Why do people working toward similar sustainability goals sometimes end up caught in cycles of blame, helplessness, or over-responsibility?

Thomas Bruhn and Man Fang explore this question in their new open-access article, Beyond the Sustainability Drama. Drawing on the psychological idea of the Drama Triangle, they examine how people can move between the roles of victim, persecutor, and rescuer when sustainability work becomes politically, emotionally, or institutionally difficult.

Their alternative is what they call Transformative Response-Ability: the capacity to remain connected and capable of responding even when there is conflict, uncertainty, unequal power, or no obvious solution.

For people facilitating transdisciplinary or collaborative transformation processes, the article offers a useful reminder that how participants relate to one another may be just as consequential as the problem they are trying to solve.