Contents
In official relations, we often, against our own will, find ourselves in one of these roles: persecutor, savior, victim … To get rid of the imposed role in the team, first of all, you need to learn to recognize these roles. Distinguishing features and tips.
“She constantly picks on me, in her opinion, I’m doing everything wrong,” says 30-year-old Svetlana about her commercial director. “No matter what I do, it doesn’t turn out the way she wants. It’s hard for me to understand if I really made a mistake or if she is just taking out her bad mood on me, because she never specifically says what my mistakes are. Fortunately, I can always discuss the situation with a colleague, he is very supportive of me.”
Who is not familiar with such nit-picking by the boss, unsettling for the whole day? Who has not experienced the support and sympathy of colleagues who help to cope with the situation? American psychologist Stephen Karpman, a specialist in transactional analysis, calls this common type of working relationship the “dramatic triangle.”
Three roles are played here: the victim (Svetlana), the persecutor (boss) and the savior (colleague). No one is immune from such a “game”, except for the wisest of us. Often in service relationships, we, without suspecting it, fall into one of these roles. In order to avoid this, we need to learn to recognize the roles that are most characteristic of us.
“Layer of Work” and “Layer of Relationships”
At work, the role-playing of the “dramatic triangle” happens more often than we want it to. The situation itself is pushing for this: someone leads, gives tasks, checks the results of work, makes comments, and someone obeys, listens, and performs.
“In any business, there is a “layer of work” and a “layer of relationships,” explains consultant psychologist Boris Masterov. – The “work layer” is the duties that employees at any level must perform, the “relationship layer” is related to how they interact, communicate with each other, doing their job. Communication in this case is aimed at obtaining the final result.
For example, if a subordinate makes a mistake, the boss can tell him about it and advise how best to correct it. This is a normal working relationship. Another example: the boss always interferes in the work of subordinates when it does not require it. Here the “layer of relations” already begins to prevail. If colleagues are not happy with the relationship, they will constantly think about it and fight to work in an atmosphere that is comfortable for them. The transition to this level creates a breeding ground for playing the roles of the “dramatic triangle”.
Pursuer
“I don’t have much luck with my employees,” complains Victor, a 38-year-old manager at an insurance company. “None of them are capable of doing even the simplest work on their own. They need to be constantly monitored, adjusted, ensured that they do not waste working time on extraneous matters.
Victor is a typical stalker boss. People like him tend to look down on their subordinates, their voices constantly sounding notes of criticism, indignation or disdain. However, under the mask of unshakable authority, the stalker’s internal monologue sounds like a complaint.
The persecutor needs to allow himself to be imperfect, give himself the right to rest, play sports, communicate with his family
“A persecutor is a person who most likely experienced many insults in childhood and now unconsciously makes others pay for them,” says Boris Masterov. – For example, parents could often and unfairly criticize him, and as a result, a so-called dysfunctional child has formed inside him, who considers himself not very competent, not very foldable, not very smart. As an adult, he compensates for the disadvantage of his inner child by taking on the parental position of a persecutor in relation to other people.
So when your boss criticizes or picks on you, remember that as a child, he most likely had to be in the role of a victim and listen to criticism from his parents. And these “parental voices” still sound in him not only in relation to others, but also to himself. In fact, he is the same victim of his own despotism, like his subordinates.
The persecutor himself must allow himself to be imperfect, give himself the right to rest, play sports, and communicate with his family. This will allow you to be more tolerant of the people around you and focus not on emotions about negligent colleagues, but on how best to organize work.
Savior
He is attentive to how you work, he encourages you with a pat on the shoulder, and he is not stingy with advice. He takes a big part in what is happening and tries to express his approval, even if you did not ask for it. Anna, 27, a designer, talks about one of her colleagues interfering in her affairs: “Without asking my opinion, he went to defend me in front of the CEO. I had to confess to him that I did not need his participation at all.
“Most often, the role of the savior is played by a person who had sacrificial parents. Those who gave everything to their child, but at the same time often reproached him for this, says Boris Masterov. “If a child grows up in such a family, he receives examples of the role of a savior from his parents and gains confidence that it is necessary to sacrifice himself for others, to give himself to people.”
What to do if you yourself or someone in your environment is inclined to the role of “savior”? You need to remember a few rules: a request for help must be made. Help should have clear content boundaries (“Here’s what I can offer you in order to”). The “savior” must make sure that the person he is helping is also making an effort to improve his situation.
Victim
“I have to adapt to the requirements, do everything that I am told. Sometimes it seems to me that it is possible to organize work in a different way, but no one ever listens to my opinion,” complains Alina, a 28-year-old assistant director. If in relationships with others we are ready to submit to them, give in to an argument, give up our opinion, do what is convenient for others, or if we tend to seek the approval and sympathy of our colleagues (and higher employees), then we are already acting as a victim .
“People who play this role were often the victims of their parents, both their obsessive love and harsh criticism. However, they do not offend or persecute others in order to protect themselves from the feeling of their incompetence, insolvency, but on the contrary, they try to remain in their usual role of a victim. In a sense, it is beneficial: after all, it is not good to offend the weak. In addition, this role allows them to relieve themselves of responsibility so that other people are responsible for their emotional well-being,” says Boris Masterov.
How to avoid the role of the victim? It is necessary to achieve greater independence, independence, to take responsibility and be responsible for their actions. To do this, it is useful to improve your education, to master new skills. In addition, it is very important to learn how to formulate your point of view, express opinions, requests. And do not be afraid if others do not agree with them or refuse.
“I” in all its states
Being inside the “dramatic triangle”, we choose a certain role for ourselves, and this may be connected not only with our personal and family history, but also with the state of “I” that is closest to us at this moment. According to the theory of transactional analysis, our “I” has three hypostases: Parent, which is formed in the image and likeness of parents, teachers and other significant figures of our childhood; The Child, “responsible” for our emotions and creativity, and the Adult, exploring and analyzing the world.
When our “I” is in the state of the Parent, we can encourage and take care of others, like a savior, but we can also criticize, punish, turning into a persecutor. Our Child can behave naturally and spontaneously, but there are other options: he can rebel, becoming a persecutor, or he can submissively obey, forgetting about his needs and taking on the role of a victim. That’s why sometimes it’s so hard to avoid falling into the “dramatic triangle”: the roles that exist in each of us are ideally suited to the scenario that plays out within it.
“Learning to recognize your role”
Psychologies: Is it possible not to fall into the “dramatic triangle”?
Boris Masterov: It’s possible, but it’s not easy at all. Even if we do not want to get involved in the “game”, other people in our environment who are inclined to play some kind of role can push us to this. Only very mature people who know themselves well are able to avoid this.
Are we always in the same role?
Definitely not one. We enter the “game” through the role that we are most familiar with. But the psychological feature of the “dramatic triangle” is that all three roles in it are interconnected and a person can easily move from one to another.
How to get out of this communication scheme?
We need to start by recognizing our role and understanding what feelings and situations provoke us to “fulfill” it. Each of the roles corresponds to the feelings peculiar only to her. The persecutor’s main emotion is righteous indignation. The victim has inner turmoil, panic, resentment towards the situation or another person. The savior has pity, a sense of duty and responsibility for another person.
You also need to track what situations cause these emotions in us and push us into one role or another. For example, it can be a lack of time, emotional pressure from another person, situations that are very significant for us, when a lot is at stake. If we realize this, then we can already look at what is happening from the outside and somehow influence it.
The most productive question to ask yourself is: what do I want in this situation? And try to answer it honestly. For example: I feel like a victim and I understand that I want my boss to respect me, to let me work on my own, to check only the final result. When the answer is precisely formulated, it is possible to interact with the boss already in the real plane, to clarify the task set by him, to find out what the criteria for the execution of the assignment will be.