herself persecute them.
To create a different response, one that’s empowered, empowering and healthy, imagine appropriate levels of:
- Assertiveness
Being clearer about boundaries; what she is responsible for and what she is not, will help her to stick up for her own rights and point out the rights of others as well. This breeds a sense of fairness, and in asserting consequences for bad behaviour there is no need to punish or rescue.
As she starts to see things more clearly – the facts and the evidence – she will become less emotionally triggered by the dynamic.
- Caring
There is a fine line between caring and fixing. Melanie can show compassion and understanding and encourage her father to find his own ways to assert himself. She can care, yet not take on the responsibility for him or steamroller him with her own ideas (he is already asking her not to get involved). This gives him supportive space to grow healthier habits and find his own voice.
- Vulnerability
An appropriately vulnerable person knows what they feel and need, and can better maintain responsibility for that. They are often more transparent because they are at home with their vulnerability, and can use it to be more positive and constructive.
With her mother, for example, using ‘I’ statements like ‘I feel…’ is a clear and assertive way of describing the impact the ‘persecutor’ in her mother has (without blaming or persecuting her back). In this way, Melanie is taking responsibility for her own feelings and opening the door to more positive and constructive communications.
- Notice the shift
When we consciously note the Drama Triangle dynamics around us, and choose to step outside and respond in a healthy, empowered way, we automatically change the dynamic. In a sense, we have stopped ‘playing the game’, which has an impact on the other ‘players’ or roles. By practising this, Melanie is creating space for healthier, empowered, self-aware relationships with her mother as well as her father.
1 S Karpman, ‘Fairy tales and script drama analysis’, in Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7(26), pp39-43, 1968
Next issue: disruptive behaviours in relationships and what to aim for instead
- Nicole Berg is CEO and founder of leadership and development consultancy, Charis Coaching.
- Coaching at Work partnered with Charis Coaching as part of its Campaign for Gender Equality
- www.chariscoaching.co.uk
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