LuLa No !
I've been watching LuLa Rich, a series on Amazon Prime about the rise and fall of clothing company LuLa Roe. The series is sad and funny in places. The clothing company sold leggings and you have to raise an eyebrow at some of the designs. The crotch is not the best place for the Leaning Tower Of Pisa! LuLa Roe is a Multi Level Marketing company ( MLM). The idea is that you recruit people to your team and you also get commission from your sales and your team sales. It sounds amazing and often mothers are targeted and told they can work from home and raise a family whilst working hours that suit the school run. The reality is that MLM should really stand for Most Lose Money. People were buying more and more stock to try to hit targets and found that they were unable to sell it, friendships and family relationships broke down as a result of the predatory tactics that the sales reps were encouraged to use.
One of the scenes that stuck with me was one of their conferences, where lots of attendees were encouraged to go if they were 'serious' about their work and spent money they didn't have, to go to the conference to hear success stories of other sales reps. There was someone on the stage talking about the Drama Triangle. I often find psychology inappropriately used and it makes me cross.
The Drama Triangle was first posed by psychiatrist, Stephen Karpman in the 60s and was a way to look at dysfunctional relationships. The idea is that we can take one of the three positions when we are in dysfunctional relationships. The Persecutor seeks to blame others and makes others feel worthless by being judgemental. The Victim is someone who will seek a 'poor me' role and will not blame others for their position and The Rescuer is the people pleaser, who tries to make everything ok, but can often not appreciate that other people can handle the situation and does not always need intervention. None of the roles are healthy.
The Drama Triangle was used at the LuLa Roe conference to try to explain that some people and family members will not support your dreams and will be jealous of your success and will start to take the role of persecutor. Wow! This is a tool that is used in therapy to help people explore their relationships. It's not a reason to ditch your friends because they don't buy your leggings or won't part with several thousand pounds to buy into a "business" that most lose money in. I see things like this all the time about cutting people out of your life if they do not support your dreams. The sad thing is the dreams are being pedalled by people who are faking it until they make it. It's true that not everyone will support our dreams. We don't need to completely cut them out of our lives, unless the relationship is abusive. We can just decide that we don't want to talk to them about goals that they don't support or understand. Friends and family can struggle when we change and some will embrace the new you and others will struggle, but that doesn't mean that all those years of friendship need to end. They may still be a good dancing buddy or your best cake eating partner. No one is perfect and relationships are complex, having a circle of friends with different views is a really positive thing, we don't have to agree on everything. As long as they don't put chocolate in the fridge, or even worse, put MY chocolate in the fridge I think I can cope with different views.
Therapists train for many years to be able to work in their field. It isn't just about reading a few self help books and then deciding you are an expert. Therapists are regulated by professional bodies and work to ethical standards and constantly learn and keep up to date with new findings in their field. Psychology is a great subject to study ( i am slightly biased) but the misuse of it makes me sad.
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