Most of us are familiar with the Drama Triangle (Karpman, 1968). The model describes the dysfunctional roles we unconsciously play to avoid taking responsibility for ourselves. Petruska Clarkson (1987), added the Bystander role, the audience to the Drama. The Bystander is ostensibly outside the drama, but impacts the drama in many ways.

This two-hour workshop explores the Bystander role (Clarkson, 1987) in greater depth and redefines its position from one of being an onlooker to that of being an integral element in the Drama Triangle (Karpman, 1968), making it a three-dimensional Drama Pyramid (Gopakumar and Vaidik, 2022). The new visualisation highlights the need for contextual awareness. The Cultural Parent (Drego, 1983) is lodged within our psyche and impacts all the drama roles.

Recognising invisible oppression allows us to recognise the game roles that we may be taking on without awareness.

The workshop also proposes Functional Fluency (Temple, 2002) as a useful model that can enable us to step out of game roles. We will work with several examples of bystanding, and use the model to find options to responsibly intervene.

Workshop Facilitators: Aruna Gopakumar (PTSTA-P, Director at Navgati) and Aparna Vaidik (PhD, Associate Professor of History at Ashoka University) www.navgati.in/transactional-analysis-programs/