Rescuer
The Rescuer role is the shadow mother principle. It's the typically co-dependent response we think of as “smothering". It's a distorted version of the feminine aspect that genuinely desires to nurture and protect. The Rescuer is the enabler, protector, mediator; the one who wants to "fix" the problem. Of course, before a Rescuer can remedy a problem there needs to be one. Part of the issue of rescuing is that it comes from an unconscious need to feel important or to establish oneself as the savior. Taking care of others is the only way a Rescuer knows how to connect or to feel worthwhile. Rescuers usually have grown up in families where they were put down or shamed for having needs. They therefore learn to deny those needs, turning instead to taking care of others. This makes having someone who needs them essential.
Very often, Rescuers operate out of the hope that if they just take care of others well enough they will get their turn, too. Unfortunately this rarely happens. Often the resulting disappointment sends them spiraling into depression. Martyrdom and depression earmark the victim phase of a Rescuer's dance around the triangle. This is when concerns are voiced such as, "This is what I get, after all I've done for you" or,"No matter how much I do, it's never enough", or "If you loved me, you would be more supportive."
A Rescuer's greatest fear is that there will be nobody there for them. They compensate for that anxiety by making it a point to be there for others, thus encouraging dependency. They make themselves indispensable as a primary way of avoiding abandonment and to receive the validation they long for, as well.
Rescuers are oblivious to the crippling dependency they foster. Through these tactics, they send disabling messages. Everyone involved becomes convinced that the Victim is incapable, inadequate or defective, thus reinforcing the need for constant rescue. It becomes the job of the Rescuer to keep the other propped up,"for their own good", of course. Having a Victim is essential in order for the Rescuer to maintain the illusion of being one-up and needless. This means then, that there will always be at least one person in every core Rescuer’s life who is sick, fragile, inept and in need of their care.
Beatrice grew up seeing her mother as helpless and ineffectual. From an early age, she felt a huge responsibility to take care of her frail parent. Her own well-being depended on it!
As the years went by, however, she could scarcely contain the inner rage she felt towards her mother for being so needy and weak. As a starting-gate Rescuer, she would do all she could to bolster her mother, only to come away again and again, feeling defeated (victim) because nothing she tried worked. Inevitably the resentment would take over leading her to resort to treating her mother with scorn (persecutor). This became her primary interactive pattern, not only with her mother, but in all of her relationships. By the time we met she was emotionally, physically and spiritually exhausted from having spent her life taking care of one sick and dependent person after another.
Persecutor
Like the other roles, the Persecutor is shame based. It's the sort of anger that results from growing up overloaded with scorn. Persecutors have long ago repressed their convictions of worthlessness, covering them instead with indignant wrath and an attitude of uncaring.
In the same way that the Rescuer is the shadow mother principle, this role is the shadow father principle. The father's job is to protect and provide for his family. The Persecutor role is a perversion of that energy, instead attempting to "reform" through force. This role is taken on by someone who has learned to meet their needs through authoritarian, controlling and often punishing methods. The Persecutor overcomes feelings of shame by over-powering others. Domination becomes their most prevalent style of interaction. This means they must always be right! Techniques include preaching, blaming, lecturing, interrogating and attack. They believe in getting even, very often through passive aggressive acts. Just like the Rescuer needs someone to fix, the Persecutor needs someone to blame! Persecutors deny their weaknesses in the same way Rescuers deny their needs. Their greatest fear is powerlessness. Denying their own infirmities, they are in constant need of someone on whom they can project their own unclaimed inadequacies. Both Rescuers and Persecutors therefore need a Victim in order to sustain their place on the triangle.
Persecutors also tend to compensate for inner feelings of worthlessness by putting on grandiose airs. Grandiosity inevitably comes from shame. It provides compensation and a cover-up for a deep internal inferiority. Superiority is about swinging hard to the other side of "less than" in order to come across as "better than".
A client who is also a doctor, exemplifies the Persecutor mentality. He believed hurting others was justified as a compensation when his own pain was triggered. Once in session, he told about running into a patient of his on the golf course. He said his patient had the nerve to ask for on-the-spot treatment. "Can you believe he asked me to treat his injury on my one day off?" he railed. I asked him how he handled it.
"Oh, I took him to my office, all right,” he said, “and he got a steroid shot too," the doctor chuckled,"but I bet he'll never ask me to do that again."
“Oh?” I was puzzled.
"Oh yeah, I gave him a shot he'll never forget!"
To the doctor, his action was justified. His patient had infringed on him. He deserved whatever pain he got. This is a prime example of Persecutor thinking. It never occurred to my client that he could have just said no. He did not have to feel victimized by, or have to rescue, this patient. In his mind he had been treated unjustly and therefore he had the right, even the obligation, to get even.
It is most difficult for someone in this stance to take responsibility for the way they hurt others. In their mind, others deserve the treatment they receive! These warring individuals tend to see themselves as having to fight the world for survival! Theirs is a constant struggle to regain the love that they perceive has been taken from them.
Victim
The Victim is a life role most often taken on by someone who was raised by a dedicated Rescuer. It is the shadow of the precious child within; that part in each of us that is innocent, vulnerable and needy. This child-self does need support on occasion but when an individual becomes convinced that they can never take care of themselves they easily take on a primary Victim stance. Accepting the idea that they are intrinsically defective, Victims adopt an attitude of "I can't make it." This becomes their greatest fear, which forces them to be ever vigilant for someone “more capable," to carry them.
Victims deny both their problem solving abilities and their potential for self-generated power. Instead they tend to see themselves as too fragile to handle life. Feeling done in by, at the mercy of, mistreated, intrinsically bad and wrong, they see themselves as the “unfixable problem". This doesn't stop them, however from feeling highly resentful for their dependency. Victims eventually get fed up with being in the one-down position and find ways to get even. A move to persecutor usually means sabotaging the efforts made to rescue them, as well as other passive-aggressive behaviors. They are very apt players of the game called,"Yes, but." Any time a helpful suggestion is offered, a Victim response might be,"Yes, but that won't work because ...". They may also resort to the persecutor role as a way to blame or manipulate others into taking care of them.
The Victim consumes a daily dose of shame. Convinced of their intrinsic incompetence, they live in a perpetual shame spiral, often leading to self abuse. Perpetual Victims walk around much like the Charlie Brown character, Pig-Pen in his whirlwind of dust, except Victims are surrounded by a shame vortex of their own making. This cloud of shame becomes their total identity.
Linda was the second-born in her family. Almost from birth, she had problems. Linda was a child who was forever in trouble of one sort or another. She struggled academically, was perpetually disruptive and often sick. It came as no surprise to anyone when she got into drugs as a teenager. Her mother, Stella, was a die-hard Rescuer. Thinking she was being helpful, Stella bailed Linda out every time she got into trouble. By alleviating the natural consequences, Stella's earnest enabling deprived Linda of the opportunity to learn from her poor choices. As a result, Linda came to see herself as incapable and became dependent on others to fix things. Her mother's well-intentioned rescuing sent a crippling message which promoted a life long Victim stance.
Projection and Shadow of Victim-hood
As individuals grow in awareness and begin to alter their behavior, they often change their starting-gate positions. Becoming aware of a primary position, they may commit to change but often merely switch roles instead. Although they may be operating from a different place, they are nonetheless still on the triangle. This happens frequently and may even be an essential part of learning the full impact of living on the triangle. Placing the three positions on a straight line with Victim in the middle, is a way of demonstrating that Persecutor and Rescuer are simply the two extremes of victim-hood.
Persecutor ------- VICTIM ------- Rescuer
All three roles are merely the perverted expression of positive powers we possess, but deny. The primary face we assume determines which of these traits are denied. The Rescuer embodies the gifts of mediation and problem solving, yet intervenes in unhealthy ways to those who elicit these characteristics. It might be deemed a feminine aspect. The Persecutor, on the other hand, is the part of us that knows about the use of power and assertiveness, yet exercises these gifts in distorted ways. They might be considered masculine attributes. When these essential qualities are not fully acknowledged and claimed, they are repressed into the unconscious, where they become the perverted expressions we see on the Drama Triangle. In other words, because these aspects are denied, they are expressed in unconscious and irresponsible ways.
When we suppress both our problem solving abilities and our willingness to initiate assertive action, we take on the role of Victim. When we see ourselves primarily as mediators and caretakers, we deny ourselves by setting inappropriate boundaries. We occupy the Rescuer position. Persecutors on the other hand, have hidden their caring, nurturing qualities, and therefore tend to problem solve through anger, abuse and control. In essence, the victim's dance is a constant, unconscious surfacing of unclaimed aspects of ourselves that produces perpetual drama.
We live in a Victim based society. In the United States, we think of ourselves as Rescuers. For many years Russia was the Persecutor with third world countries being the under-dog, or Victim. Several years ago, Russia's President Gorbachev allegedly told President Bush,"I'm about to do the worst thing imaginable, I'm going to take away your enemy!" He innately understood our country's need for a scapegoat, which provides us the chance to say,"It's those bad communists again". Otherwise, we, as Americans might be forced to take responsibility for our own perpetrator tendencies.
Our very history is built on persecution. Within a few years of arriving in America, our forefathers began to systematically oppress, subjugate, and even kill the Native Americans who had been living here for centuries,yet we resist seeing our role as any other than Rescuer. Our cultural identity is tied to being the good guys of the world, however distorted. It is always difficult for Persecutors to perceive themselves as Persecutors. It is much easier to justify the necessity for persecution than to own the oppressor role.
The cycle is: "I was just trying to help (rescuer), and they turned on me (victim), so I had to defend myself (persecutor).” Persecution is always justified as a necessary defense, although it is the role most often denied. After all, who wants to admit that they mistreat people?
The Rescuer, on the other hand, has no trouble identifying with their helper roles. They are generally proud of their position as caretakers and fixers. They are socially acclaimed and rewarded for “selfless acts" of helping. They believe in the goodness of being caretakers and see themselves as heroes. What they deny is the ill-begotten consequences of their enabling/disabling acts. But what these “do-gooders” can’t see is how they, themselves, end up as victims. It's very hard for a Rescuer to hear themselves referred to as victims even while they complain about how mistreated they are!