Episode #71 

Emotional Manipulation

The choices we make in our relationships can shape our mental health and entire lifecourse.

But emotional manipulation can be hard to detect.

How can you recognize an emotional manipulator?

How can you respond in a healthy way and create boundaries that protect and respect yourself?

In this episode, Dr Julie Osborn examines emotional manipulation in closer detail, how you can recognize it in yourself and others, and how you can protect yourself using your CBT tools.

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi. My name is Dr. Julie Osborn. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy.

My podcasts are here to help you learn CBT tools and bring it more into your life so you've can have a happier life and be able to feel more confident when dealing with stressors in your life.

So I'm glad you're here with me today.

I wanted to share a message I got on my Instagram account from Stephanie. She said,

“I just wanted to say thank you, Doctor Osborn. I hope to share my story with you sometime soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to tell you what a God send you are, and I'm so grateful for your gift you share with us.”

So thank you very much. If you want to find me on Instagram and follow me, it's under My CBT Podcast. So I love hearing from all you guys, and again, reaching out and sending me emails and suggestions and how I've helped or how I can help has really made a big difference and keep them coming.

So today I want to talk about emotional manipulation. I know in the past I've talked more specifically, sometimes of passive aggressive and abusive relationships.

This one is a little more broad, but I thought it was really good to address a lot of different issues and see where this is something you're doing, something you're being exposed to and how you can make better decisions by using the CBT tools that I talked to you guys about. So there's a Chinese proverb that says, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice. Shame on me. So that's just the thing that we really need to look at our relationships and our own behaviors and what's going on.

People will possibly treat you badly and you don't see it coming, right?

But then shame on you when it happens twice, meaning that you're putting up with bad behavior, you're sending the message that it's okay that you treat me poorly. I've said this before. I'm sure that people show us who they are pretty quick and we choose to see it or not. So if you're struggling with certain relationships or even issues, maybe at a job, this is time to sit back and really look at who's in my life. Are they bringing me joy?

Are they bringing me good energy or is it negative and bad energy? And maybe I need to move on because all of us have been manipulated by other people, and it's likely that we've done a bit of manipulation ourselves. Telling a white lie in order to get what we want is one way of manipulating someone, right? Students are notorious for telling teachers that they couldn't get the paper on time because the computer crashed last night. Employees claim to have a car problem in order to miss day of work.

Politicians inflate a problem to make misleading statements in order to gain public support for their agendas. These are just a few examples, right? So sometimes again, it's just a white lie. It doesn't seem like a big deal. It's not really hurting someone else, but it is a way of manipulating to get our needs met.

And when we manipulate other people, we deprive them of their own integrity and their ability to make decisions based on their own accurate reading of reality because we're not being honest with them. And when we tell a lie, we also provide an alternative reality to the other person, and they make decisions that may be to our advantage, but it may not be a decision that they would make if they knew all the facts. Manipulation shows disrespect for other people, and ultimately we are disrespecting ourselves and compromising our own integrity.

When we manipulate others, we can also give others the illusion of control. But it's hardly a feeling of control that we can be proud of, even if nobody ever finds out about it.

We know that we got ahead from taking from another person. I win and you lose, and that makes me feel good. Not really. We pride ourselves with the knowledge that our accomplishments in life are based on our own resourcefulness instead of our integrity and our own character. I believe that most of us want to trust and assume the best in other people, and we believe that when someone tells us something, the other person is telling the truth.

When we've been repeatedly hurt because others have taken advantage of your trust, you may change your beliefs about the world, and that's really sad because then you've become cynical and try to undermine others before we are hurt again. Right. So now you're on the defense, and the best strategy is probably a trust until someone shows us that they can't be trusted. Hopefully, then we can learn how to recognize emotional manipulation when it appears so just to share a quote from Anne Frank, she said, I keep my ideals because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart, which shows a lot about how she was and how she dealt with the horrors in her life.

Right.

And we want to believe that people are really good at heart, but sometimes people aren't, and we need to figure that out and not have them in our lives. Or if we're the ones that are just manipulating others, we need to ask ourselves, am I willing to make changes, even though maybe that's scary, but I want to be more honest and authentic, so I can have those kind of relationships. So I want to talk to you about how do I even recognize emotional manipulation? Right. Sometimes it's really hard.

A lot of times we don't recognize it when it occurs, mainly because manipulation, fire lights are basic assumptions about how people should behave. We just don't expect it. We're not just looking for people to manipulate us all over the place. And manipulators engage in what we call covert aggression, so they hide their anger towards the world in subtle ways and gain power over us in ways that are not obvious. So we make sense, however, that we're on the defensive in their presence, and this serves as their first clue.

We feel somehow that they're trying to overpower us. So you want to listen to yourself, right? You know yourself well, if you're feeling uncomfortable, don't just shrug that off. Manipulators come across as caring. It can also be hurting.

They can be defending and vulnerable, almost anything but fighting. And these tactics obscure the real motives. So you might pay attention to your need to take care of them. Right? But you don't recognize that they're trying to take advantage of you.

So if you don't quote, I care so much about you, and now I've twisted my ankle. Can't you give up your afternoon to drive me around? That might be something, and maybe you can. But maybe you can't. Right to be manipulative.

All of us have weaknesses or insecurities, and sometimes we're aware of them, but we don't expect that someone will take advantage of our vulnerabilities. We're hoping that the person will be loving and supportive. We sometimes have the need to please others so that we'll be accepted. And this trade can be spotted easily by an emotional manipulator. They sometimes know our vulnerable areas better than we do, and they can exploit them to their advantage, which is, I know, sad, but this stuff happens.

Be aware of the degree to which you have empathy towards others and how you might hate to make harsh judgments about other people. If you're overly trusting, you're vulnerable to being manipulated. So, as I said earlier, sometimes it's a good strategy maybe to trust someone until something happens, but not over trusting, right? Where you're kind of blind or having rose colored glasses on meaning you're not really seeing the truth or you don't want to. The healthy stance is to learn how to recognize manipulation readily and you cannot be manipulated.

If you're aware that it's happening right at the moment it happens. So take a look. I'm going to share some common examples for you to look at and how manipulators work, and maybe you'll be like, oh, my God, this is going on with this person, and I wasn't even thinking about that. So the first one is emotional manipulators. Turn your statements around and make you the problem.

So try to be honest with the manipulator, opens up your vulnerability and he or she is an expert at playing the game of blaming the victim. So, for example, if you say I really wish you taking a dish to the padlock, I feel embarrassed that you didn't the manipulator might respond with, well, I wish you could understand the pain I'm suffering right now and have been for so much time. But then I guess your life is just so happy and that you can't really feel empathy for someone else.

So sorry. Something like that, it turns blame, and then they're the victim and you're just kind of sharing what your needs are instead of them saying, oh, I'm sorry.

You feel embarrassed. Maybe next time I'll do that for you. Now it's all about them. Another thing is a manipulator will say one thing and later assure you that they didn't say it. That's a little bit like gaslighting, right.

Which I have a podcast on. So might say, I'll pay for half the groceries this time. And then later the manipulator comes back with I never said any such thing. This is just crazy. Make it experience because your sense of reality is challenged.

The manipulator offers such a convincing argument that they never promised to pay for hefty groceries that you begin to doubt your insanity. Right. And again, that's what gasoline is all about. Another thing or another example. I'm sorry is the manipulator will offer to help you.

But then the torrent of sigh begin. Yes, I'll take out the garbage. You feel that you're the one to blame. And if you're trying to control the manipulator again, you're considered the problem. Another example is the manipulating person will set a negative emotional tone in a group, and others feel compelled to make the manipulator feel better just to ease attention.

So, for example, John, if Kara can't drive you to the dentist tomorrow, I'll do it here. Have a cup of coffee. Now, do you feel better? Notice how you tend to enable the manipulator rewarding him or her for the controlling behavior. Right.

So if they're complaining that if Tara can't drive to the dentist, you step in kind of takes the pressure off. So if you feel this need that it's like, oh, this is uncomfortable and uncomfortable. I need to calm them down. I don't want them to get upset. You're getting manipulated.

If it's really not coming from a good place, if it's coming from a place of wanting things just to be okay. And also, manipulators do not fight fairly, so they might talk behind your back. They may encourage others to confront you, and then they come in to save the day, placing the blame on the other person. Manipulators don't deal with issues directly. They use the passive aggressive tactics that I've talked about before so that you don't realize that they're actually being aggressive towards you.

They might say, oh, I love the hair color you have. It does a nice job of hiding the Gray. You respond graciously to the compliment, but then left with the lingering feeling that something's not quite right. So again, that's what we need to start listening to ourselves. They also negate what you say by outdoing you.

So if you want to talk about what a rough day you've had, they'll come back with an account of their exceedingly brutal day, which makes your experience look like a day in the park. Well, if you think that's bad, listen to what I've been through today, they bring attention back to themselves so that you find it difficult to feel any degree of validation. And this is how emotional manipulators distance themselves from you and gain the upper hand. They lack the ability to relate to others with healthy boundaries and maturity.

They also emotionally manipulate in an expert level that playing on your emotions.

So if they sense that you responding as lady guilt, then they will try to make you feel guilty. So, for example, I feel embarrassed for you when you play with Dora's kids as if they're your own. And it's all because you've never had children really hurtful. Right? Manipulators also plan our sympathy by playing the role of the victim.

All I do is work, work. You'll be sorry when I have a heart attack or they might blame you for your anger even though they've induced it. Look, you're the one who can't control your emotions, not me. So emotional manipulators have difficulty in expressing their desires or emotions directly. But by playing on the emotions of other people, they covertly still get their way and you don't feel good.

Nothing gets resolved. And people that are manipulated if you're with someone like that with some of the comments, I just shared that there's a good chance you're just kind of shut down and not be happy and not honor yourself because you just don't want to hear these nasty comments. Also, manipulators project blame onto other people or circumstances because they fail to take the responsible path of believing that they are accountable for their own lives. Their focus is on what others have done to them and they are forever the victim.

My father was the first one to treat me badly, just as every man has done since as an example.

And remember what I always say, blamers don't change because it's not their fault, right. So when people are always blaming someone else, you made me feel this way. I'm reacting because you said this. If you didn't do this, this wouldn't have happened. Why are they going to change?

Because it's always your fault or someone else's fault. So you want to notice that of course, sometimes others are to blame. I'm not generalizing. But if we know people right, that just blame, blame, blame, and then they don't have to change. So these are lots of different examples, I'm sure, but there are lots of different ways you can be manipulated.

And I'm hoping that if that's going on in your life, whatever I'm sharing might maybe be a little AHA moment for you and be like, wow, I didn't really think about that. I just always felt bad for that person who just thought I was helping out. So let's talk about how do you deal with the emotional manipulator, right? That's where a cognitive behavioral therapy is going to come in and help us change things. So because manipulators work in covert ways, it's again sometimes difficult to know that you're being manipulated.

So hopefully what we've talked about maybe give you a little more insight. But then your frustration with this person grows over time, and you know that something must be wrong with the relationship. So that's a little red flag to think about. You also may feel pulled toward the manipulator, but then repulsed by this person at the same time. So these relationships are generally conflict ridden right back and forth, back and forth.

You might also find yourself in a double bind. That is, if you go along with the manipulation, you feel angry, and if you drop the relationship, you feel guilty. It may seem that you can't win, but there is a way out of the bind for sure. So let's talk about the first one is to be aware of your own emotions and your thoughts within the relationship. So let's remember that your thoughts are creating your emotions, right?

Emotions, moods, feelings all the same thing that we don't have feelings, emotions just on their own. Our thoughts are behind them. So your emotions can be your best tool for start sensing that there's a problem between you and the other person, because most of us are remember more aware of our emotions and our thoughts. And you want to be aware that it's like, okay, if I'm not having a good emotion, if I'm having some negative feelings, that's when I need it, that's the CBT. Say, what am I thinking about that's making me feel bad.

And then you can examine whether your feelings may be defensive, guilty, angry, or sympathy towards the other person. You may not have these feelings during the interaction, but afterwards, when you're thinking now right about what happens between the two of you, the emotions might emerge and then you can start seeing, okay, what are my thoughts? Which ones are facts, which ones are hot? And if I need to balance the outside, but also remember, it's cognitive behavior role therapy. So maybe I need to change my behavior.

I need to also look at my environment. That's part of the CBD. It's a big deal. This is somebody I want in my life or I need to sit down and talk to them, or I need to handle things differently. So remember, most likely most of us are going to be aware of how we feel first, but that allows us to stop and say, what am I thinking?

Because then when you define the emotion and understand the pattern and become aware of what your thoughts are, that when you do think about what happens between you and the manipulator, you can describe the emotions that you do feel and put them into words. And what specifically was said that lets you to a certain feeling. How did you respond at the time? What was the effect of the response? It may help at this point to maybe get some therapy if you really feel you're struggling and maybe this person is really important to you so that you can learn the CBT and know what kind of questions to ask yourself as well.

Right. So now that I'm having all these feelings, like, what am I thinking about? What are the patterns of this behavior with this person? How are they in my life? How do they affect me?

How can I talk to them by sharing what I'm thinking and seeing if they will make a difference? I know I have other podcasts you can listen to about communication because all our emotions help us be aware that things are going on in our lives. We have to identify what we're thinking, right. And I really believe that you're going to have the best communication when you share what you're thinking and even start off saying this might be a hot thought, which is a thought that's not 100% true if you don't have the same language with the person you're talking to and that makes me feel hurt and frustrated and scared.

But when you share your thoughts, people don't get as defensive as you make me feel angry because that's where the blame comes in.

Right. So that people are defending themselves by why I don't make you angry. That's your fault. It's not my fault that you feel that way. So when you can figure out what am I thinking that's making me upset and express that you're going to have a lot more success.

Also, when you have a good understanding of the pattern of the interaction between you and the manipulator, you want to ask yourself whether you want to continue with the relationship or not, right. Sometimes we find ourselves in toxic relationships. If we aren't getting anything positive from the relationship, it might be in our best interest to terminated or else place good boundaries around it like limiting our time with the other person or the boundary is also just sharing what you're thinking and how much time you want to spend together.

And also a strong boundary might just be if things don't change. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay in this relationship or if I can stay in or if I choose to stay in the relationships.

So how can you start taking control of the manipulation? You can do that whenever a manipulation attempt occurs right at that moment pointed out to the person, there's no need to express anger. When you give the manipulator the feedback, just be assertive and become the manipulator at this point might come back with a guilt trip or an angry response. So you could say something like, I feel that you're trying to manipulate me at this point and I'm not going to go along with it. I'd like to have a healthy interaction between us.

So could you try to say what you need in a more positive and direct way? So remember this is going to really throw the manipulator off course, and there's a good chance they may come back in a blaming way, but you're starting to at least address it, make them accountable and have some boundaries for yourself that you see what's going on and you're not okay with that. So you can hear my example. You didn't share how you really felt. You said, this is what I need from you.

Can you say this in a different way? So that's one good example using the CBT is now that I know what I'm thinking, I know what I need to do. And how am I going to set a boundary with this person? A lot of people said, Why do people even manipulate others? Right.

So one reason is they have a strong need to be in control. So this could derive from underlying feelings of insecurity on their part, although they often compensate for these feelings with a show of strong confidence, self confidence. But they don't really have that. And even though they may deny it, their motives are self serving and they pursue their aims regardless of the cost of other people. The manipulators of astronomy to feel superior and powerful in the relationships.

And they find people who validate these feelings by going along with their attempts at manipulation. They see power is finite, and if you exert power over them, they'll retaliate in order to gain back the control they feel they're losing. So they cannot understand the idea that everyone can feel empowered, but everyone can gain. And when they're not in control of themselves or over other people, they feel threatened, and they have difficulty in showing vulnerable emotions because it might suggest that they're not in control and they're afraid of maybe getting hurt as well.

Right.

So obviously there's a lot of past issues going on with people that manipulate. That is the behavior. Right. So I don't know, maybe their thought is like if I am vulnerable, I will get taken advantage of I need to manipulate so I can keep control in my life because I'm so afraid to not have control or be out of control. So those would be their thoughts that they probably don't even know.

They have necessarily that makes them feel scared. And then their behavior is manipulating and trying to always be in control. So there's most of the CBT, your thoughts which create your feelings which affect your behavior, and then whatever their physical correction is, and then their environment would be being around people that they know that they can manipulate because people know who they can manipulate, because if someone is trying to manipulate you and right away you address it. They just know I can't go there with that person, and they probably will move on.

Also, those who are manipulative usually don't consciously again plan these maneuvers.

I think at first over time they may, but they emerge from the manipulator's underlying personality disorder, which might be part of the problem and are played out within the context of a victim who collusion with an unwittingly encourages the manipulation. Right. So there's a wide range of tactics used by manipulators, ranging from verbal threats to settle attempts to arrange situations to suit the manipulator. So, for example, I'll give you is one of the more common forms of manipulation is called splitting, so that's turning two people against each other by talking to each one behind the back of the other, getting them to dislike or distrust each other and then leaving the manipulator in a position of control.

So they may use active techniques like becoming angry, lying, intimidating, shouting, name calling, or other bullying tactics.

Or they may use more passive methods like pouting, sulking, ignoring you, playing the victim, or giving you the silent treatment. It all sounds ugly, right? And exhausting. So some manipulators can maybe be described in terms of having an antisocial personality. These people are sometimes called psychopaths or sociopaths.

Pretty serious stuff, but there's a personal disorder that is associated with criminal behavior. They feel little compassion for other people. They don't feel guilty when they do something harmful pathologically, they're liars, show superficial charm, tend to be impulsive and don't take responsibility for their own actions. So changing the ways can pose a challenge. Some people of the need to nurture others may feel that they can help someone who is antisocial and thinks that they can change their lives.

And this could be a really formidable task. But remember, it's not your job to go change people, so I want them to get help from professionals. It's not your job to change somebody. This is just one person. I disorder.

I also have a podcast on it if you want to hear about other ones, but that's a real serious one where the manipulation comes, but not everybody who manipulates is antisocial. Okay. I was just sharing an example, but a lot of times it's just this little again, this little manipulations with not telling the truth or saying, oh, I didn't do that. Or that wasn't my intention. That's another big one I didn't mention yet.

Right. Well, that wasn't my intention. And some people in your life just over and over just will state, oh, okay. Well, then if that wasn't their intention, I guess I can take their apology. And again, all of this is true.

Sometimes the manipulation is when it's over and over again. So we all say things that may hurt someone's feelings and say, oh, that wasn't my intention. But then we take responsibility, right? We're not blaming and we're saying we're sorry and we're going to be more mindful, maybe how we talk to people, how we express, or hopefully it takes time to say, okay, what am I thinking? That's making me feel uncomfortable or sad or hurt that I want to express to the person, not manipulating them, to feel sorry or do what I want right.

So that's the shift that I want you guys to see. That when I have a negative mood, I need to ask myself, what am I thinking that's making me feel this way? And I also need to listen to myself. And I also need to honor myself that maybe the person didn't mean to hurt me. So let's have a conversation.

But if they did mean to hurt me or manipulate me, and it's a pattern over and over again, at some point, I need to make a decision. And what kind of boundaries am I going to have in my life and using my CBT tools and using them to communicate with that person? And if you want to give it a try, hey, a lot of times that person might be open and realize I do need to start making changes, and sometimes they may not. And that's the control you have is decide who's going to be in your life and how you want your relationships to be.

So I think this could be really helpful, especially for those little nuances that we just don't really take time to figure out how we minimize or we just maybe they didn't mean that, right?

Oh, they're so nice. They do all these other things for me, but that doesn't matter. You can still address, even if you think they're a great person. But this really bugs me, and it can really hopefully enhance your relationship by being vulnerable and being authentic and honoring yourself will also attract people in your life that like that. You respect yourself and you honor yourself, and you have good boundaries because people will be attracted based mostly on how you are healthy or unhealthy.

So that's it for today. Again, I hope this was helpful for you.

If you have any questions again, anything you want to share with me, any ideas for a show, you can email me at MyCBTPodcast@gmail.com.

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