Book Summary Preview : Who’s Pulling Your Strings?

An Overview of Manipulation

Manipulation can be a highly stressful experience. It can have adverse effects on one’s physical, emotional, and mental health. It can be an unpleasant, demeaning, and disturbing experience.

Manipulation is different from legitimate, direct, above-board influence. Healthy, appropriate influence is guided by openness, honesty, and directness of communication. Threats and coercion are rarely employed. Instead, a system of rewards is used, and everyone knows and understands why they are being influenced to do certain things or behave in certain ways.

Conversely, manipulation is characterized by deceitfulness, deviousness, and indirectness of communication. Threats, intimidation, and coercion are the preferred tactics. They are skilled at coercion and control; they often use subtle and sneaky ways to get what they want from their victims. As a result, the manipulative character of the relationship has already taken root before its true nature becomes apparent to the victim.

Some people, however, are less conscious of their manipulative behaviors. They usually act out of fear, insecurity, or some intense emotional dysfunction to get what they want out of people. Although they may not fully appreciate or become aware of the negative impact of their manipulative acts, the result is similar to the one who manipulates consciously and deliberately. Whether the manipulator acts consciously or not, the victim’s compliance or capitulation only rewards the manipulator’s efforts and encourages the manipulative relationship even further.

Moreover, everyone is vulnerable to manipulation; although others are more susceptible to it because of their personality or attitude towards life. Nonetheless, there are ways to resist and altogether stop manipulation. One only needs to be strong and courageous in tackling this problem.

Signs of Manipulation

Manipulation comes in different forms and guises. Notwithstanding this, there are ways to effectively deal with it. One should only learn and understand the dynamics of manipulation and the resistance tactics to overcome it.

Even though anyone and everyone are vulnerable to manipulation, certain people are more prone to be controlled and manipulated by skilled manipulators. These people are like walking targets for manipulators because they display certain personality traits, behaviors, and ways of thinking that render them extremely vulnerable to manipulative control. These “soft targets” are an easy mark for manipulators.

The Tell-tale Signs of a Soft Target

To know if you are an easy mark for manipulators, you must become aware of the “buttons” of vulnerability that you unwittingly show to others and that marks you off as an easy target for manipulation. Learning and understanding these “buttons” is the first step towards resisting manipulation.

Button No. 1: The “Disease to Please” or People-Pleasing Syndrome

People who have the “disease to please” or people-pleasing syndrome feel a compulsive – even addictive – need to please others. They feel controlled by their need to please people. They also cannot control the pressures and demands brought on by their intense need to please on their lives.

The emotional dials of people-pleasers are tuned in to other people’s needs and the expectations that these people have of them; often in utter disregard of their own needs. This happens because their self-esteem is tied up with the amount of work that they do for others and with how successful they are at pleasing them. People-pleasers mistakenly believed that they can gain love and a sense of self-worth by fulfilling the needs of others at the expense of their own needs.

In addition, people-pleasers’ very identity hinges on their being seen by others and by themselves as nice. Their excessive sense of responsibility for the welfare and happiness of others often drive them to do things that they might not want to do. Their very niceness blinds them to the fact that they are being manipulated. Thus, they often get exploited and taken advantaged of by other people. What’s more, even if they become aware of the situation, people-pleasers will usually avoid confronting or criticizing the manipulator for fear of being viewed as “not nice.”