Manipulation—Read All About It!

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Human

Manipulation is a way to covertly influence someone with indirect, deceptive, or abusive tactics. Manipulation may seem benign or even friendly or flattering, as if the person has your highest concern in mind, but in reality it’s to achieve an ulterior motive.

Favorite weapons of manipulators are: guilt, complaining, comparing, lying, denying (including excuses and rationalizations), feigning ignorance, or innocence (the “Who me?” defense), blame, bribery, undermining, mind games, assumptions, “foot-in-the-door,” reversals, emotional blackmail, evasiveness, forgetting, fake concern, sympathy, apologies, flattery, and gifts and favors.

Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT
How to Spot Manipulation, whatiscodependency.com

eBook (PDF) 287 pages
Price: $3.89
Unlike people who are trying to influence others, manipulators work with unfair means to get what they want. They do not respect the personal rights of their victims. They work with hidden agendas and deliberately use dishonest tricks like faulty reasoning, coercion, blackmail, and lying as they attempt to assert control. Manipulation is about suiting the manipulator’s advantage or purpose only, often at the expense of others.

It’s often difficult to recognize manipulation. After all, would we allow ourselves to be manipulated if we are aware that it is happening? This book explains the tricks manipulators use and teaches you how to best defend and protect yourself.

Manipulation: Handbook of Social and Psychological Manipulation

By Dean Amory
Available in PDF Format

People who suffer from low self-esteem are at risk of getting stuck in relationships where they’re being controlled; becoming the unwitting targets of individuals with personality disorders that propel them to behave in a manipulative way.

Manipulation: How to Recognize and Outwit Emotional Manipulation and Mind Control in Your Relationships
By Sarah Nielsen

Being manipulated is a highly stressful experience. It is unpleasant, demeaning, and disturbing.

Every time you comply, capitulate, cave in, or otherwise satisfy your manipulator’s wishes and purposes, you reinforce the toxic cycle that is compromising your self-esteem, co-opting your values, and corroding your emotional wiring.

This book was written for people who are targeted, exploited, and controlled by manipulators.

Who’s Pulling Your Strings? How to Break the Cycle of Manipulation and Regain Control of Your Life
by Harriet Braiker Screenshot 2015-06-14 16.38.56 115 customer reviews
See also the author’s website: DiseaseToPlease.com

Dealing with Manipulative People

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Human

Dr. George Simon, author of In Sheep’s Clothing—Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People

“A manipulative person … is a covertly aggressive personality.”

“You ask a manipulator a direct question, you rarely get a direct answer.”

See more on Dr. George Simon and related blog posts:

Why is it so hard to hold abusive people accountable for their actions?

Aside

Abusers regularly deny the abuse ever took place, rationalize their abusive behaviors, or use tactics to cover themselves—and each other.

Sociopaths are skilled deniers. Where the rest of us would stutter or blush, they can lie with a convincing confidence. They pose as authorities and, to discourage questions, they act “offended” if their audience shows doubt. An arrogant manner indicates a lifetime of “successful” manipulative control tactics and contempt for other people, who they regard as inferior.