Recognising and Overcoming Emotional Manipulation

Whether in personal relationships, business interactions, or everyday encounters, many of us have fallen prey to emotional manipulation tactics without realising it until after the fact. In my recent Mindful Poetic Stories Podcast I share my thoughts around emotional manipulation you can listen here.

Emotional manipulation is a form of psychological control where someone uses subtle, deceptive tactics to influence another person’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviours. In psychology, it’s defined as subterfuge designed to influence or control another, usually in an underhanded manner that facilitates the manipulator’s personal aims. The victim of emotional manipulation can be left with low self-esteem and feeling very confused.

Various tactics an Emotional Manipulator will subtly employ:
• Lying and making excuses
• Selectively sharing facts while withholding truths
• Exaggerating and generalising situations
• Using emotional stories rather than facts to persuade
• Amplifying your insecurities to serve their own interests
• Foster a sense of dependency making you rely on them
• Discredit you, directly, or to others
• Threats of negative consequences to enforce compliance

As American economist Thomas Sowell aptly put it, “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” This insight captures the essence of emotional manipulation.

Emotional manipulators are experts at identifying vulnerability. They particularly prey on empaths and those in vulnerable emotional states. I believe it’s important to understand that having high academic or intellectual intelligence doesn’t necessarily protect us from these psychological tactics. I believe what protects us better is building emotional awareness and intelligence.

In my podcast I share the real-world examples of:
• Paul Frampton, a highly intelligent academic physicist, fell victim to an online romance scam that led to his imprisonment for drug smuggling.
• Respected broadcaster Moira Stuart who almost lost a lot of money to scammers who called her claiming to be from her bank, asking her to move money. She was in the process of moving her money when a bank clerk luckily stopped her. Moira admitted that she never believed she would ever fall prey to such scams as she believed she was so aware of them.

These stories demonstrate that anyone can become vulnerable to manipulation under the right circumstances, especially when disconnected from our “unseen selves” and inner vulnerabilities.

Red Flags of Emotional Manipulation
Recognising these warning signs can help you identify potential manipulation:
1. Pressure tactics: Creating artificial urgency or anxiety around decisions
2. Excessive emotional appeals: Using heartfelt stories, tears, and promises to bypass rational thinking
3. Guarantees that seem too good to be true: Offering money-back guarantees with impossible conditions
5. Blame-shifting: Avoiding accountability by instantly placing blame on you
6. Gaslighting: Making you question your perception of events and doubt yourself
7. Emotional coercion: Using aggressive tactics, criticism, threats, or lying to control your behaviour

A Personal Experience, in my podcast episode I share my personal experience of a time when I believe I was sold an expensive business mentorship program with these tactics of emotional manipulation. Despite my initial reservations and some anxiety around the sign-up process, I went ahead as, in the end, I was drawn in by the emotional selling techniques.

Later, when I expressed my dissatisfaction with the programme I was paying a huge amount of money for, their true colours were revealed immediately through arrogant, blame-shifting responses. Their lack of support and their behaviour at that time was completely misaligned with the heartfelt way they had sold the programme to me in the first place.

However, I will say that it wasn’t the content of their programme that was the issue. It was their “authoritarian” attitude, which is not something I admire in a coach or a mentor. As I explain in the podcast from my studies and my coaching experience I appreciate and admire Carl Rodgers’ “egalitarian” approach to all therapies and in all the personal growth and development industries.

Carl Rogers had a person–centred approach and in the 1950’s he popularised the phrase unconditional positive regard; which promoted supporting someone without judgement regardless of what they divulge to you, the attitude of complete unconditional compassion. That was not what I was experiencing on this programme, it was a challenging situtation but eventually I got out.

The Three Elements of Manipulation to Remember

1. Blame shifting: The manipulator avoids taking accountability
2. Gaslighting: Makes you question your account of an incident
3. Emotional abuse: Includes coercion, criticism, threats, and lying

Building Protection Through Mental Fitness;
Mental fitness is where we learn to face our challenges in life with a positive rather than negative mindset. It is based on positive intelligence with emotional regulation. I believe it provides powerful protection against manipulation. This approach helps you:

1. Develop self-awareness: Understand your emotions, vulnerabilities, and triggers
2. Access your inner wisdom: Connect with your “Sage within”, your intuitive, wise self,
3. Own your Personal Power; trusting gut instinct and confidence in decision making
4. Balance analytical and emotional thinking: Use both your rational mind and intuitive heart
5. Build resilience: Bounce back faster from negative experiences
6. Practice self-compassion: Replace self-judgment with discernment and understanding

Keeping these profound words is helpful; “When you become master of your mind, you are master of everything,” and conversely, “If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.”

Finding the Gift in Difficult Experiences;
A key aspect of mental fitness is the ability to find gifts and opportunities in challenges. Even in painful experiences, there can be valuable lessons:
• Greater understanding of yourself and your vulnerabilities
• Increased emotional intelligence
• New relationships with supportive people
• Deeper wisdom about human nature

As actor Michael Caine advises in his autobiography “Blowing the Bloody Doors Off”, “Use the difficulty”: find ways to transform challenging experiences into opportunities for growth.

Protecting Yourself from Emotional Manipulation
Remember that emotional manipulators do tend to choose their prey carefully and I believe typically avoid targeting people who are empowered from within.

For me, the best protection is self-love and inner awareness, building on and owning your Personal Power — tune in to episode 3 of my podcast called “Personal Power” to find out more on that.

The biggest takeaway; when considering any program, service, or relationship, take your time making decisions. People with integrity won’t pressure or bombard you during the sign-up process. As Sarah Edmondson, author of “Becoming Cult Literate,” says, “To seek is only human, but to seek wisely is always a smart idea.” I highly recommend her Ted Talk called “How to Spot a Cult”

I believe it is also helpful to understand that our critical self-judgment and our judgment of others is something the manipulators use to their advantage.

However, by developing mental fitness and emotional intelligence, you can learn to trust yourself and your intuition, the most crucial foundation for protecting yourself from manipulation while still engaging openly with the world, and bouncing back quicker after a fail or fall.

It has helped me and is helping my clients and I know it can help you.

Practical Steps to Build Self-Love and Empowerment
1. Commit to your personal growth journey of self-love
2. Practice regular journaling for self-expression
3. Write daily self-love notes or positive affirmations
4. Set and maintain healthy boundaries
5. Learn to say “no” without guilt

Connect with Patricia for a free 1 hour (no obligation) discover call if you are interested to know more about Mental Fitness and the Journey to Self Love by emailing; hello@pacoaching.co.uk

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