Psychologists say the root cause of manipulative behavior can often be toxic cycles of violence, narcissism, or unhealthy relationships in the manipulator's own childhood. Manipulation can happen in any relational context, Balestrieri says, including family, friends, professional, romantic, or sexual relationships.
It can damage trust, cause resentment, and affect your mental health and well-being. Overall, Arganda-Stevens indicates it can create a lack of emotional safety. “Emotional manipulation in relationships can create stress, resentment, and fear around being manipulated,” she says.
Using manipulation for positive change
Positive manipulation is also used by non-profit organisations and ethical companies to persuade people to act, thereby helping others in need and promoting positive change in the world.
Emotional manipulation is one type of emotional abuse where the perpetrator seeks to emotionally control or influence the victim in a way that gives them an advantage. Emotional manipulation commonly takes place in abusive relationships or toxic relationships.
Love bombing, or rushing into a relationship too quickly, often with grand gestures and signs of emotional manipulation can be a big red flag because it often “means they feel like they're filling a hole in their life…they're grabbing on to you because you're the answer to everything,” Reed explains.
There are many ways someone with narcissistic traits may try to manipulate a person. This manipulation is often done to get something that they want from a relationship, to make themselves look good, or to fulfill their narcissistic supply. This can include emotional abuse, gaslighting, and many others.
Gaslighting is emotional manipulation that leaves its victims confused and despondent as they question their sanity. This article will shed light on the gaslighting phenomenon, its consequences, and what to do about it.
Emotional abuse can lead to C-PTSD, a type of PTSD that involves ongoing trauma. C-PTSD shows many of the same symptoms as PTSD, although its symptoms and causes can differ. Treatment should be tailored to the situation to address the ongoing trauma the person experienced from emotional abuse.
Chronic manipulation in close relationships may also be a sign emotional abuse is taking place, which in some cases, can have a similar effect to trauma—particularly when the victim of manipulation is made to feel guilty or ashamed. Victims of chronic manipulation may: Feel depressed. Develop anxiety.
People who have a submissive or dependent personality. The more emotionally dependent a person is, the more vulnerable they are to being exploited and manipulated.
Why do manipulators manipulate? Chronic manipulation is often used as a survival mechanism to cope with a challenging or competitive environment, especially when one lacks relative power and control. Pathological manipulation may also be the result of family, social, societal, or professional conditioning.
It can usually be difficult for a person to know if they're being manipulated. Even some manipulators are sometimes not aware of their actions, so it can be really confusing to figure out when someone is a victim of manipulation. Manipulators often use fraudulent ways of gaining power over someone's emotions.
They have no ability to love, empathy, guilt, remorse, or conscience. To them, life is merely a game of taking power and control and getting what they want. They see vulnerability as a weakness and staying invulnerable is a great way to hide who they really are.
Manipulation: using others for one's own advantage is a self defense mechanism. Manipulating others to try and get people to do what is desired for personal gain usually backfires eventually. Projecting: accusing someone else of thoughts and behaviors that are desired to be hidden can be a defense mechanism.
Emotional manipulators will often agree to a project or action, then seek passive-aggressive ways to let the other person know they don't really want to be doing it. They may use specific passive-aggressive techniques such as: Sullenness or cynicism. Intentional mistakes and procrastination.
Emotional abuse targets a person's feelings, it uses emotions to manipulate, punish, and achieve control. Rather than personal sentiments, mental abuse focuses on questioning and influencing a person's way of thinking and views on reality. Psychological abuse can cause a person to question their environment.
Frequent crying, anxiety, confusion, guilt, and shame are just some of the feelings commonly felt by those who've been emotionally abused. And if left untreated, PTSD can also trigger the patient to develop other mental health issues, such as anxiety disorder, depression, etc.
Emotional manipulation: Some leaders may use empathy to manipulate the emotions of others in order to gain their support or compliance. For example, a leader might use emotional appeals or manipulate the feelings of others in order to get them to do something that they want.
Being a perpetrator of gaslighting is treated seriously by authorities and may soon be considered a crime in parts of Australia. Gaslighting is an aspect of coercive control, which is set to be outlawed in NSW and QLD, with other states likely to follow suit.