Talk:Karpman drama triangle

Transactional Analysis

Is it legitimate to translate the roles of Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim to the TA ego states of Parent, Adult and Child. I have studied the example arguement and feel that the red (Persecutor) sentences appear to be of the Parent State. The blue (Rescuer) sentences apear Adult And the Green (Victim) ones Child like.

Is this translation justifiable, or am I wrong? NinjaKid 13:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the roles are always changing,its just important to notice whats going on when it happens.After a long time of using those types of interactions-they seem very normal,but not emotionally fulfilling.kimmee42@msn.com

NO!!! the Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim are all dysfunctional positions...people playing roles that are limiting of one's true potential for good...the Adult on the other hand is a phenomenon of one's personality that integrates the child and parent pheonomena with the possibility of making good decisons..................decisions that are good for the individual, and more important, good for the group. The persecutor can only act selfishly...and one can usually argue that the rescuer and victim are reactive, also in selfish ways...

what is confusing is that the ADULT can act like a perpetrator, and by acting too much like a the "bad" parent.......the adult can also act like a rescuer by acting too much like the "good" parent, and the victim, powerless and vulnerable, can act like a child. But the parent, adult and child of TA are INTERNAL, intrapsychic phenomena, whereas the perpetrator, rescuer and victim are interpersonal roles, and interpersonal phenomena. sjschicago----

Theory Widely Acknowledged?

Can someone please provide evidence for this assertion? TA has been roundly criticised as "pop psychology", so I find this statement hard to believe. Also, the word "acknowledged" is dubious since it tacitly connotes that the theory has been widely accepted, when it's possible the theory is simply widely mentioned in the context of derision. 72.78.7.69 23:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

：I don't have a specific answer to your point, but can I ask if you have a source for your assertion that "TA has been roundly criticised as pop psychology"? I found a comment like that on the TA main page some while back but couldn't find any justification for it. For the record, I have personally found TA useful but don't have strong feelings about whether it's pop psychology, or if it is whether that's good or bad. I am just intrigued that this assertion about TA being pop psychology seems to keep surfacing without a source Hugh Mason (talk • contribs 19:35, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Terrible example in article

I realize it's a side issue, but the example of the welfare agency and worker as rescuers malevolently perpetuating dependence on the system is ABSURD in the US, where since the PRWORA law some 15 years ago, the legally required goal of welfare agencies and workers has been to prevent, shorten or break dependency; and the performance of states, county welfare departments and individual caseworkers is judged on how many people they get OFF aid, sometimes with little regard to the consequences for the families affected. (In the US context, the word "welfare" refers to family income support.) How about an example that doesn't perpetuate false and damaging stereotypes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.213.193.159 (talk) 17:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

what you fail to realize is that the example you have rightly recognized as ridiculous, is an example provided by Karpman, not the author of the article. Berne called himself a 'cowboy therapist'. All the original TA materials are steeped in victim-blaming constructs. Remember, you don't have any real issues, you're just 'playing games'. Especially if you're female. That's the essence of TA, which is too bad, because if you can manage to cut through all the ideological obfuscation in the material, there are some remarkable post-freudian insights available in TA. As a therapy, however, it is little more than a band-aid for the egoistically immature to function somewhat more effectively in everyday life. It neither helps the ego mature and strengthen, nor does it give the client any useful tools for personal development. It's aim is to help people get along without ever getting to the crux of why they weren't getting along, which, for all intents and purposes does not improve the quality of interpersonal transaction, but rather encourages people ways of tolerating dysfunction in themselves and the people they interact with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.6.248.176 (talk) 10:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is this for real?

I'm not a psychology student, but this whole example sounds less like science and more like political POV. Since a better example has been added, this should probably be removed. Open for other views though.

There may be subtle or overt pressure from her agency not to have too many successful clients. Threatening to cut off benefits to obviously lazy or selfish clients would be frowned on -- even if or especially if such tactics resulted in clients suddenly finding gainful employment after years of dependency.

--- Arancaytar - avá artanhé (reply) 10:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It definitely IS social-darwinian rhetoric which is rampant is Berne, Karpman, and most of the leading TA proponents and developers of the 1960s. TA was a significant breakthrough, but Berne shoehorned his data to match his ultra-conservative ideology. At its worse, this has resulted in countless therapists attacking their clients as 'whiny victims' or people who would rather 'play games' than get well. It's an unfortunate legacy of TA that still reverberates through the profession of psychology. This does not undermine TA's worth, but means that the interpretations that today's TA practitioners make must be rational, and many of Berne's were not. The consequences of going to the 'next step' of TA after Berne and Harris was the 'rebirthing movement' that resulted in much torture and several deaths. The foundations of TA are sound, but its practitioners, following in the footsteps of TA's progenitor (Berne), systematically distorted those foundations and turned a potentially effective means of therapy into pure abuse.

As for the welfare example itself, perhaps somewhere in some socialist country something similar to the example might have occured. But social-services agencies that operate under capitalist governments are under immense pressure to cut welfare benefits, rather than pork them up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.6.248.176 (talk) 10:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's also worth keeping in mind that psychology, sociology, and anthropology in North America, and to a lesser extent in Europe, in the 1950s and 1960s, was deliberately slanted to demonstrate that the 'Red Menace' (Sino-Soviet communism) was faulty in every aspect of life. At that particular time employment was plentiful, and the bare necessities were easily affordable by anyone with employment. So, it stood to reason that anyone who wanted welfare, or even unemployment insurance benefits, was a lazy bum. Since the 70s, when new economic realities like 'stagflation' were seen, a 'social safety net' suddenly started looking like a good idea to even the most staunch conservatives. But we're still suffering from the anarchronistic values of the 50s and 60s. The domestic bliss of the 50s and 60s was a direct result of the Roosevelt 'New Deal' socialist values that sweeped the country after the Depression. We can only hope that now that we are in a comperable Depression, that these old remnants of now-ancient and useless 50s and 60s social-conservative academia will be superceded much more expediently than they have been.

Material here that belongs under 'games' or the main TA article?

I wonder if some of the general stuff about games here should move? I'll leave this a month or two for comments and then dive in if I've heard nothing from the regulars on this page - in the meantime, merry christmas to all readers who celebrate it Hugh Mason (talk • contribs 19:35, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article lacks sources and had too many external links.

I made major edits to this article today including adding the "citations missing" template and noting a couple of specific places where cites are needed (in particular, the opening claim that this construct is "widely used" in psychology).

I deleted a section which had an "example conversation" purporting to illustrate this idea. It contained no sources, and seemed likely to either be an editor's own example that s/he wrote, making it original research, or an extensive, unsourced lift from elsewhere, creating copyright issues.

I also deleted most of the external links at the end, using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided as a guideline. Most of the provided links fell into categories 5 (web pages that exist to sell products or services) or 11 (blogs) as they were articles written by the website owner on websites promoting psychotherapy, coaching, etc. services. Two links did not illustrate the content of this article at all - one went to an essay describing Virginia Satir's model of communication styles, and one (which was not in English) seemed to go to the front page of a website with many mental health articles.

76.218.69.148 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Altering of Pic

The drama triangle illustration at the top of the page should have victim at the bottom & perpetrator/rescuer at the top (http://www.angriesout.com/grown20.htm) as it reflects the perceived power positions within the triangle. 86.63.26.124 (talk) 12:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How many people?

The writing needs help especially this line: "At times a third person may be enveloped in the situation." There are already 3 people listed so shouldn't that be a fourth person? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.165.123 (talk) 05:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ratings are worthless

How does this article have such high ratings when it has few sources, is poorly written and lacks citations?