Which Karpman Type are You?

Having received therapy from about seven different therapists in my life (including couple’s counseling), I was shocked when at the age of thirty-six I first learned about the Stephen Karpman “Drama Triangle” model of trauma and conflict psychology because it is a well established and accepted model that essentially solves human trauma psychology yet not a single therapist had ever mentioned or even addressed it in any of my sessions with them.

The model is so succinct, clear, and effective in describing and addressing trauma and conflict, in fact, that even lay persons easily grasp and relate to the concept and can see its dynamics in their personal experience, and this information is so useful and empowering it can and does actually help people to address and overcome many of their problems, especially when receiving adequate assistance and the learning of new, helpful tools and life skills. As discussed in my book, The Perfect Child, using the Karpman model along with inventory therapy helped me identify exactly why, how, and what in my own experiences of trauma, frustration, and disappointment which then led to empowering new life experiences and a much calmer, insightful, and fulfilled sense of purpose so in contrast to my earlier life as to be something I never even thought possible.

Yet the problem remains that many people are ignorant to this information and the work of Dr. Karpman because the mental health industry does not actively communicate this concept to their clients, and without useful and pertinent information people continue to suffer in unending cycles of fear, insecurity, and abuse. The fundamental principle behind all human psychology is that although there exists individuals with their own fears, traumas, control mechanisms, and strengths and flaws, all humans are the same species with the same evolutionary biology, and all that which any one person is does not necessarily reflect an individual’s being but instead a set of traits which can be true of any other human being, since we are all made of the same evolutionary biology and genetics as every other human. The inability to recognize this truth about human evolutionary psychology means that any quality or trait of an individual is often treated as if they are responsible for that trait, rather than it being a result not only of their rearing and life experience but also entirely informed and facilitated by human biology and our shared evolutionary history. For instance, we evolved as an organism to be extremely dependent on other humans for our own collective survival, and so fears of rejection are far more ominous and debilitating to humans that might be the case for other organisms that are not similarly dependent on the group such as sharks or birds of prey, whom no doubt are unconcerned with whether other sharks or birds of prey think they are smart or cool. Even seemingly common features of humanity such as not having fur or not possessing telepathy can and do influence our behavior in ways we are not even aware, such as being raised with an excessive concern for clothing and appearance or attempting to mind-read others, which we cannot do, although some of us sure try our damnedest because if we could actually mind-read other humans we would never be surprised by them and therefore trust, honesty, and deceit would not play a role in human social function.

As I discuss in my book, The Perfect Child, human traits such as those described in the Karpman model are in fact evolutionary biological survival adaptations accumulated by our ancestors, even before the time when we became humans, which in one way or another assisted the survival of our ancestors in response to stress and trauma, which is why they remain as features in our biology today, otherwise they would have been lost along the way as unhelpful or even harmful to the survival of the species. But the survival of the species is very different than the survival of the individual, and many of the traits which we retain as human beings often imperil the individual for the benefit of the group, and being unaware of these biological, evolutionary features of humanity in response to trauma and stress can even further imperil our wellbeing since we do not understand that our experience is very much the production of evolutionary human psychology and not simply something that sprung spontaneously from the Aether. Being then ignorant to this reality of existence we make decisions as if our experience is reality rather than a construct filtered through our evolutionary survival adaptations which prejudice that construct, such as when I tried to kill myself at the age of twenty-one after suffering suicidal depression for many years, being indoctrinated by my family’s religion to believe I was bad simply for being gay, and that their rejection of me was my fault, instead of the reality that we experience a rise in stress hormones and a deficit of dopamine when we are abandoned by our family, friends, and other important relationships as a means to motivate us as organisms to seek out and maintain close relationships for our own survival. Like many animals we also tend to spontaneous self-isolate when sick, even though assistance can improve our chances, because in evolutionary terms this self-removal from the group could in turn spare others from being potentially infected by any communicable organisms that might be the cause of our disease which, unlike the here and now with the widespread availability of medicine, was the most common cause of illness in evolutionary terms.

To this end it is extremely productive to understand how the Karpman model applies to each of our own experiences, that we may be empowered to act in spite of these limiting evolutionary coping and control mechanisms, and become aware of how they actually motivate us to act against our own best interests, to fear that which is not actually worth fearing and make choices which benefit the group instead of our own personal wellbeing. For instance the many people whom diet and starve themselves thinking we are trying to be fit, healthy, and attractive but never ask why or for whom are we doing that? Undereating and forcing our body to work beyond what it is capable is undeniably stressful, and stress is not arbitrary or benign and can impair the immune system, destroy lean muscle, and even cause hair loss and lost libido, while being fat and happy is objectively more comfortable and spares lean muscle and promotes libido, hair retention, etc., but even asking that question and realizing our sole motivation for self-harm is acceptance and validation from others is not on its own sufficient for many people to stop harming their bodies, then, ironically, this kind of behavior ultimately damages our physical health, since the body cannot, in fact, endure ceaseless nutritional stress, and we find ourselves in the very position we fought so hard to avoid. This occurs, however, not because we are trying to fit in, be accepted, or to solicit attraction, but because we are compelled by the biology of instinct, the tools of which are often the only tools many of us have at our disposal, and when based in fear, ignorance, and trauma our choices and actions are also then uniformed and therefore possessed of a very high likelihood of failure. Many people scour the internet seeking answers to their problems, but are easily mislead and misinformed because most information on the internet is in search of profits, so those who offer supposed solutions are in fact preying on your fears and insecurity to sell you something (especially those which require regular purchase!). Then newly possessed of a product or “cure” we experience a brief sense of relief, deluding ourselves into believing we have found a magic source of relief from our problems, only to find later that it not only does not relieve us of our problems but very often also causes more of them, and we are out that money we could have used for other things like food, shelter, clothing, etc. The only way to avoid this kind of exploitation is to resolve those fears, insecurities, and trauma that are the source of our vulnerability, and to resolve those problems requires understanding why and how they exist.

Before exploring what Karpman type each of us is, it is important to know that it’s actually quite easy to reverse and resolve these states of trauma such as is discussed in my video instruction on my YouTube channel and both of my books. This process is essentially the “taking a center position,” between the various Karpman types as was suggested by Dr. Margalis Fjelstad who helped elucidate how to resolve the Karpman model (where Karpman merely identified the model). To be clear, the therapy I have devised and developed is derived from one aspect from the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step recovery program, not either of these professionals, which I recognized during my experience as being one of the most comprehensive and effective cognitive therapies I had ever encountered, and In my experience using my version of inventory therapy is a straightforward, cognitive practice using structured writing to understand, clarify, and digest our past experiences of trauma and its resulting control and coping mechanisms that is both accessible and highly effective. It works so well, in fact, that people are frequently amazed (just as I was) that the simple act of writing in this structured way does so much in the resolution of those experiences, which occurs because the act of writing actually communicates with the unconscious mind, so a structured writing practice designed to help the unconscious mind resolve past experiences of trauma which inform our reactive, evolutionary, biological unconscious then helps to liberate us from those reactive survival adaptations.

There are just three different categories in the Karpman model, which are the Victim, the Persecutor, and the Helper (Karpman calls this one the ‘Rescuer,’ but I have found helper to be much more useful).

1) Victim

The Victim type are those of us who believe that we are not strong enough on our own to achieve our goals, dreams, and ambitions. For instance, when I was younger I though that my dreams of becoming a filmmaker and writer of film was dependent on producers and other industry executives discovering me and giving me the opportunity to make the work I wanted to make, instead of going off on my own and making art in whatever capacity I could regardless of whether anyone said I could do it.

The problem was that my choices informed by this insecurity brought me very close to exploitative and opportunistic personalities which took advantage of my desires and insecurities to then cause me harm and further destroy my sense of self worth. One person even stole ideas I had and used them to pitch ideas a studio without me present and won $30k to develop my idea (which didn’t go anywhere because it wasn’t actually their concept or work and they didn’t understand it in the first place).

I also ended up dating similarly charismatic and opportunistic men, because my insecurity caused me to believe that rejection was a condemnation of my self worth and instead of pursuing men I wanted to date instead let men come to me, which were usually those only interested in my exterior appearance into which they would simply insert their own personal fantasy, which of course I would never match since any fantasy would simply be different than what I really was. In fact, I would not even be doing this work in the first place—released my books, or even started a blog, if I had not done inventory therapy and resolved most of my past trauma, because I was so insecure about my own power and ability due to being the Karpman victim type that I would never take chances or do things that made me vulnerable. The victim type, such as myself, fundamentally believe that we need others in order to achieve our goals and dreams.

2) Persecutor

The second type, the Persecutor, is frequently tied up with the Victim type because in contrast to the Victim the Persecutor fundamentally believes that we do not need others to achieve our goals and dreams, and because of this position are often those who are charismatic, dominant people who constantly feel that we would achieve our goals and dreams if only people didn’t stand in the way.

Persecutors are just as easy to identify as victims because we are the ones who often use and exploit victims, such as my former friend who stole my idea and used it to get a studio pitch and development money, or most of my former boyfriends who despised me when I began putting on weight and did not embody the physical specimen they felt deserving (even when they were not even close to being as attractive as I was even when I was fat). Persecutor types are the most difficult to change because we believe that we deserve everything that we want or put our mind to, and our problems are caused by other people, so why should we have to change or grow?

Evolutionarily the Persecutor type assisted human animals (and other animals as well) to survive by actually taking and stealing from others, and Persecutor types are often those who thieve, embezzle, swindle, etc., because of a misguided sense both of entitlement and impunity. While Helper types may do this, the Victim type rarely does because their innate fear of being weak also increases their fear of being caught, while the Persecutor feels deserving of other’s possessions and which thus reduces their fear of reprisal regardless of its likelihood. This Karpman type is particularly precarious because there are, in fact, consequences for such antisocial behavior, even if what we take is immaterial, and over time the Persecutor tends to accrue a long list of offenses and offended persons for which our mind and guilt become overburdened, often finding ourselves more alone and isolated, or used by shallow and needy people wanting to benefit indirectly from our charisma and ruthlessness. But guilt and shame from our behavior can and does lead into severe substance abuse as we try to handle those feelings through chemical intervention, but which doesn’t work since we know guilt whether we feel it or not, and having chemically suppressed feelings of guilt and shame are more likely to continuing harming others to further compound our problems until we go completely insane (my guide on alcoholism and addiction can help with this).

Persecutor types are also ironically more prone to being victims of fraud and scams than other people because our sense of entitlement makes us highly vulnerable to flattery and thus prone to overlook inconvenient warning signs and danger, and several Persecutor types I know in fact have lost significant sums of money in what were obvious and blatant scams and schemes, because of course someone would just offer us the chance to be incredibly wealthy—we deserve it! Only to find later that we are just as susceptible to misfortune as any other person—in fact more so when we are not acting on sufficient information and insight due to being blinded by the Persecutor adaptation to our past and unresolved trauma and its resultant control and coping mechanisms.

3) Helper

The third Karpman type is the Helper, which is often the most inconspicuous because as helper types we often behave in ways which are easily described as being helpful, politic, useful, and engaged. But being a Helper type is one of the most destructive because our primary function or motivation is to use the act of assistance and counsel not to actually help others but to ensure our usefulness to them. Many or even most Helper types were middle children who felt invisible in their families unless they actively inserted themselves into ongoing conflicts, for instance in our family during fights between my parents and myself the other children who turned out to be the Helper type would unsolicitedly insert themselves between us and volunteer advice or admonition, which obviously never did anything to alleviate the problems since they were also only children and it wasn’t their responsibility or ability to prevent or fix trauma and abuse. But then since our conception of ourselves forms during such conflict dynamics we then become trained to continue doing the same as adults, having learned our sense of worth comes only when we can find occasions to be useful.

An example of the adult Helper type I know suggested after a very volatile email exchange with my parents in which I told them literally to fuck off (for being homophobic and indoctrinating my family to treat me as an outcast) that all my father and I needed to do was to sit down in a room together and not come out until we understood each other. On its face this sounds like okay advice, but my father is my abuser and by his position holds a completely outsized degree of power to myself, so no this is actually abusive and harmful advice, much like saying that a rapist and his victim should sit in a room until they understand each other. It marginalizes the imbalance of power in the relationship to in fact perpetuate conflict, not resolve it, and whether the Helper is conscious of this or not facilitates a continued role for them in which to feel a sense of purpose since their solution neither resolves the conflict or empowers others to do so.

When Helper types are inserted into roles of authority we can facilitate tremendous dysfunction, for example not expelling a child from school who pulls a knife on another student, who then later comes back to shoot them. The Helper in this position no doubt believed genuinely they were being compassionate to the troubled child, when in fact they were endangering everyone else, because the problem is that, like the other two Karpman types, this behavior operates from a point of delusion and mistaken conception of reality, and the sense of purpose a Helper feels does not come from actually empowering others or solving problems but simply from being engaged, and feeling a sense of purpose is an inherently self-centered function rather than the selflessness which is required to truly help others.

In fact, it is my observation that most therapists are the Helper type, and get into the therapy profession in order to satisfy a need to be useful, which is why most therapy ends up being laborious and unproductive, not simply due to financial exploitation, although some of that exists, but for the simple satisfaction of the Helper’s insecurities. For example during one therapy session with a past partner during which our relationship was quite acrimonious I described my partner’s behavior as being emotionally abusive, and the therapist actually got mad at me and for a time I started to question whether his constant emotional abuse was in fact my fault. This is why the Karpman model is not taught to patients in therapy, because Helpers fear it would actually empower patients to graduate beyond the need for them and thus eliminate the role of the therapist.

Of course this fear is no more founded in reality than any of the other types, because there are literally billions of people on the planet, most of whom have trauma to one degree or another, with new ones being born all the time, and the fear of not being able to act in a helpful role for people is also itself borne of trauma that informs this delusional and destructive behavior. Many people are familiar with the Helper type—admonitions that we should conform to the expectations of others, engage in good-faith dialogue with those who do not themselves behave with integrity, or show leniency to people who are clearly a danger are widespread human behaviors that underpin and support dysfunctional and antisocial dynamics because of the role those people then fulfill during conflict. Helpers must understand that our sense of self worth does not come from our roles in life, but must come from within and the simple fact of our existence as emphasized in both my books, and that we can in fact become quite harmful and destructive, irrespective intention, when we fail to recognize this reality or resolve our own experiences of trauma.

Resolution of Each Type

The fundamental problem with all of our various Karpman model types of psychological trauma and conflict is that we are fundamentally fixated and obsessed with other people as a coping mechanism to assert control over our environment. The desire for this is to mitigate further loss, disappointment, and suffering, but the reality is that we cannot actually control others or life, and in fact often cause the very problems we fear because of our selfish, ignorant, and harmful behavior, and should instead focus inward on our own, personal development and growth entirely, fully, and unquestioningly separate from others.

But this is often not even considered an option because we also lack many fundamental life skills that would otherwise help us do that. For instance all three types are fearful of rejection because we do not know how to handle rejection in a healthy, mature way, and most of us faced with the prospect or reality of rejection try so many control mechanisms to prevent it and are so fearful that we don’t even consider that rejection just might in fact not be a big fucking deal—rejection in fact is the commonest experience for every single human on the planet, and dating is nothing but a series of rejections until you find the one person who doesn’t, so taking ourselves so seriously that we cannot well endure rejection ends up imperiling us further as we cope with our fears by avoiding opportunities or harming others in attempts to force their acceptance, because we cannot actually do that, and it ends up incurring their resentment and potentiating the risk for the rejection we fear in the first place.

Most of politics are dominated by the Persecutor and Helper types, the former being those charismatic, despotic, bigoted politicians who spread fear and hate and persecute minorities because they are vulnerable populations with less risk of fighting back, while the latter are often libs who mostly ‘fail’ to meaningfully resolve sociopolitical problems and conflict because they in fact have no desire to do so. A good example of the latter is Adam Schiff of California who is as much a villain as any right-wing demagogue, and had no problem funding a hateful opposition candidate to ensure his own success at the cost of people vulnerable to bigotry, because the elevation of conflict also further guarantees a role in which he can assert himself in the future. Famously, Hilary Clinton also did this by funding a spoiler candidate—Donald Trump—demonstrating just how self-destructive we are when we act on our fears and insecurities as described in the Karpman model. While Helper politicians make excuses for inaction or ineptitude, Victim types don’t even enter politics due to a mistaken sense of weakness and vulnerability, believing we are not actually capable of achieving change ourselves without the help of more powerful leaders.

Being unaware of how our evolutionary psychology drives our behavior and informs our coping mechanisms in response to trauma (such as by refusing to do inventory therapy) gives our unhelpful mechanisms greater power over our choices until we find ourselves utterly destroyed by life, losing important relationships and resources, and confronting the consequences of our actions ironically in spite of our efforts not to, since our actions and behaviors are built on the incomplete understanding of life, others, and the laws of cause and consequence. The most productive thing any person can do is resolve our past experiences of trauma and inactivate the control and coping mechanisms which drive our behavior. This not only relieves us of a great deal of mental and emotional stress but makes our efforts more effective and productive because they become informed more by reality than our wishful, delusional, or coping thinking. As the Victim type I realized from doing the therapy of inventory that I was every bit as both capable and culpable for my success as those I envied as confident and charismatic (and that it is okay to be alone). The Persecutor type will similarly find that they are also culpable for their choices and behavior and not impeded by anything but their own insecurity (and that it’s okay to need others). The Helper type will realize their sense of self worth is not found without, but within (and that it’s okay to help without concern for ourselves).

The Karpman model of trauma and conflict is one of the most useful discoveries in the advancement of mental health science, and it should be employed in every practice and clinic which purports to offer treatment. If this is not the case, it is impossible to help people get well because they are not empowered with the knowledge of why they have the problems they do, and this is likely due also ironically to Karpman-described conflict within the practice or clinic causing this same dysfunction in the never ending cycle of trauma which can be finally ended through practices like inventory therapy which empowers people to resolve their own experiences of trauma and the resulting control and coping mechanisms.

One disagreement I have with the Karpman model is the idea that people often shift between the three, rather than occupy one at all times. In my observation it appears we adopt similar coping mechanisms which predominate in other types but in reality do not deviate from a single core identity. One example of this misunderstanding is how Persecutor types can and do play the ‘victim’ when they are ultimately confronted by consequences of their actions (all ‘Karen’ instances are the Persecutor types), but the ‘victimhood’ they display in that behavior is not the same as what the Victim does (and this is a problem of the limitations of language, using the same word to describe two distinct things), and instead their defensive ‘victimhood’ posturing still displays an overt sense of entitlement, that they are deserving of special treatment, whereas the Victim type does not even engage in such conflict because of a fear of being too weak and insecure to meet success (for instance I have never once in my life asked to speak to a manager).

So what type are you? The ultimate symptom displayed by all types, no matter which, is defensiveness, and any defensiveness is a universal sign that inventory therapy is mandatory to achieving resolution of unresolved trauma, coping mechanisms, and achieving mental health. This process as described in my YouTube instruction video and both my books is not only quite simple and very accessible, it is far more effective than you can even imagine.

Loneliness is a common side effect of these Karpman types, since we are ignorant of how to actually resolve it. Sex is often also a fulcrum for tension and conflict due to coping mechanisms and ignorance of relationship dynamics, and Intention is Stupid and Unproductive because it is based on the delusional coping mechanisms which misunderstand cause and consequence as a result of unresolved trauma.