Emotional manipulation – What are the signs?

Emotional manipulation occurs when a manipulative person seeks power over someone else and employs dishonest or exploitive strategies to gain it. Unlike people in healthy relationships, which demonstrate reciprocity and cooperation, an emotional manipulator looks to use, control, or even victimize someone else.

Emotional manipulation can have many different contexts and styles. Here now are eight classic strategies that emotionally manipulative people usually use:

1. Passive Aggression

In passive aggression, the manipulator doesn’t voice negative feelings or problems with the other person. Instead, they find indirect ways to express their anger and undermine the other person.
Emotional manipulators will often agree to a project or action, and then start looking for passive-aggressive ways to let the other person know they don’t really want to be doing it. Specific passive-aggressive techniques employed by emotional manipulators include:
l Cynicism
l Intentional mistakes and procrastination
l Complaints about being underappreciated or somehow cheated out of something
l Resentment and covert opposition

2. Social and Emotional Bullying
Bullies don’t always use physical violence. Constant criticism, raised voices, and threats are forms of emotional bullying. Social bullying can take the form of rumour spreading or deliberate exclusion.
Bullying can also take the forms of intellectual and bureaucratic bullying. In intellectual bullying, someone tries to claim the role of subject matter expert, making another person feel inadequate and dependent on them for information. Bureaucratic bullying is the use of red tape — laws, procedures, or paperwork — to either overwhelm someone or subvert their goals.

3. Distortion
Another strategy used by emotionally manipulative people is the distortion of facts, relative importance, or other information needed to accurately assess a situation.
In some cases, the manipulator will simply lie or pretend ignorance about a matter. A more subtle form of distortion is ‘Gaslighting’, a tactic in which a manipulator instils self-doubt in someone else, making them question their own rights, motivations, or abilities. Gaslighting is a frequent problem in the workplace and romantic relationships when a partner is possibly unfaithful.

4. Guilt and Sympathy
Many people are highly susceptible to guilt and will even go so far as to punish themselves in response to perceived sins.
Emotionally manipulative people prey on this vulnerability. They are apt to play the victim or remind you of past favours, instilling a sense of obligation or sympathy that makes them more likely to get what they want.

5. Withdrawal
The easiest example of this kind of emotional manipulation is the silent treatment, when someone punishes you by ignoring you.
However, there are more insidious forms of withdrawal as well. When someone from whom you expect a certain affirmation or intimacy deliberately withholds it, which creates a power imbalance and can make you crave the return to approval or closeness.

6. Comparison
Sometimes a manipulative person will draw a comparison between you and someone else in order to goad you. They may use a specific person to make you feel insecure or try to establish a sense that “everyone else” is doing whatever they want you to do.
They may even recruit others to pressure you into a certain emotion or action.

7. Manipulation of Circumstance
This strategy is common in business negotiations. It may be as simple as someone insisting you meet them in their home or office, where they feel most powerful. Or they may create a constraint, such as a deadline, in a way designed to pressure you into an ill-considered decision.

8. Overwhelming and Unearned Closeness
An emotional manipulator may try to bind you to them through manufactured vulnerability or an artificially accelerated relationship. Showering a new acquaintance with praise and affection, also called “love-bombing,” is a common tactic of emotional manipulation often seen in cults.

Dealing with Emotional Manipulation:

Emotional manipulation from a family member, co-worker, or trusted friend can have major consequences for your quality of life. If you experience regular and distressing emotional manipulation from another person, your relationship with that person may be abusive.

It is very difficult for abusers to stop abusive behaviour, and most forms of therapy available to abusive people, including anger management therapy, have not been shown to have a significant impact on ending their abusive behaviours. The only reliable way to stop being abused by someone is to leave the situation and end the relationship.

If you face occasional emotional manipulation at work or at home and cannot leave the situation, the following actions may help to counter emotionally manipulative tactics in the moment:

• Avoid people who engage in love-bombing.
• Assert yourself and your boundaries out loud, even if it feels rude to do so.
• Speak to others about the emotional manipulation and get their validation.
• Take your time instead of being rushed into decisions you may regret.

  Once you have identified the manipulation, try not to convince yourself otherwise. The writing on the wall or the red flag is usually right. You therefore owe it to yourself to prioritize your mental stability and peace.