The Music of Manipulation
Manipulators usually deploy multiple tactics at once. They’re like musicians playing different parts to create a piece of music.
Consider, for instance, this anecdote about one of Dr. Forward’s15 therapy clients, a successful accountant (Catherine) who came to her after a series of upsetting encounters with her previous therapist (Rhonda):
There was something forbidding about Rhonda from the first, but I figured it would just take time to get used to this new kind of relationship. It seemed that she was always getting in little digs at me, though. One of her favorite things was to clip articles out of the paper about successful women who had it all and give them to me at the beginning of the session for “inspiration.” It made me feel like shit. The message was, “Here’s the way you should be, and if you do what I tell you to do, you’ll get there.”
She kept bringing up joining one of her therapy groups, but I didn’t have any interest in that. Maybe she was right that it would do me a world of good, but my god, I had so many hours to put into my master’s program and working that I didn’t have time. Rhonda saw it another way. She said that I was being stubborn and controlling and that was why I was having problems in my life.
Rhonda gaslights Catherine in two ways. First, she pushes the idea that Catherine needs “inspiration,” even though Catherine isn’t seeking it. Second, Rhonda tells Catherine that she’s “stubborn and controlling” because she doesn’t want to join one of her groups. In both cases, Rhonda is trying to dominate the discussion.
We also see Rhonda inject guilt into the conversation, by suggesting that Catherine’s falling short in her pursuit of success. And there’s an element of fear in how Rhonda insinuates that Catherine will continue to fail unless she complies with Rhonda’s directions.
Rhonda threatens to withdraw emotional support by implying that she’s frustrated with Catherine and can’t treat her properly unless she joins a therapy group. In other words, Rhonda can support Catherine only if she goes along with Rhonda wants.
The Social Angle
Manipulators don’t just play emotional and psychological games; they play social games, too.
One of the most common social strategies is the manipulation of alliances, which involves forming connections with or against someone.
An alliance with someone offers inclusion and safety. The target will feel that they’re on the right side of things, moving in harmony with others.
An alliance against someone carries the threat of exclusion. The target will sense that they’re on the wrong side. Some examples of social exclusion include religious, family, and political shunning, as well as friend-group alienation.
Alliances are often woven into group dynamics: religious and political communities, workplace settings, friend and family networks, and even whole cultures may contain alliances. A manipulator can leverage these alliances to lend weight to their own tactics, using the power of the group against an individual.
Triangulation is another social strategy, where the manipulator exploits gaps in communication and inserts their own narrative into the conversation. Here are some examples:
- Friends might talk behind each other’s backs
- Parents might play siblings against one another
- A middle-manager might tell employees that the boss expects them to follow certain guidelines, even though this isn’t true
Triangulation is essentially a form of gaslighting: the manipulator manufactures a story to control how a particular situation is perceived.