See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/330786665

The Karpman Triangle and dramatic situations

Research Proposal · February 2019

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35742.18240

CITATIONS READS

0 5,218

1 author:

Jeremie Aboiron
Neofaculty Europe
25 PUBLICATIONS   7 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Social Psychology View project

Marketing & Strategy View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Jeremie Aboiron on 01 February 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

The Karpman Triangle and
dramatic situations
Jérémie Aboiron, Neofaculty

According to Stephen B. Karpman 1, whether consciously or unconsciously, fairy tales teach young minds
a number of roles, stereotypical places and a certain time scale.

These roles or places can guide or influence an individual, so the fairy tale scenario can become the
scenario of his own life.

A drama can be analyzed as successive changes in roles or places in a single space-time continuum.

Indeed, the intensity of the drama depends on the number of changes that take place during a given period,
but it also depends on the contrast between the exchanged positions, the more divergent the exchanged
positions are, the more intense the drama is.

In the role diagram, Stephen B. Karpman raises the relationship between the analysis of the self and the
analysis of the role, both of which are structural and transitive analyses. However, the role analysis is
about the scenario and the game and not about an individual.

The analysis of the role is essential because it defines the identities involved in the action, it is comparable
to a scene of exposure in the theatre.

For Stephen B. Karpman, a person "living in a fairy tale" has a simplified vision of the world, it will be
composed of a number of dramatic characters that the individual has assimilated through different stories.

By analyzing an individual's favorite fairy tale, a number of key roles will be created, these roles will be
listed in a circle to obtain the famous diagram.

1 Karpman, S. (1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional analysis bulletin, 7(26), 39-43.

1/3
The particularity of the scheme is that it allows us to visually present this set of key identities that the
individual has built for himself.

The arrows in the diagram do not indicate a sequence of actions but only the particularity that the roles
are interchangeable.

In some cases, the same person may play several roles at the same time, in the tale of Little Red Riding
Hood, Little Red Riding Hood simultaneously plays the role of the Riding Hood and the Logger when
helping the latter to sew the wolf's belly together.
Little Red Riding Hood can also age and simultaneously play the role of the grandmother.

The role diagram is complementary with the dramatic triangle

Indeed, 3 behaviours are necessary in the analysis of a drama to explain the contrasting emotions it can
bring.

These roles are in contrast to the identity roles that Stephen B. Karpman referred in the role diagram,
there are only 3 possible behaviors: the persecutor, the savior and the victim.

The arrows in the diagram do not mean a sequence of actions but they specify that the evolution of
behaviours in the triangle is dynamic, i.e. that an individual can occupy successively the 3 states.

The drama begins when the roles are distributed or anticipated by the audience.

2/3
 One of the conditions of the drama is the permutation of these states, these permutations are indicated by
a change of direction of the vector in the diagram.

If we take as an example the fairy tale of the Hamelin flute player, the hero begins the story as the savior
of the city and therefore persecutor of rats, then he becomes the victim of the mayor of the city who
becomes the persecutor of the flute player. In return, the flute player becomes the persecutor of the city's
children (he kills the mayor's children).

This can also be applied in reality and not only in a fictional universe, for example, according to Nicole Le
Rouvillois, the relationships between a consultant, an employer and his employees within a company can
be analysed using the Karpman triangle.

When the consultant intervenes in the company to solve a problem, he is placed as a savior, naturally, the
manager presents himself as a victim to him and the employees are therefore the persecutors.

However, if the leader wants to take a paternalistic position with these employees (which surely comes
from the need to be appreciated) by appearing as the one and only savior, he will use the consultant he
hired to create a common enemy and cause his dismissal and thus appear with his employees as the savior.

According to Nicole Le Rouvillois, this pattern can be repeated until the company fails to evolve and
develop.

The manager "sacrifices" a consultant almost every year to manage the relationship between him and these
employees.

3/3

View publication stats