One of the best ways to deal with a manipulator is to ignore and avoid contact with him. You need to make sure that this person does not appear in your life. If this is your husband, file for divorce. If he is a romantic partner, leave him. If this is a friend, break off the relationship. Perhaps it is a colleague, then avoid contact with him/her. Don’t worry or think that your actions will offend or hurt someone. Although it may seem strange, manipulative people do not feel resentment.
Reasons for manipulation
Manipulation arises from emotions and works through them. Not wanting to be vulnerable, not trusting others, trying not to face painful feelings, we often hide one thing after another: fear behind anger, pain behind indifference, resentment behind accusations, and so on. After all, the one who shows his emotions seems to become defenseless, only the lazy will not kick him, whoever wants can laugh at him. This is what the manipulator thinks. This is how they “taught” it at school, in the family, at the university, at the summer camp during the bullying of me, you, and that guy across the street.
The unfortunate fact is that we all manipulate sometimes. When a person says to a friend: “Great tattoo design!” - and he himself thinks: “What will you do with her at seventy years old?” — he hides his reaction so that he doesn’t have to enter into a conflict and get hit back: “What do you even understand about this?”
Daily manipulation is always a vicious circle: the more we hide, the more we have to hide. Contrary to the widespread condemnation rhetoric against manipulators today (always “them” and not “us”, no), they are not at all “enemies of a normal person” and certainly not “insensitive scoundrels.” American psychologist and psychotherapist, a student of Abraham Maslow, Everett Shostrom, in his work “The Manipulator,” writes that all manipulators “experience pain from within, pain from internal conflicts.” Manipulation so often arises precisely because of this pain or the desire to avoid it.
We manipulate because we don't trust others and want to control or use them, because we are trying to avoid unpleasant situations, structure time, and the like. When we do all this, we perceive people, even the closest and most important ones, as “things,” and as a result, we move away from them, destroy our relationships and, ultimately, ourselves. Such a life does not bring pleasure, it is automatic, robotic to the expected reactions and, ultimately, does not allow us to reveal the potential inherent in us, first of all, creative and human.
A little about psychological protection
When talking about resisting manipulation, we are talking about psychological defense, which refers to a person’s use of methods to weaken or eliminate the psychological damage inflicted on him by others.
One of the first and most ancient methods of defense as such can be considered flight, as well as hiding and freezing. Only after this can we talk about the desire to influence the aggressor, a counter attack and some tricks. These types of defenses can still be observed today in most animal species.
Similar methods are found in the history of relations between people, from prehistoric battles to modern wars. Here are the analogues with the already announced protection options we have:
- flight, as well as its weaker forms such as retreat or evasion;
- camouflage, allowing you to become invisible to the attacker;
- the use of natural and/or creation of artificial shelters and obstacles in the enemy’s path;
- active defense against attack by an attacker, i.e. counterattack;
- controlling the intentions and/or behavior of the aggressor, which includes all sorts of tricks and tricks.
Often, when defending against an attack, passive actions predominate. This can be explained by the fact that active actions are usually used when a threat comes from another living creature. Passive ones are relevant in cases with the elements and other factors of non-animal origin.
As a result, we have five basic forms of protection:
- escape;
- use of shelter;
- disguise;
- counterattack/attack;
- control.
At the same time, it can be noted that the combined use of active and passive protection is quite appropriate. Such a complex can form an independent defensive tactic. For example, when using attack and flight together, you can cleverly secure your personal boundaries: eliminate the attacker or remove yourself from him. It will depend on what result you want to achieve. And with the simultaneous use of cover and control, you can build barriers that will make it difficult for the attacker to attack, or remove existing obstacles to influence the attacker.
Despite this, the only thing that would seem to remain without a mate would be the disguise. But if we clarify that the purpose of masking is to stop the flow of data about oneself coming to the offender, then ignoring can become a couple. Ignoring blocks the flow of information about the attacker coming to us.
On the one hand, it may seem that acting in this way is not entirely logical. But this is not true if the information we perceive itself poses a threat. This may include some “prophecies” from the outside, curses, accusations, rumors, etc. Ignoring is also suitable for cases where no other forms of protection work, and you have to adapt to stress.
Now we have six behavior options, which are so-called pair connections. They can be used as a defensive base against manipulative influence from the outside. But before we talk more specifically about each of them, it will be useful to get a little practice. Watch this video where business consultant Igor Tkach talks about communicating with manipulators.
Common methods of manipulation
The manipulations are extremely varied. Conventionally, they can be divided into “bitter” and “sweet”.
The first are based on fear and pity. When a boss yells at his subordinates for no particular reason, he is using aggression and the fear it causes to force others to comply with his terms. When a person demands help over and over again, but nothing changes for the better, no matter how hard he tries, he uses helplessness and compassion to get other people’s time or material resources.
Common "sweet" manipulations are more difficult to recognize because they are often camouflaged with praise and promises. For example, a man can promise marriage to his mistress, who has already given birth to a child from him, and everything would be fine, but... he has been repeating this for five years. The child has long stood on his feet, and his dad still only goes to visit his mother, informing his legal wife in advance that he will be late for meetings.
How to recognize manipulation? After all, anger, complaints, promises and praise seem so sincere. Obviously, the disproportion of what is happening should be alarming: the boss screams every day; the poor friend needs help in everything, although there are some things he could handle on his own; The lover has been dragging his feet on the divorce for years. In fact, we usually know that something is wrong, but we often cannot say “no.”
Paradoxically, in order to learn how to do this, you yourself need to stop manipulating others.
Illustrative examples from life
Example:
A man comes to his boss asking him to let him go. He often uses the “white lie” technique so that his request is granted the first time. This may be the reason for an unscheduled trip to the doctor or the need to quickly pick up a sick child from kindergarten.
This approach increases the likelihood of a favorable outcome of the dialogue in favor of the questioner and does not raise other questions if we were talking about the need to go to a store for a sale.
Ideally, all people want to get what they want the first time, using one “magic” phrase that would instantly make a child stop crying, finish the porridge, or offend a friend in the sandbox.
In psychology, there is a term “manipulation”, which means an effective way to force an opponent to do what they want. It is often used by children in relation to their parents, because it allows them to get what they want with minimal effort and in the shortest possible time. For example:
A child wants his parent to let him go to a night disco. He begins to blackmail with refusal to eat, attend classes or sections. This psychological technique has a huge impact on maternal or paternal feelings, forcing them to agree to the conditions of their daughter or son.
Manipulation should be treated very carefully and used in relation to other people only in rare cases. Because this technique has a negative side that you should be aware of.
What to do if you are a manipulator?
Sjostrom writes in his book that every manipulator can become an “actualizer”—a person who lives freely, is aware of what is happening inside and around him, and “deeply believes that he and others can cope with life’s difficulties.” The key to this lifestyle seems simple and complex at the same time. This is honesty, or more precisely, the desire to honestly convey emotional messages and accept them from others.
For example, the incident with the tattoo. A person who does not want to manipulate will say: “Nice sketch! But are you sure it will look good when you’re seventy?” If his interlocutor also knows how to convey honest messages, he will answer, for example, like this: “I think I’ll become an old biker, so everything will be fine.”
Personal relationships
Love, family life, parent-child relationships are constantly being tested.
When getting married, it will be useful for a woman to learn how to resist a manipulator:
- Regularly ask yourself: are you happy in your marriage, are you being treated with respect, which is what I receive from my loved one.
- Avoid guilt. It will be easier for a manipulator to control his victim if she experiences remorse. The manipulator strives to make any problem yours and shift the burden of responsibility onto someone else’s shoulders.
- Take control of the situation into your own hands. Don’t rush to fulfill the requirements, take time to think. This way you will not allow yourself to be used in the interests of others.
It is very difficult to build a relationship with a manipulator. A person will always try to put pressure, to cheat, to shift his worries onto you. If this is your loved one, dear person, try to talk frankly about this topic. If words don't help, you'll have to learn to resist.
How does the actualizer live?
The actualizer, unlike the manipulator, does not fight the contradictions in himself, but accepts them: he is weak but strong, smart but stupid, warm-hearted but quick-tempered, and so on. This is normal for humans. We are all like that. And all of us, of course, are not saints: we swear, whine, get offended - in other words, we experience pain and let others understand what is happening.
It must be taken into account that honesty will not get rid of poking. On the contrary, it is associated with risk: after all, we will really have to show how we feel. However, actualization in many ways protects against pain in itself or allows you to experience it faster, without scars and protracted chronic processes, since the conflict loses its connection with self-affirmation, ceases to be a waking nightmare and magically turns into a way of growth and rapprochement.
Of course, it cannot be said that actualizers do not manipulate and do not become objects of manipulation. However, they are aware of it. “The actualizer does not try to change the manipulator in order to become a manipulator at this moment,” writes Sjostrom. — Taking on the responsibility to change another means only giving in to that person’s manipulations. You can describe it or introduce it to your own manipulations, but you should not take responsibility for changing it. The Actualizer realizes that each person must be responsible for himself.”
The actualizer always knows how to do what, being a manipulator, he could not: argue and sympathize, refuse and meet halfway, maintain relationships and be alone. Thanks to this, he is able to live in the present, instead of looking to the past, where someone is to blame for his failures, or to the future, where there are distant plans that are not destined to come true. This, ultimately, allows you not only not to waste your life, but to make it something worthwhile, meaningful and enjoyable. For a long time. This seems to be what we all want, one way or another.
