Neotantrikas tout Karpman’s drama triangle as a profound tool to defuse relationship strife. I feel that it is a dangerous framework when it is weaponised by abusers and predators to deflect blame and dodge accountability.
I first encountered the drama triangle in a conscious dance event, in which Ya’acov Darling-Khan encouraged us to embody these dynamics through movement and dance. At the time, it felt powerful and insightful.
More recently, as I have spoken out against cult abuse and narcissism in neotantra, people have used the drama triangle to subtly discredit such concerns. It continues to enjoy popularity as the subject of neotantra workshops.
What is the drama triangle?
Karpman’s drama triangle describes dysfunctional relationship dynamics where individuals shift between the roles of Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer, often in a cycle of blame and rescue, hindering healthy communication and problem-solving.
- Persecutor: This role is characterized by blaming, criticizing, and controlling others.
- Victim: The victim feels helpless, oppressed, and often avoids responsibility, seeking attention and sympathy.
- Rescuer: The rescuer tries to fix problems and save others, often at the expense of their own needs and boundaries.
Drama triangle as a relational story
The stories we tell shape and legitimise power dynamics in relationships and society at large. Stories can be empowering, illuminating, and liberating. They can also entrench injustice and legitimise oppression, exploitation and abuse. I interpret the drama triangle as such a story.
From my perspective, the neotantra movement weaponises the drama triangle story to enable narcissism and cult abuse. Here’s why:
Conflict as drama
Let’s start with the name itself: by using the term “drama” to describe conflict, the framework immediately makes light of the dynamic it points to as a fictional performance and unnecessarily emotional. Indeed Karpman was keen on theater and movies, and his theory was inspired by a movie.
By invoking a triangle, this story places victims, perpetrators and “saviours” on the same footing in terms of power. But it is the imbalance of knowledge and power that permits abuse and makes it harder for victims to recognise and resist abuse.
Hiding power differentials
This is especially important in neotantra where “gurus”, “swamis”, “dakinis”, and “sexual healers” take on a role as guides and therapists. Vulnerable seekers who buy into this framing lift teachers into a position of authority and power. Teachers also presumably have more knowledge and experience in the space.
Even in conventional relationships, there tend to be power differentials based on age, income, social status and gender.
A patriarchal put-down?
Feminist intersectionality and decolonial theory show how important these various identity-related differentials in power are. Women and people of colour almost universally enjoy fewer privileges and opportunities, are paid less, and are expected to shoulder a greater burden of care for children and elders.
In other words, by failing to acknowledge gendered differentials in power and knowledge, the drama triangle can be a form of “epistemic violence“. This is a story about the natural order of things that legitimises, enables or inflicts harm.
So when neotantrikas invoke the drama triangle to respond to clients or participants who call out would-be cult leaders and teachers, or to re-frame patterns in conventional relationships, they hide these overlapping differences of knowledge and power. This enables guides to dodge accountability and perpetuate patriarchal abuse.
Shaming solidarity
The drama triangle can also shame those who are willing to step up in defence of those who are less powerful and subject to actual abuse. This undermines compassion and solidarity between those who are more knowledgeable and powerful on the one hand (including survivors of previous abuse) and those who are being victimised on the other.
Abusers can reframe those who call out abuse as perpetrators (blaming, criticising) or rescuers (saving others without concern for their own boundaries). This gives actual perpetrators space to continue and even intensify their abuse.
DARVO triangle?
Drama triangle proponents suggest that victims invoke and create the abuser role to validate their identity and avoid taking responsibility. Similarly, saviours need the victim to feel meaningful and needed.
This blurs the distinction between defenders and perpetrators and repurposes the drama triangle as a narcissistic DARVO strategy. DARVO stands for “deny, attack, reverse victim and offender”. It is a very common strategy in relational and narcissistic abuse.
By invoking the drama triangle, abusers can deny that they are causing harm. They can use it to attack victims and their defenders, claiming that they are being manipulated into the role of abuser. This allows them to say that they are unfairly persecuted when they are challenged – reversing the role of victim and perpetrator.
Trauma triangle?
The drama triangle was conceptualised in the 1960s, at a time when very little was known about trauma. Indeed, it was the widespread experience of PTSD after the vietnam war that contributed to increasing psychiatric attention to trauma.
Only much later was the notion of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) developed. This is a far more subtle form of trauma that arises from long-term exposure to multiple, more subtle, and often relational harms. It results in relational difficulties, dissociation, difficulty in controlling emotions, especially anger and distrust.
Beyond stories
Trauma theory reveals that survivors often have little intentional influence over cognitive patterns and behaviour arising from trauma. Trauma embeds itself deep in the nervous system of survivors and causes the fragmentation of memories and higher-order sense-making cognitive functions. Therefore, it is out of reach of stories and attempts to cognitively re-frame stories.
Trauma also often leads to re-enactment loops, where survivors unconsciously re-create the conditions of original trauma. This is especially insidious in relational trauma. Could this provide a different lens on the patterns revealed by the drama triangle?
Gaslighting and cognitive dissonance compound trauma
This suggests that, instead of a cynical unconscious pay-off suggested by transactional theory, the repetitive looping of abuse and victimhood reflects a trauma-driven attempt to re-live and resolve past trauma.
Yet by denying the reality of abuse and trauma, stories like the drama triangle can gaslight survivors of abuse. The cognitive dissonance this causes compounds and entrenches the original trauma.
This is why the drama triangle offers a very convenient and subtly violent gaslighting strategy for those who want to deflect accountability and undermine resistance, especially in neotantra and “sacred sexuality”.
Instead of supporting healing, the drama triangle can entrench trauma, enable abuse, and perpetuate patriarchal domination.