are you in the drama triangle?

The other day I had a EUREKA moment when I connected what I see in support environments with what happens in advocacy environments -- and in our little eating disorder parent advocacy world the two are often the same -- with the models represented in this diagram.

You can read about Karman's Drama Triangle and The Empowerment Dynamic here, and I hope you do. What I want to say to my fellow advocates is that progress in the field is best done outside the Drama Triangle, which is really an emotional trap. It's ego and being right and wanting to be a rescuer but it invariably ends up making us into persecutors or being seen as persecutors, and I think it creates more and more victims and it doesn't WORK.

The point of advocacy is progress for the field.

The Empowerment Dynamic represents the best of advocacy AND creating supportive peer environments for caregivers. It embodies the way, ideally, parents can make it about outcomes and to KEEP OUR PASSION. I see too many advocates and mentors burn out or become embittered, and only a few stay in the "Passion-Based Outcome-Focused" range. I see too many of us succumb to personal attacks or feeling unappreciated or disliked. These dynamics only serve to keep us divided and off track.

In fact, I think the Drama Triangle may have been invented by ED! And that makes sense, too, *duh* ,because it is anxiety-based. I'm seeing that the future of parent advocacy and of shared ED advocacy is in the top triangle, where the best parenting and the best peer support is to be found!

Thoughts?