The Rescue Triangle

What is the Rescue Triangle?

There are three roles in the Rescue Triangle. These are:

• rescuer
  
• aggressor
  
• victim

We will explain the roles first, then describe how they interact with each other. Each role may be expressed in different ways.

The Victim role

Someone in the victim role generally feels bad inside and powerless, although some people actively play the victim role with relish.

• Someone in the victim role feels like a victim of what is happening around them. They feel at the mercy of the situation they find themselves in. They feel hurt by things that happen and not in control of themselves and their lives. They feel sorry for themselves and think 'poor me'.

• Or they feel guilty because they feel it is their fault that someone else is feeling bad or that something has gone wrong.

• Or they may act aloof. They act as if they are OK when in fact they don't feel OK inside. This is to avoid giving anyone information that could be used against them.

Aggressor role

There are four versions of the aggressor role.

• The Persecutorharasses or oppresses others in order to control them.

• The Intimidatorbehaves in a threatening or violent way towards other people. The Intimidator uses the threat of emotional or physical violence to control the behaviour of others.

• The Steamrollertalks loudly, is brash, insistent and intimidating, and contradicts or ignores virtually everything you say. Their overriding aim is to get their own way. They ask a lot of questions, but they are not interested in answers. Their blaming behaviour is just designed to break their victim down. If they keep on the attack maybe no-one will notice how insecure and exposed they feel.

• The Inquisitor also asks lots of questions, but is very interested in the answers. Inquisitors want to get information out of other people which they can use against them later. They are good at gaining trust and they use this to discover other people’s weak spots.

Rescuer role

The Rescuer acts to stop people from feeling bad, to rescue people from some perceived harm or to prevent a situation from becoming worse. Those acting in a rescuing pattern try to make people feel better or at least prevent them from feeling worse. They try to avoid hurting other people's feelings. They try to solve other people's problems for them and often do that by giving unsolicited advice.

How do the roles interact with each other?

As we have already explained, there are three roles in the Rescue Triangle - the victim, aggressor and rescuer. It's called a 'triangle' because the roles interact with each other and once you get into one role it is easy to move around the triangle into other roles. In fact, if two people both start acting in the Rescue Triangle with each other they may dance together around the triangle, each switching from one role to another and back again. Once in, especially if you are both in, it's hard to get out.

An example. Jenny gets distressed during an exercise on Fundamentals. Another course member, Rita, thinks she can see the answer to Jenny's problem and tells her what she thinks she ought to do. Jenny gets angry and tells Rita to mind her own business. Rita gets upset then and feels attacked and starts crying. Jenny then feels bad and tries to say she's really sorry and that she really likes Rita and thinks she's a great person ... They are dancing together around the triangle. The dance continues until one person 'wins' the energy of the other.

Rewards’ of the Rescue Triangle

It can be rewarding acting in the Rescue Triangle. You may actually get someone to behave in the way you want them to by bullying them or acting like you are their victim. You can also get a kick out of getting what you want from someone else. However, there is usually also a cost to getting what you want using the Rescue Triangle. For example, if you bully someone into doing the washing-up, you may get the washing-up done and feel good because you got what you wanted. The person doing it, however, will probably do it with some resentment. The risk is that they store this up and 'get you back later' or sabotage the job in some way. So getting what you want from other people using the Rescue Triangle may be rewarding in the short-term, but in the long-term there is usually a cost.

Working things out through the Rescue Triangle usually gives you a dysfunctional solution. For example, in the work place if a manager tries to get a task done by bullying an employee, the focus of both their energies becomes the power struggle, rather than the task itself. Even worse, the task itself can become a tool in frustrating each other.

The energy exchange

When someone controls another person's behaviour through the Rescue Triangle, they strengthen their own energy in some way while the other person feels depleted. Have you ever felt an energy boost or a 'high' when you feel you have solved someone else's problem? Have you ever felt more secure and stronger in your relationship because you have coerced your partner into doing something for you to 'prove' their love for you? Have you ever got people's attention by acting distant or aloof? If so, then you have used the Rescue Triangle to get other people's energy flowing towards you.

In the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, both rowing teams expend about the same amount of physical energy in order to cross the line. But the winners are energised, triumphant, the losers depleted and exhausted. It's the same kind of thing in the Rescue Triangle. One person feels energised, the other feels depleted. In any Rescue Triangle exchange, there is a 'winner' and a 'loser'.

Playing the Rescue Triangle can be potentially addictive. People using the different roles can give themselves a rush of adrenaline or feel good about themselves because they have made somebody else do or feel what they wanted them to. This can be used as a habit to avoid bad feelings about themselves.

How do people learn the roles?

People act in different roles at different times. Generally, however, we each favour one of the roles and tend to act in that one more often than in the others. Each person has one role as a 'home base'. Each of our parents will have had a tendency to act in one of the roles more often than the others. As children, if we were exposed to a parental figure acting in one role repeatedly, the chances are we developed a tendency for a matching role. These are the most common matches.

Interrogating parent - Aloof child
The child withdraws and becomes aloof to defend him or herself against the intrusive questions of the parent.

Aloof parent - Interrogating child
The child tries to get the parent's attention and energy flowing towards him or her by asking questions.

Intimidating parent - ‘Poor me’ child
The child learns the role of victim in response to the parent's intimidation. As victim they try to get the parent's energy flowing towards them by eliciting sympathy. The child develops the victim role to try to avoid being intimidated.

Victim parent - Rescuing child
The child acts to try to prevent the parent suffering more than they seem to be already. The child tries to keep the victim parent happy, usually at the expense of his or her own needs and wishes.

Rescuing parent - Rescuing child
The parent may choose to always put the child’s needs first at the expense of their own needs. But at times the parent collapses and the child feels guilty about this. The child may then be in the position of looking after the parent, which usually involves denying his or her own needs and wishes.

What's the alternative?

The alternative is relationships in which people are not trying to control each other. If people give up trying to control each other, they are left with trying to find ways to co-operate with each other and trying to negotiate openly with each other to find solutions to problems.

Energy gets tied up in the Rescue Triangle, so getting out of it frees up energy. People who are not trying to control each other are more likely to enjoy each other's company in a way which feels clearer and more balanced.

So what is healthy support?

Healthy support:
• is negotiated. It's OK for the other person to say ‘no’, or to ask for something different

• leaves people in charge of themselves even when this means they will have to live through their own struggles (they will grow from them!)

• supports people to develop their own skills

• is given with attention free of restimulations, preoccupations or other distractions

• means nobody gains energy from each other

The positive side of Rescue Triangle roles

There is a positive side to the Rescue Triangle. The skills we learn in Rescue Triangle roles may prove useful to us in our lives in other ways. That is, if we stop using them manipulatively. It is not necessary to discard or reject skills that we have used manipulatively in the past. It is the manipulation that is unhealthy. In fact the skill involved may prove to be useful if used in a non-controlling way. If you have learned to be an Inquisitor, for example, you will be good at asking questions and eliciting information from other people. An Inquisitor may make a good journalist, because these skills are useful in that job. Someone who has learned to take on the Victim role may have learned compassion which he or she can use in positive and non-controlling ways.

The challenge is to how you could use your Rescue Triangle skills in a positive and non-controlling way...