THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MANIPULATION - breaking free from the mind games others use to control your behavior, decisions, and emotions.

Psychological manipulation can be defined as the utilization of undue power (social, relational, familial, sexual, financial, professional, etc.) for the purpose of benefiting the manipulator at the expense of their victims.

Dr. Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:

1. Criticism

Criticizing your partner is different than offering a critique or voicing a complaint.  It is an attack on your partner at the core of their character. In effect, you are dismantling their whole being when you criticize.

2. Contempt

When we communicate in this state, we are truly mean—we treat others with disrespect, mock them with sarcasm, ridicule, call them names, and mimic or use body language such as eye-rolling or scoffing. The target of contempt is made to feel despised and worthless.

3. Defensiveness

This is typically a response to criticism. We’ve all been defensive, and this horseman is nearly omnipresent when relationships are on the rocks. When we feel unjustly accused, we fish for excuses and play the innocent victim so that our partner will back off.

4. Stonewalling

This is usually a response to contempt. Stonewalling occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction, shuts down, and simply stops responding to their partner. Rather than confronting the issues with their partner, people who stonewall can make evasive maneuvers such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy, or engaging in obsessive or distracting behaviors.

Most manipulative individuals have four common characteristics:

1. They know how to detect your weaknesses.
2. Once found, they use your weaknesses against you.
3. Through their shrewd machinations, they convince you to give up something of yourself in order to serve their self-centered interests.
4. In work, social, and family situations, once a manipulator succeeds in taking advantage of you, he or she will likely repeat the violation until you put a stop to the exploitation.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance  and other changes, including low self-esteem. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and misinformation, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's beliefs. Instances can range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents occurred, to belittling the victim's emotions and feelings, to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.

1.  Know Your Fundamental Human Rights*

 

The single most important guideline when you’re dealing with a psychologically manipulative person is to know your rights, and recognize when they’re being violated. As long as you do not harm others, you have the right to stand up for yourself and defend your rights. On the other hand, if you bring harm to others, you may forfeit these rights. Following are some of our fundamental human rights:

• You have the right to be treated with respect.
• You have the right to express your feelings, opinions and wants.
• You have the right to set your own priorities.
• You have the right to say “no” without feeling guilty.
• You have the right to get what you pay for.
• You have the right to have opinions different than others.
• You have the right to take care of and protect yourself from being threatened physically, mentally or emotionally.
• You have the right to create your own happy and healthy life.

These fundamental human rights represent your boundaries

 

If you are needing help and desire to set an appointment to meet and discuss whatever is going on in your life use the following link: (currently all sessions are done virtually)

https://miltonlifecoach.as.me/ 

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https://www.instagram.com/miltonlouisgonzalez/