Ho-ho-ho, the holidays are upon us! You can run, girlfriend, but you can’t hide. Okay, you can, but not forever. Sooner or later you’re going to carry on where you left off the last time around a Christmas table and play your familiar role in the drama triangle.

The drama triangle is a social model of human interaction proposed by Stephen B Karpman in the 1960s. Each side represents the triangle of actors in the drama – the persecutor, victim and rescuer. We usually tend to have a habitual role when we enter into drama triangles – a role we first learned in our own family.

Thing is, these roles aren’t set in cement. They’re fluid and the role players keep switching roles to pull off unconscious agendas. Note the word ‘unconscious’. The result is that the presenting problem, and other more fundamental problems that gave rise to the situation, remain unaddressed.

A drama triangle starts when someone takes on the role of persecutor or victim. This person feels a need to recruit other players to take part in the conflict. A persecutor’s mantra is: “It’s all your fault.” They are rigid, blaming, superior, critical and controlling. If blamed in return, persecutors could become defensive and suddenly switch roles to act the victim.

The victim’s role is “Poor me” and this person seeks to convince everyone that he or she is hopeless, helpless, powerless and persecuted. The reward here is avoiding real change or acknowledgement of true feelings. The victim will stay with a persecutor. Should the persecutor leave, a victim will set someone else up in that role.

By seeking help, victims create rescuers, classic enablers who will actually enhance the victim’s negative feelings and leave the situation unchanged. Rescuers eventually become angry and turn into persecutors when all their help brings no change about in the victim. All this rescuing keeps the victim dependent and doesn’t allow the victim to experience the cost of their choices.

The rewards rescuers experience include: Feeling good for having tried to help; and feeling justified in their negative feelings when failing to change the victim. When rescuers focus their energy on someone else, it allows them to ignore their own issues.

The reason a drama triangle continues is that each role player’s frequently unconscious needs are being met without having to admit the broader harm done. The antithesis is to consciously recognize the payoff you get by playing a role in the triangle. There, job done. Your only job is you – not the others.

Dominica Applegate, a therapist who worked for 12 years in the mental health field before becoming a full-time writer, says you should know that it’s not your job to fix anyone else. Arguing rarely solves anything. Giving advice when it’s unwanted rarely helps. You can’t change others, so – for your own peace of mind – it’s best to choose acceptance.

“Do your best to stay on your own side of the street, and just take care of yourself,” Dominica says. There may be some challenging family members that you’ll have to contend with over the holidays. Decide ahead of time to meet them where they are, even if that’s at the superficial level. Their comments, negativity and drama don’t have to upset everyone or ruin the day.

After all, they don’t even know what they’re doing. The payoff is at an unconscious level. But you, girlfriend, have now become conscious of the game. Once you realize that playing a role in this drama triangle is a choice, you will see that the triangle models the connection between personal responsibility and power in conflicts. And we are so much more powerful than we realise.

That is why Marianne Williamson says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

“We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you . . . And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

You, yes you, girlfriend – go glow! Glisten, gleam. This year you’ll be the glitter at the Christmas table.