The Contactful Quad: An Effective Tool for Working With Trauma

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential and development of the drama triangle, the winner’s triangle, and the trauma quadrangle in trauma work and to offer a tool to help identify the roles/patterns replayed when caught in drama. This fosters moving into a more active (winner’s) space and retaining a more integrated position. The authors draw on trauma-informed practices and transactional analysis (TA). They propose that the bystander position in response to trauma can be both an internal and external process. As a tool for working with developmental trauma, the authors offer the contactful quad, which through empowerment and witness aims to support the process of decontamination and deconfusion, to aid the healing process, and to support integration of the unresolved somatic experience of trauma responses. Using clinical vignettes, the authors demonstrate the power of the Actively Courageous position of the contactful quad as an antidote to the Bystander position.