Affective manipulation is a process aimed at changing the perception or behaviour of others by resorting to deception with cunning methods. Surely all of us have applied it at some time, think of when we want to convince a friend to take a trip or an experience with us, trying to enthusiastically leverage all those aspects that we know can be positive. The essential characteristic of manipulation is that it does not play with its cards on the table, it always explicitly leverages the emotionality of the other.

When we talk about emotional manipulation, this happens continuously without interruption, the manipulator uses subterfuge to influence and control the other to his advantage. A manipulation technique used frequently today is for example love bombing, which occurs during courtship, the manipulator gives what the other person needs: attention, esteem, promises of love, like a love bombing. And if someone shows you so much love, you may feel “obliged” to reciprocate. In love bombing, a temporary state of well-being is leveraged, an apparently unconditional love that each of us should have for ourselves, but which in relationships satisfies the hunger for love.

Another form of manipulation is the treatment of silence, which takes on a punitive character: if you don’t meet my expectations, I take my attention away from you. This is a silent form of emotional abuse. The attitude of detachment, a wall of silence that is aggressive. People who tend to have these manipulative relationships as adults have already known emotional manipulation since childhood, in those dynamics in which the message that passed was; I will love you if you are good and obedient. A promise of love for which the child does his best in a thousand ways to satisfy and please, as if to be loved you must make an effort for the other.

Some characteristics that make a person easy to manipulate can be identified; here are some predisposing examples:

• feeling attraction to people who are not available.
• tendency to perfectionism (if I’m good, I’m deserving of love).
• fear of being abandoned.
• tendency to provide support to others (taking care of others and not of oneself).
• tendency to take all the blame for a failure in a relationship.
• high empathy or tendency to identify oneself.
• low self-esteem and self-awareness.
• sense of emptiness and tendency to depression.
• the excessive need to be taken care of.

The presence of these characteristics is certainly not a fault, but is the result of an insecure attachment relationship, emotional and relational traumas, experiences of non-love. These characteristics, combined with manipulative methods, tend to cause the person to remain trapped in relationships that fuel suffering.

Source: www.cittanuova.it – Angela Mammana – All rights reserved ©All rights reserved ©