I’ve blogged before on the Drama Triangle, but I think I need to say more about it.

First, a brief review: the Drama Triangle has three roles: Victim, Offender, and Rescuer. None of them is pretty. If you’re the Victim, you are feeling (and acting) weak, oppressed. You’re the “hurt party.” That means whatever strengths you have are being suppressed or hidden, and whatever responsibility you have for your own suffering is being denied, by you or by others. If you’re the Offender, you’re the one everyone thinks is responsible for the Victim’s pain. You’re probably behaving in offensive ways, and you’re responsible for that, but the system is also responsible for moving around you in such a way that you’re the Bad Guy. If you’re the Rescuer, well, that sounds like a nice role, but in fact you’re probably not helping anyone very much. You’re probably reinforcing the Victim’s belief that s/he is a Victim (which, when you think about it, is not a nice way to treat a person), and you may be the first of the three to see yourself shift roles, going from Rescuer to Offender (when you go after the Offender on the Victim’s behalf), or going from Rescuer to Victim as you get trapped in melodramatic confrontations with everybody else.

Like I said, it’s not pretty.

What’s the solution? Well, first of all, you should know that it’s common to find yourself somewhere on the Drama Triangle. I myself was on the Triangle this past weekend (don’t ask!). So if you find yourself getting sucked into the drama, it doesn’t mean you’re mentally ill. It just means you have human relationships going on in your life.

The solution is to practice stepping off the Triangle. Practice, practice, practice! Consider some of these non-drama behaviors:

–Someone tries to get you to be the Rescuer, telling you all about how he was harmed and enlisting your help to get back at the Offender. You express empathy, but you also (hard as it might be) decline to play the Rescuer role and just clearly state what you can do–and not do–for your friend.

–Someone tries to get you to be the Victim, telling you that you’ve been harmed, you’ve been wronged, and it’s time to get back at that Offender! To avoid becoming a Victim, you might want to take time by yourself–or with a friend, or with a counselor–to decide what your best course of action might be. Try not to act on your feelings without taking time to inform your feelings with reasonable thought and reflection. At some point you may want to tell the person that you’re fine, actually, and capable of handling the situation. You appreciate their concern, but you want to deal with this yourself.

–Someone harms you, verbally or otherwise, and becoming a Victim is a tempting option for you. In this case, you may need to seek justice or resolution of the offense, but it’s also good to notice how your own reaction to the offense may only make things worse for yourself. You may have been harmed, but you were not destroyed by what happened. You still have tools, options, and strengths. You still have You!

–You have been the Offender in some way. You have harmed someone. And they are taking a Victim stance, or you’re finding yourself dealing with Rescuers that the Victim enlisted to go after you. You choose to be honest about what you did, but you also set boundaries with the Rescuers (”This is between me and the other person…”) and you figure out how you want to interact with the Victim in a way that holds yourself accountable for your actions but does not lead to a situation in which you are perpetually treated as an Offender. For example, you may want to genuinely apologize to the Victim, and seek reconciliation, but if the Victim is unwilling to let go of the Victim role and work with you on reconciliation, you may choose to end the relationship.

As I’m sure you know, this gets a lot harder when the people involved are really close to you, or really important to you. The important thing to remember is this: The Drama Triangle is easy to get into, and sometimes a lot of fun (?!), but it diminishes everyone who’s involved in it, and causes a lot of pain. Even if no one thanks you for not being in it (and they usually won’t!), it’s worth it to practice stepping outside of the Triangle–for your sake, and for the sake of everyone around you.

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Someone who reads my blog (okay, she’s a member of my family, but I’m sure she doesn’t want me to identify her any further than that!) sent this joke to me the other day, along with an apology in case I found it offensive. But I love jokes that make fun of my profession–it’s such a big, fat target, why not have fun with it?! So here it is, and happy Friday–

“Ever since I was a child, I’ve always had a fear of someone under my bed at night. So I went to a counselor and told him, ‘I’ve got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there’s somebody under it. I’m scared. I think I’m going crazy!’ ‘Just put yourself in my hands for one year,’ said the counselor. ‘Come talk to me three times a week and we should be able to get rid of those fears.’ ‘How much do you charge?’ I asked. ‘$100 per visit,’ the counselor said. ‘I’ll sleep on it,’ I said. Six months later the counselor met me on the street. ‘Why didn’t you ever come to see me about those fears you were having?’ he asked. ‘Well, 100 bucks three times a week for a year is a lot of money,’ I said, ‘and a bartender cured me for $10.’ ‘Is that so?’ the counselor said, with a little attitude. ‘And how may I ask did the bartender cure you?’

‘He told me to cut the legs off the bed.’”

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Sometimes people come to a couple counseling session with an agenda. (Not always, but sometimes.) And sometimes that agenda isn’t pretty. Going from mild to severe, the agenda could be to prove a point, win a longstanding argument, prove their own righteousness, embarrass or hurt their partner, or flat-out destroy their partner.

And all of this–no kidding!–all of this is understandable. I think it was John Gottman who said that in any marriage (or partnership), everyone at one time or another wants to hurt their partner. And even if your feelings aren’t that hot, you’re probably right about a lot of things. Your partner did fail you, at least once, along the way. And you probably were the “better man” (woman) at some point.

But is this really what you want from your therapy session? I know it’s what you want, but is it what you really want?

“Yep!” some people say. To which I usually respond, “We-e-ll…okay then…”

But I encourage you to go for the gold. Get something more from your session. Something like this:

Use your session to confront yourself, not your partner, about what you’re thinking, feeling, or doing, and how that’s getting in your own way, and driving your partner crazy. You probably have 20-20 vision about your partner’s failings, but I promise you that you yourself have some issues to sort out. Your partner makes you furious? Well, sure, and probably for good reason. But how long have you been letting your partner hold this much sway over you and your emotions? Your partner stepped out or lied or broke your bond of trust? Well, if it were me, I’d feel hurt and sad and angry. But what are some ways that you yourself have allowed the relationship to erode?

This isn’t about excusing your partner, or beating yourself down. It’s just about getting a better look at yourself and your relationship. And I call this going “for the gold” because this kind of self-confrontation really is the path to health and happiness in relationships. You’re able to stand a lot taller when you set self-confrontation as your agenda for therapy.

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For some reason it seems this particular anniversary of 9/11 is hitting home a little more than the last few. It’s been seven years now, but this is a major election year, the country is facing a lot of problems, and maybe people are just in a reflective mood.

Or maybe just I am.

I remember that morning. My alarm went off at 6:00 PDT, which was fourteen minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. My alarm was tuned to NPR, and the headline was “plane has hit WTC.” I assumed it was a little Cessna plane, but it seemed like an interesting story, so I went to the TV to see if they had video. You know the rest. I remember watching all the smoke, hearing all the shouting, all the bewildering, panicked confusion. And then I thought I saw something–or rather I thought I didn’t see something: where was one of the towers? Before the newscasters asked this question, I was trying to see through the smoke. Is it possible? Did the tower collapse? And then someone (Matt Lauer? I don’t remember) said something like, “Say, where is the other tower? Do you see it? What happened?”

This year, this morning, MSNBC replayed the NBC coverage of that terrifying morning. It was riveting, but also hard to watch. It was odd to hear Tom Brokaw say, “We are at war.” He talked about how our lives were going to change, how we think about security–and our freedoms–was going to change. He was right about that.

What happened that day was a massive trauma, suffered by many millions of people. You didn’t have to be at Ground Zero, or the Pentagon, or Shanksville Pennsylvania–and you didn’t have to know someone who was there–to be traumatized. I think we’re still reeling from the event, at least in some ways. Having said that, I think it’s an exaggeration to say that “the world changed” that day. I remember going to work that day and talking with a friend of mine who had lived in Israel for much of her life. She said something like, “America is just finding out how the rest of the world lives. This is nothing new.”

And yet much has changed. The events of 9/11 inflicted an immense amount of anxiety on this nation, our culture, and much of the world. And we were pretty anxious already. It was at first an overlay of anxiety, or anxiety on top of anxiety–after all, who’s not anxious about something in their lives, in their relationships, in their homes and workplaces? But it has now (I believe) become an underlay, a barely perceptible hum of anxiety and tension that lies underneath our daily lives, our daily hustle.

I’ve written before about how national or global events can affect an individual person and even cause bouts of serious anxiety and depression. But even if you don’t feel that deeply about what happened seven years ago today, it’s a good idea to take some time today, to keep some silence, and to reflect on the many things that continue to challenge you–and all of us–in these anxious times.

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This week I reached a milestone: one full year in private psychotherapy practice, and my tenth year as a psychotherapist. I doubt this is all that exciting to anyone other than me, but hey, this is my blog, so I get to toot my horn a bit! It’s been a challenging and rewarding first year. Setting up a business on my own was scary, particularly in the first few days and weeks. But I love the freedom I have to work with clients exactly the way I want to–according to my best judgment, their specific needs, and their own goals–rather than following the rules and regulations of HMO’s or agencies. And I love the freedom to select and design my own office, develop my own website, set my own hours, offer clients a flexible schedule, and generally indulge my inner control freak!

As I look forward to year two, and since I’m already being a little immodest (!), I thought I’d do a “Best of Stephen” retrospective of blog posts over the past year, posts that people found helpful, insightful, or just a lot of fun. I also link to a couple of other therapists in town who I’m proud to call my colleagues. Enjoy, and happy autumn!

Lots of people were interested in my series of posts on the all-too-common phrase, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” Why do we hear that so often, and what does it mean? And how do we move past it? And what if they say this?

This is a great tool for couples. It was created by this great therapist. Check it out.

This therapist is expanding his private practice, and he’s great. (We used to work together at Group Health.) Congratulations, Tom!

I got attention (and a little grief!) for my posts on “empathy, sympathy, and compassion.” I think what’s most useful about separating out these three words and deciding what they mean is that we can then be more conscious about being empathic, sympathetic, and compassionate. And, we don’t always have to be all three. (And sometimes it’s best if we’re not.)

I had fun talking about Bill O’Hanlon’s four motivators–blessed, blissed, dissed, and pissed. He offers a great way to understand what really drives you, what really motivates you to make changes in your life.

Need a webmaster? Check out my post on a webmaster who’s in a class by herself.

Finally, a little fun–my favorite from the Unhealthy Pop Song Lyrics Series. If you’d like me to do a therapy critique on your favorite song, let me know!

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I’m planning to change my schedule in September, offering more times for sessions on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. You can use my scheduler to make appointments, call me at 206-214-7650, or email me at stephen@stephencrippen.com to set up a time. I hope to see you soon.

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Today is a favorite holiday of mine: Labor Day. It’s one of my favorites for reasons big and small. First, the small–or fun–reasons: I love autumn, and on Labor Day I start to feel excited about the coming season. I was the nerdy kid who loved the first day of school, and I still look forward to the upcoming months of cooler weather, new projects, and busy days.

But I’m also serious about celebrating labor, mine and yours. I agree with James Carville, who said, “Outside of love, the most precious thing you can give of yourself is your labor.” Everyone I know, whether it’s friends, family, clients, or colleagues–everyone I know is a laborer. My mother worked with school employees as the director of a union, and she and my dad both taught me to work hard, but also to value the workers, including myself, who get up every day, day after day, and go to work. And those of us who are unemployed, working at home, unable to work, going to school, or retired–you are laborers too. I hope that today you can celebrate the contributions you’re making to those around you, and all the hard work you’ve done this past year.

One way I’m going to celebrate today? I’m definitely going to take a nap! Happy Labor Day.

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