How we shape our identity plays a vital role in determining our wellbeing. This shaping, often unconscious, can propel our personal growth but also sometimes limit it in unintended ways.
As societal awareness grows about the traumatic impact of racism, domestic violence, prejudice, discrimination, poverty and the like, there has been an increasing focus on trauma-informed therapy. This approach recognises trauma’s influence on wellbeing and shifts away from blaming victims for their circumstances.
Victimisation is multilayered, often requiring social and therapeutic intervention. But there is a danger that individuals affected by trauma may unintentionally adopt an overarching “trauma identity”. This exclusive identification as a victim can overshadow more positive aspects of someone’s identity, limiting their autonomy, enjoyment and creativity.
Meet Alex*, a 28-year-old man unconsciously entangled in his victimhood. Having experienced significant traumas in the past, Alex developed a subtle but powerful habit of weaving these traumas into his daily interactions due to a need to elicit sympathy and support from others. Unaware of this pattern, he experienced and portrayed himself as a perpetual victim despite his current circumstances being quite favourable.
Alex’s partner, Sarah, bonded with him over this trauma and initially felt honoured that he was confiding in her. But as time went on she began to feel worn down by his preoccupation with past trauma and the difficulty he had engaging with other aspects of his identity. She also became aware that she was not the only recipient of his story. Sarah started to withdraw her support and validation as she felt that no consideration was given to her own needs and feelings, which Alex dismissed as comparatively trivial. In the face of her withdrawal, Alex’s need for validation escalated, culminating in resentment and grievance. He became increasingly hostile as Sarah took on the role of a persecutor in his mind.
Thus began a familiar dynamic captured in what has been termed the Karpman drama triangle of victim/persecutor/rescuer, in which participants continually swap roles. For Alex and Sarah, the triangle played out as it usually does.
A victim will often seek out a rescuer to help them. Unconsciously, however, they might also be on the lookout for a persecutor to confirm their sense of themselves as victims.
Stuck in the victim position, Alex began to not only see Sarah (the rescuer) as unwilling to validate and accommodate his trauma but also set against him (the persecutor). This led Alex to become hostile towards her with passive aggression and emotional attacks. While Alex continued to experience himself as the victim in the relationship, he was in fact becoming a persecutor.
The Karpman triangle recognises that attacks from the victim position are common and can be pernicious and confusing because the person is indeed still a victim. So, while feeling stung and hurt by Alex’s attacks, Sarah was also painfully aware of his real victim status and confused by this switch. But the hostility made it hard not to retaliate and in retaliating she found herself confirming Alex’s perception that she was persecuting him. Alex in turn felt abandoned and re-traumatised, believing that his quest for support and validation was further legitimised by Sarah’s retaliation.
At this point Alex sought therapy to attain the support he was no longer receiving in the relationship. In the first few sessions he was intent on presenting Sarah as the sole problem in the relationship and on describing his difficult and traumatic childhood history. The therapist was, of course, empathic to his plight, but was also quick to perceive how the Karpman dynamic was playing out.
While acknowledging Alex’s genuine trauma and victimhood, the therapist aimed to show how a consistent focus on injustices and hardships can lead to a sense of hopelessness and despair. It can also be disempowering as the focus is on what is being done to a person rather than what they can do themselves.
This identity can become a defence against being accountable or taking personal responsibility – and in the worst-case scenario it be used to justify attacks on others. The therapist helped Alex to come to terms with past traumas and at the same time empower himself to effect change in the present. She drew his attention to how in the therapy relationship he would frequently try to get her to focus only on his grievances and hardships, appearing reluctant to move on even after these had been processed and validated. She also highlighted their moment-to-moment interactions to give Alex an insight into how he tended to get angry if she didn’t comply and suggested that he might be able to take greater charge of his present circumstances.
Once Alex had some understanding of this unconscious style of relating, the therapist encouraged him to explore what resources he might have that he was not mobilising – ie, how he could mobilise his own internal rescuer.
This mantra, attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr and used in many therapy programs, proved fruitful: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
The therapist also helped Alex to recognise that while there were perceived advantages of a victim identity, including garnering support and reducing others’ expectations of him, there were also major disadvantages, such as stagnation and the relationship disruptions that had brought him to therapy in the first place.
As a last step, Alex was shown how his victim identity not only predisposed him to provoke his own persecution, as had happened with Sarah, but alarmingly also prompted him to become a persecutor himself.
As Alex reduced his investment in a victim identity, he was able to relate more spontaneously and freely to Sarah and see her needs more clearly. Sarah was also able to recognise her own role in the drama triangle and saw the tension that brought Alex to therapy abating. While Alex remains a victim of trauma, this is no longer the sole constellation around which his identity is based, allowing him to experience greater wellbeing and a healthier relationship.
* Alex is a fictitious amalgam used to exemplify similar cases. The therapist is a fictional amalgam of both authors
