Karpman Drama Triangle - Overview and Theory

Overview and Theory

A "game" in Transactional Analysis is a series of transactions that is complementary (reciprocal), ulterior, and proceeds towards a predictable outcome. Games are often characterized by a switch in roles of players towards the end. The number of 'players' may vary.

Games in this sense, are devices used (often unconsciously) by a person to create a circumstance where they can justifiably feel certain resulting feelings (such as anger or superiority) or justifiably take or avoid taking certain actions where their own inner wishes differ from societal expectation. They are always a substitute for a more genuine and full adult emotion and response which would be more appropriate.

Three quantitative variables are often useful to consider for games:

• Flexibility: The ability of the players to change the currency of the game (that is, the tools they use to play it). 'Some games...can be played properly with only one kind of currency, while others, such as exhibitionistic games, are more flexible', so that players may shift from words, to money, to parts of the body.
• Tenacity: 'Some people give up their games easily, others are more persistent, referring to the way people stick to their games and their resistance to breaking with them.
• Intensity: 'Some people play their games in a relaxed way, others are more tense and aggressive. Games so played are known as easy and hard games, respectively', the latter being played in a tense and aggressive way.

Based on the degree of acceptability and potential harm, games are classified into three categories, representing socially acceptable games, undesirable but not irreversibly damaging games, or games which may result in drastic harm. Their consequences may vary from lots of small paybacks (the girl who keeps meeting nice guys who ditch her) through to payback built up over a long period to a major level (i.e. court, mortuary, or similar). Each game has a payoff for those playing it. The antithesis of a game (that is, the way to break it) lies in discovering how to deprive the actors of their payoff.

The first such game theorized was Why don't you/Yes, but in which one player (White) would pose a problem as if seeking help, and the other player(s) (Black) would offer solutions. White would point out a flaw in every Black player's solution (the "Yes, but" response), until they all gave up in frustration. The secondary gain for White was that he could claim to have justified his problem as unsolvable and thus avoid the hard work of internal change; and for Black, to either feel the frustrated martyr ("I was only trying to help") or a superior being, disrespected ("the patient was uncooperative").

In the Drama Triangle, the "role switch" is 'the same switch that is included in the formula for games' - occurs when one player, after stable roles have become established, suddenly changes role. The victim becomes a persecutor, and throws the previous persecutor into the victim role, or the rescuer suddenly switches to become a persecutor ("You never appreciate me helping you!/Why are your eyes so far apart?").

'Karpman has many interesting variables in his fully developed theory, besides role switches. These include space switches (private-public, open-closed, near-far) which precede, cause, or follow role switches, and script velocity (number of role switches in a given unit of time)'.