Moving from Victim to Creator

Moving from Victim to Creator

Two of the coaching models that I find particularly relevant and useful at the moment are Stephen Karpman’s ‘Drama Triangle’ and David Emerald’s ‘The Empowerment Dynamic’.

The Karpman Drama Triangle:

The Karpman Drama Triangle explains how sometimes circumstances place us in the victim role. Something bad has happened and we believe it was not our fault. It was somebody or something else’s fault and now we look for somebody to save us; a rescuer. 

This is a game that has been played many times, especially during childhood. Imagine a father giving his child a hard time because of their unfinished schoolwork, and the child replying, “It’s not my fault that I don’t know how to do my homework, I’ve got a bad teacher.”  The mother then steps in and helps the child with their homework, essentially doing it for them (not scaffolding).  

In the above case we have multiple drama triangles at play. One in which the teacher is the persecutor and the other in which the father plays the role.  In both cases the mother is rescuing, and the child is the victim.  Another triangle may be that the father feels like a victim as he is potentially getting into trouble with his wife, placing the child in the persecutor role. The mother may also feel like a victim as from her viewpoint the father has failed to deal with the situation properly and as a result, she may seek the solace of a friend (playing the rescuer role) to talk to about it. Both parents may be annoyed at the ‘bad teacher’ and the school and see themselves as victims. If they raise a complaint, then they may be seen as persecutors by the bad teacher and so on….

From a coaching perspective, drama triangles offer a great opportunity for people to re-evaluate everyday events in their lives and recognise that ultimately everybody is responsible for their own outcomes.

‘It’s not my fault I was late, the alarm clock did not go off’

‘It’s not my fault that I can’t lose weight’ 

‘The crash was not my fault, the car just pulled out in front of me’ 

‘It’s not my fault that I didn’t get promoted, my boss doesn’t like me’

The challenge to anybody who has placed themselves into the victim role is that by doing so they avoid taking any responsibility for the situation that they find themselves in. As soon as people take on the belief that ‘It is not my fault’they give up control over the situation and look for somebody or something to blame and then look for somebody or something else to rescue them.

At the moment there are many millions of people who find themselves in the victim role due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And yes, it is not their fault. They have been impacted directly by something that is not in their control. They have been placed by life into the victim role. However; whether they choose to stay there or move into a more positive state is up to them, and this decision is very much within their control. 

People who have been made redundant, fallen ill or lost loved ones and are experiencing negative emotions as a result will understandably blame the virus, their employer, the government or even the World Health Organisation for their bad luck. They will seek help.  Having emotional support is very important for their mental health and wellbeing as they transition through the grief cycle. The risk here though is that they may become reliant on this support and may even become ‘stuck’ in the victim role. Being ‘stuck’ is clearly not going to be helpful to them in the long term and the quicker they can become ‘unstuck’ the faster they can move forwards again and regain control. 

David Emeralds’ ‘The Empowerment Dynamic’ flips the drama triangle and provides a positive and constructive framework that leads towards solutions and decisions.

The Empowerment Dynamic:

In this model the persecutor is reframed as the challenger – it is not a personal vendetta against the victim, it is a challenge that needs to be overcome. What used to be seen as criticism from a persecutor can be reframed as feedback. When this reframing takes place, the rescuer can become the coach and help the victim become a creator. A creator of the solution, responsible for creating his or her own possible alternate approaches, deciding what to do and then executing their own course of action to overcome the challenge. This positive thought process forces a more adult and creative approach to the situation, as opposed to the self-pitying, disempowered and childish victim role. 

We all face setbacks and disappointments in life. Bad things happen. What is important is how and when we recover from them. That’s when we learn, grow and develop gritty resilience. 

It is important to note that the creation of available options and a plan of action must be generated by the ex-victim, not by the coach. The role of the coach is to help the other person think through the situation that they find themselves in and the various choices that are available to them. It is not the coach’s role to spoon feed their clients with what they see as being the right course of action. Ideally the coach has no opinion and that enables the process to be contamination free. Voicing opinions is much more the role of a mentor who has faced similar situations in the past, or an advisor who has relevant expertise.

The challenge with Covid19 is that mentoring is unlikely to work well as none of us has faced a global pandemic before and are therefore unable to draw on personal experience to recommend a suitable course of action. A coaching approach is a better option. One which focuses on the client’s own reality, their ‘map of the world’ and helps them create a plan.  A process that helps them review their options and then select what seems to be the best way forwards to enable them to move on purposefully.   

Individual coaching sessions, team coaching and facilitated workshops which focus on developing future strategy to overcome the current challenges are great examples of how ‘The Empowerment Dynamic’ can be used. In all of these cases the role of the coach is to encourage the exploration of new ideas and possibilities to move people and their organisations forward, not to give them advice or a personal opinion.

Sadly, when people are dealing with the turmoil of negative emotions and are well and truly ensconced in the victim role with the inertia and helplessness that accompanies it. They tend not to make empowering decisions, rather there is the possibility of reactive irrational behaviour and rushed, rash decisions, which may be regretted later. 

It is during the most challenging times that we most need coaching; to take the time to think through our options and create new alternate courses of action that were not previously in our awareness. It is difficult to arrive at positive alternatives when we have put ourselves into a negative state of mind. This is when we need a bit of help in recognising that we are holding ourselves back with our own limiting beliefs. There are numerous positive courses of action available to us if we are able to open ourselves up to their possibilities and empower ourselves with the courage, confidence and beliefs to pursue them.