PDF (PhD Thesis) - UWE Research Repository - University of the ...

About a year later, in March 2006, I attended a senior staff meeting to talk
about facilitating learning within the trust. This group comprised mostly
senior nursing staff, being either modern matrons or division heads of
nursing. They were concerned about the poor uptake of in-house training. I
explained how difficult it was to be released from the bedside when giving
care, as sometimes there was no-one spare to hand over the care to. If
staffing is cut to the bone, how can managers expect nurses to have time
for education? As Jane had said there was less leeway. In this meeting I
gained the impression that the managers felt it was a lack of will on the
part of the nurses; a simplistic and blaming analysis. However, I saw it as
an aspect of the habitus and field of practice, an unconscious process that
denied the need for education putting others needs first, and a staffing
issue depending on the context. I suspected the way the managers were
‗blaming the staff‘ was like the drama triangle game.
I have used Karpman‘s (1968) theory of the drama triangle in facilitating
reflective practice, following my Master‘s degree in 1998, as a way of
explaining how interactions between people often go wrong. In this
process there is implicit rather than explicit communication. Karpman
explains this unconscious game between people through a visual
representation of an inverted triangle with the three roles, one at each
corner (see above). These three roles namely Persecutor, Rescuer and
Victim get played out during an interaction. Karpman suggested roles
would be switched during the game; with one person moving in and out of
at least two of the roles very suddenly. Sometimes it is possible to switch
between all three roles so that the game is dynamic rather than static.
122