1.- What is a manipulation?
Manipulation is the control that
an individual or group of individuals trying to take control of the
feelings of another person or group of people, using techniques of
persuasion or eliminate the critical capabilities of a person, his
ability to judge.
Extreme
forms of manipulation would be, for example, brainwashing or those
which lead to suicide.
2.- The
profile of the manipulator
The
manipulator is sure that everything should be like him and
think other people should help him to do this. The word
"should" is the center of any manipulation.
These
rules prevent the manipulator take the place of the other person. To
achieve its objectives, the manipulator will implement various
strategies, one of which is the critical, threat (amenaza) and
guilt (culpa).
3.- The
manipulated
The
person who is a victim of manipulation always do something to defend
it or deflect criticism, this will be an incentive for the
manipulator proceed.
In
many cases to avoid being criticized or threatened, manipulated
person will do what the manipulator asks just to eliminate criticism
and feeds the other's actions and helps keep your attitude. In other
words, if the manipulator gets what he wants with a series of
strategies, it is clear that repeated in the future, because it will
have been useful to achieve its objectives.
4.- How to detect if you are being manipulated by someone else?
1.-The
best thing to detect it is stopping to think what they are feeling in
the presence of the other, if you feel guilt (culpa), fear
(miedo), insecurity, disgust (asco), shame (vergüenza),
probably we are being manipulated.
2.-Another
way to tell is asking if what you are doing at that moment is what
you wanted to do, if this is not true is that these jumping your
principles and values by someone, that someone who is detected and
that will have your
manipulator.
Emotional blackmail (chantaje emocional) can take different forms. The key is to provoke a mixture of fear, obligation and guilt.
Emotional blackmail:
Punishment: For example: "If you do not come with me today, you do not expect that tomorrow I will go with you".
The self-punishment: "If you don't love me, life doesn't make sense to me, so I leave me".
The promises: "If you keep me, I promise I'll change and we will be happy."
Become the victim: "If you not come to see me, I'll alone all the day."
Give to receive: "Because I helped you I deserve (merecer) something in return."
5.- Escape from the trap
If someone sends you a trap like: "You don't have to come. you have a lot of work and, overall, I always alone. "
One way to remove the manipulative traps is to make them explicit, verbalize what is expressed indirectly. If we do as accusation, saying for example: "What you really want is that I go with you and for that you make me feel guilty", it is easy to disprove by the other side or answer there as a greater indictment.
We must learn to properly to clarify misunderstandings (malentendido) or confusing situations.
Manipulations cease to have power over us if we recognize ourselves what we are, and the other person express how he/she feels.
You can say, for example: "I am divided. On the one hand you tell me not to come, but then I get the impression that if I do not do this, this bother you (te fastidiará). Tell me what you really want and I'll see what I can do. "