The Formula for Dysfunction

By Adrienne Loker, LCSW, EMDR, SE Therapist

Ever heard of the Dysfunctional Roles of an Alcoholic Family? Well, I believe these roles are present in every system - familial or otherwise. “Dysfunction” shows up when members of a system get role locked, compared to a healthy and functional system that shares the roles.

Dysfunctional Role Locking happens when systems are governed by shame - which creates a cycle of avoidance that causes more shame that tells us to avoid that shame, that then breeds more shame, and so on and so on. 

At the center of this spiral is The Victim. The Victim is demanding and needy, and everyone else is afraid of what happens when The Victim doesn’t get their way. The Victim can be a person in power, like a parent or a supervisor, but can also be a person not in hierarchical power, like a child or a subordinate.

The next role is what’s historically called The Chief Enabler. The Chief Enabler is the one with the hierarchical power to challenge The Victim, but their fear of The Victim’s emotions causes them to collude with The Victim’s demands. 

This sets forth a chain reaction, setting the stage for a system governed by anxiety, locking everyone in their defensive posture unable to create healthy changes.

The following roles tend to be taken by those not in hierarchical power, such as other children or employees. These include The Workplace (Family) Hero - this employee must over compensate for the deficits caused by The Victim and The Chief Enabler. They work hard to make up for the lost productivity caused by The Victim’s demands and The Chief Enabler’s lack of boundaries around these demands. This keeps the system functioning in the face of dysfunction.

Next is The Scapegoat. Because the tension needs to go somewhere, and the system is committed to their emotional phobia of The Victim, the tension gets attributed to the member of the team who challenges the status quo. Temporarily, The Scapegoat can even be an employee who no longer works for the company, because it’s the safest way to unite as a team within the ever-present tension and discharge it without pushback.

If there’s more team members in the department, we see the development of The Lost Child (or The Invisible Employee). The Invisible Employee gets the least amount of attention, doesn’t get their needs met, and works under the radar. They’re expected to do good work and sacrifice needs that they may have so that they don’t take from the needs of The Victim. 

Lastly, The Mascot is the one who brings joy into the work place. The joy felt here is not authentic, it’s merely a distraction from tension and allows the team to pretend that everything is manageable. 

This paradigm is a helpful conceptualization of how we can fall into unhealthy patterns at work. This is a framework I use to make sense of the interactions on my team. Every single team will fall into this Dysfunctional trap at some point - the key is to be able to recognize the signs and tap into the willingness and bravery to challenge the anxiety at the core of the governance. 

So how is this done? Well, for me, I ask the question, “What am I so afraid is going to happen?” Usually the answer is that I’m going to lose something I think I want, but in the instances where I’ve pushed back against this anxiety and have actually lost something, I end up with a bigger gain: a team of people more values aligned, a deeper connection with a team member, or a stronger sense of trust in myself.

Adrienne Loker, LCSW is an EMDRIA Certified Therapist, EMDR Consultant in Training, and Somatic Experiencing Therapist. She owns and operates a trauma-sensitive therapy practice, Seeking Depth to Recovery, that specializes in the treatment of complex and non-verbal trauma, using experiential modalities in an intensive format. In as little as one 90-minute intensive therapy session, participants report marked insight into their anxiety, panic, depression, and trauma compared to their previous experience with traditional talk therapy.

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