Karpman's Triangle. Codependent Relationships. How To Get Out Of Codependency?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Recently, a lot of situations of domestic violence have arisen - for example, a husband suffers from alcohol addiction and against this background he sits down and beats his wife. What should a woman do if she cannot leave the family (a child, joint property or strong love for a man)?

Undoubtedly, the first sober thought - feet in hands and run away! However, the situation is rather ambiguous and it is definitely worth figuring out why the violence occurs. Why does such a relationship generally arise? Why do women continue to be in them, and how do they still get free?

Unambiguously, in the context of the problem, we are talking about the phenomenon described as "Karpman's triangle". This is the most common model of relationships between people, first described by Stephen Karpman in 1968 - codependent, standard relationships.

The model is based on three habitual psychological roles that people often play out in situations (victim, stalker, and rescuer). Initially, the Karpman triangle was developed to describe the picture in codependent families, where there is a clearly “chemically” dependent person (for example, it can be alcoholism or drug addiction, gambling addiction, but in the latter case we are not talking about chemical addiction).

A common situation is as follows - one of the partners drinks (often a man), cannot get rid of the addiction, and, experiencing the slightest tension and stress, immediately grabs the bottle. The second partner usually saves or sits. In those moments when something happens to an alcoholic, he breaks his head, does not come home after another booze, the second partner runs to save, but at home he begins to sit down - "When will you quit ?!" In the opposite situation, the roles change. Conventionally - a bottle can be both a rescuer and a victim or tyrant, destroying a family, making relationships destructive.

Accordingly, a partner who does not drink can be both a rescuer and a tyrant or victim in the situation that has arisen. Likewise, a drinking person is a victim, a tyrant, or a rescuer. A similar model of relationships is developing not only in families where alcoholism is present. This is the essence of this unique situation - when there is no obvious bottle, there is no obvious needle! Nevertheless, the participants change roles in different situations - with parents, boss, teacher (for example, the teacher asks you to do homework (he is a tyrant), offers to pass the test in a week (the rescuer - postponed the time of delivery)). The teacher is rarely a victim directly for the student; a similar role can be played out in front of the head of the department. To summarize, every person who tends to fall into the Karpman triangle will experience a certain role at one time or another.

Returning to the main topic - whether or not to leave the saddling relationship, and what keeps us in them? The answer is prosaic - it is important for us to play this sadistic-masochistic game. On the one hand, a woman feels like a victim, experiencing moral pleasure from a sadistic attitude towards herself (masochism); perhaps this role is familiar to her. However, on the other hand, she sits down the man next to her and also gets insane pleasure from it (“Everything bad in my life happens because of you! I even have suicidal thoughts!”). This behavior is also a form of aggression and sadism.

In fact, there are quite a few people who use the Karpman triangle in relationships. However, no one deliberately enjoys it. As a rule, they find themselves a partner subject to sadism, having repressed sacrificial and sadistic parts in the psyche (in the case when these are conscious parts, the person more or less observes his behavior from the outside). Having decided on their victim, such individuals press it even more so that they can be bullied directly over them. For example, if in a pair one of the partners yells hysterically at the other, and the other sits silently (“Nothing terrible has happened!”), The main aggressor is the one who is silent; the first one just throws out emotions for two. Another example - a woman sits and cries, and a man tries to calm her down so and so, but he does not succeed, she still remains an unhappy victim. In this case, the woman unconsciously provokes her partner into further aggression, planting him, and in response, the man begins to show rough energy, use force, shout and swear.

Why does such a sadomasochistic version of the psyche arise? The first and most common scenario was that there were cases of alcoholism in the family (an alcoholic dad or a dad with a sad, psychopathic disposition). This is not necessarily a psychopath and sociopath, the parent could just break loose, was affective, and the mother, on the contrary, is poor and suffering. A rather unusual situation is developing - everything was bad because of dad, but for some reason mom could not leave the relationship. Having matured, a person most often does not understand the behavior of his mother (“Why didn't she leave ?!”). And the whole point is that she needed to play the story of her internal aggression with someone, she needed to feel herself both a victim and an aggressor, throwing out all the negativity and dissatisfaction with life on someone! If it were not for her father, she would have scourged herself, such a development of events is much more painful.

There are also reverse situations - a man is exposed to female aggression. Conventionally - this is when a woman makes a "rag" out of it ("You can't do anything! Your hands don't grow from there! You just do what you are lying on the couch!"). This message is constantly broadcast to the man (our dad is insignificant, and I pull everything on myself).

In both situations, it is difficult for the child to connect internally. Often, children are united with the figure that takes a sacrificial position (but in reality, inside this figure is the most aggressive in the family!). Inside his consciousness, the child seems to split up - he suffers and does not know who to join, because he loves mom and dad equally. In order to maintain a balance in our psyche, love for both parental figures is needed. However, the child unconsciously has to take the side of the victim, so he supports the one who suffers more and, accordingly, tries to protect him. Such a situation in the family is stalemate, especially for a boy if he teamed up with his mother against the rag-dad. It turns out that he is deprived of his father, and the mother actually became between the boy and the dad, at the exit - male psychology will suffer.

Another option is that the child felt violence on the part of his mother or father, as a rule, based on obvious or not very problems between adults (that is, acting out actually occurs on the baby). In any case, such a person, when he grows up, has a coupling of emotions - love is equated with violence. As a result, a person will not feel full love if he does not feel like a victim or a sadist. This family acting out will not bring the desired satisfaction if the relationship is calm - the person will constantly feel anxiety, fear that sooner or later the partner will commit some kind of violence. This situation is aggravated if the child was spared, consoled, cared for, and given maximum attention only after all violent cases in the family. Accordingly, a partner (a man or a woman - it does not matter) in a relationship will provoke the second into a scandal, quarrel, hysteria in order to receive love in return, because he experiences this feeling of deep affection only after he has been offended, humiliated, trampled, beaten. It cannot be otherwise - a strong link is formed inside the consciousness.

It is very important to understand here that the one who feels like a victim, as a rule, himself takes a sacrificial position, unconsciously provoking another to violence against himself. Each of the participants in this system will have a need for everyone around him to depend on him. And they really depend on each other - if there is no one of the participants, differences will not appear (first a sacrifice, then superiority). The story when an alcoholic beat his wife, she left him, and he decided to keep the relationship and came to apologize, only testifies that a person has an insane need (narcissistic) - they need me, they cannot survive without me, everyone depends on me, and I save everyone. This need is akin to some kind of drug, as if at this moment a huge amount of hormones are released into the bloodstream ("I have power, I am important and you need me! Come on, beat me again, and then I will save you!"). A large share in this attraction is occupied by the rescue part, and if it is realized and directed in the right direction, it will be constructive. Situations often arise when the victim invites to violence, provokes a partner herself (a phrase, an action), realizing that he will now hit a sore point (“You should have responded normally! It's your problem that you feel this way now! "). The situation as a whole resembles a vicious circle, because it is not clear who is right and wrong. However, the victim always "gets out", taking a familiar position for himself - everyone around is to blame, but not me.

How to deal with all this? It is very important to be aware of every moment of time in major quarrels and experiences, to analyze and reflect on how you could influence the situation. The most difficult question in any position (victim, sadist, rescuer) is how I influenced the fact that this situation happened; what is my responsibility?

Focus on yourself, others will also change later when you increase your level of awareness and provoke your partner less, invite him to violence, deal with saving the “drowning man”, and then make various accusations against him. It is often quite difficult for yourself to notice what is wrong in the behavior, and moreover, such an analysis is painful for the ego. That is why therapy is recommended for codependent people. All of these negative and destructive patterns of behavior can be seen in psychotherapy. Even if your partner does not want to go to therapy, you should visit a psychologist on your own - take care of yourself first, and relations in the family will also level out over time. In addition, not only a partner, but also close people (parents, children) can even out behavior, drawing attention to your more constructive attitude towards everything. Everyone has the right to respect, and the fact that due to his injuries he has developed a certain type of behavior does not make him worse than those around him. Psychotherapy helps to cope with feelings of sacrifice, work out destructive patterns and raise self-esteem (a person will be able to understand that he is treated well, regardless of whether he behaves well or badly).