Day 57 Caught in The Drama Triangle; or, The Cure for Drama is Theatre

I know I’m not the only one with a dire case of news media whiplash, so it surprised me this morning when it took me longer than usual to figure out what I was seeing in The New York Times. When I finally landed on it, it startled me.

The United States of America is caught in what’s known in psychology as The Drama Triangle. Bear with me.

Here’s a quickie Wiki explanation: “The drama triangle is a social model of human interaction – the triangle maps a type of destructive interaction that can occur between people in conflict. The drama triangle model is a tool used in psychotherapy, specifically transactional analysis. The triangle of actors in the drama are oppressors, victims and rescuers.

“Conceived by Stephen Karpman, a student studying under Eric Berne, the father of transactional analysis, ... Karpman's triangle has been adapted for use in structural analysis (defining the conflict roles of persecutor, victim, and rescuer) and transactional analysis (diagramming how participants switch roles in conflict).”

Domestic Violence work casts the roles as: Perpetrator. Victim. Rescuer.

Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, writes, “Confronted with America’s worst public health crisis in generations, President Trump declared himself a wartime president. Now he has begun doing what past commanders have done when a war goes badly: Declare victory and go home.”

Then he announced the dissolution of the Coronavirus Task Force.

‘I thought we could wind it down sooner,’ Mr. Trump told reporters as he hosted nurses in the Oval Office to sign a proclamation honoring National Nurses Day. ‘But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday. When I started talking about winding it down, I got calls from very respected people saying, ‘I think it would be better to keep it going.’”

Popular? How is popular even a criterion? Let alone relevant? The task force, if it had any teeth at all, is a necessity.

Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama and now a senior adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said, “I think he has given up on the hard stuff and as a consequence is writing off people’s lives.”

Mr. Slavitt added, “Not, unfortunately, in exchange for a better economic outcome. The economy—hiring, consumer spending, buying cars, getting on airplanes, signing leases—isn’t going to happen. It’s not going to happen until we have demonstrated we can navigate this global health crisis.”

The Times Editorial Board wrote, “All too often, the president has overpromised and underdelivered—if he delivered at all.” Ya think?

“The public manifestation of the task force has been a series of rambling briefings, at which assembled experts from in and outside government have wound up as little more than political props. The briefings often have descended into a blend of therapy sessions and campaign rallies, with the president spending hours each week airing his many grievances, praising himself, parading out business executives and public officials to laud his leadership and spreading misinformation about the virus and the administration’s handling of it.”

Can you see the pattern, too?

The briefings are meant to be Rescuer Trump.
Airing his many grievances is Victim Trump.
Spreading misinformation is Perpetrator Trump.

And round and round the mulberry bush on the merry-go-round we go. No wonder we’re exhausted. We should be.

One of the major points of The Drama Triangle is that those caught in its vicious cycle switch roles constantly. [As they say in the Ivory Tower, italics mine.]

This translates to the following: We never know which Trump is going to show up in any given scenario.

In addition, it only takes one person inhabiting one of the roles to drag the rest of the players into the Drama Triangle.

Further, it is not only playing out among individuals who interact with the Trump Triumvirate, but it also plays out in groups.

Perpetrator Trump makes one claim: we’re testing more than any other country. Rescuer Fauci steps up to the plate to fix the misconception. Victim US citizenry remains paralyzed, unable to demand accountability from the Perpetrator-in-Chief.

Then in less than the twinkling of a fairy godmother’s eye, Victim Trump is behind the podium moaning the fore-bemoanèd moan, to borrow from Mr. Shakespeare. No one understands me. No one appreciates me. No one tells the truth but me. Rescuer McEnany then chips in her two cents assuring him that it’s ‘his leadership’ that has saved the country. That leaves US citizenry the role of Perpetrator.

There are a hundred more such examples, but you catch my drift, I’m sure. It’s endless, and it’s, ultimately, pointless, and it’s actually devastating because until someone, anyone steps up to lead we will all be caught in it.

Here is where we are right now, and here is where we’ll stay.

As Nicholas Kristof’s title in this morning’s paper read: “The Virus Is Winning.” In fact, the virus isn’t playing any of the roles in The Drama Triangle. It’s simply being what it is—a virus. All the rest, the government and its agencies, the governors, and the populace of the world are doing our drama.

Kristof continues, “Trump and Pence still seem oblivious. ‘By Memorial Day Weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us,’ Pence told Fox News only two weeks ago. That magical thinking seems to be shared by many politicians and investors alike. Let’s be very clear: There’s huge uncertainty, so we need great humility in looking ahead, but most epidemiologists anticipate a long, wrenching struggle against the virus.

“‘If we have a big wave in the fall, it’ll make everything we’ve had so far seem not all that serious,’ said Michael T. Osterholm, a prominent epidemiologist, whose infectious disease institute recently issued an excellent and sobering report about the road ahead. ‘But that’s the reality of this. I tell people my job isn’t to scare you out of your wits; it’s to scare you into your wits.’”

Because that’s what it’s come down to now. No leadership. Insufficient funding on so many fronts there isn’t room to list them here. Massive, universal uncertainty.

My roots, both personally and philosophically, are in the theatre—the legitimate theatre. Live actors onstage showing humanity itself. It’s the lens through which I view the world.

So here’s a description of what happens on a stage, any stage, every stage every time there is a live theatre performance:

Character + Desire meet Obstacle
Character > Obstacle
The curtain falls.

The key word here is desire. Desire is what causes change. In fact, desire is what always causes change in human beings—both onstage and in real life.

This is why, despite the fact that the legitimate theatre is known as The Imaginary Invalid, it prevails—and all over the world, at all kinds of levels.

There’s a school play in the first grade, and a high school musical, and Broadway or West End performances, and national tours, and bus-and-trucks, and dinner theatres, and community theatres and we all have the chance to see human change, be inspired by it, and make changes ourselves.

Drama doesn’t show us ourselves. Drama takes us away from ourselves.

No one is ever just a Victim or just a Perpetrator or just a Rescuer, despite the fact that we like to cast ourselves in the simplicity of those archetypal roles. We’re much more complicated than that. That’s why The Drama Triangle insists that those in it switch roles all the time. No notice.

Return, beloved, to the notion of desire.

Because it is desire, genuine, pure, clear, unadulterated desire that is the only thing that will get humankind through this pandemic. Desire will be our salvation.

Let’s go to the theatre. In fact, go to your favorite theatre. “The ghost light—a bare bulb placed onstage when a theater is empty—[i]s illuminated.” Sit in the house. Look at that blank stage.

Now, we’re going to fill it with the future. You’re the character. The virus is your obstacle.

Face the pandemic and how it’s affecting your own life.

Not your friends’. Your own.
Not the nation. Your own.
Not the planet. Your own.

Ask yourself: What does my character want? What do I really want? Now sit in the quiet, in the dark, in the magical, liminal space where all transformative performance happens.

The best way for all of us to get to the other side of the pandemic is to imagine the best future we can without it. To imagine it, dream it, and begin to live into it every day.

Sure, it’d be awesome if we could conjure what the Classical Theatre called a deus ex machina—divine intervention. The virus dies out. We’re all suddenly immune. A vaccine arrives full-blown from the forehead of Zeus. It could play out that way. But it won’t.

It’s no mistake that The Drama Triangle arose out of a psychology structure known as Transactional Analysis. It made every single interaction a transaction. This is what has to go if we want to create a post-pandemic world. Transaction must needs be replaced, Beloved, with connection.

And sitting in that theatre, there will come a random day when we attain a critical mass of enough of us envisioning a post-pandemic world that works for everyone to cause a tipping point. We’ll tip because our desire is strong enough to initiate and sustain change.

When that happens, the neon lights of Broadway will be brighter than ever. And, maybe, just maybe, so will humankind.

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

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