EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL: WHEN THE PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE USE FEAR, OBLIGATION, AND GUILT TO MANIPULATE YOU If you really loved me... After all Ive done for you... How can you be so selfish... Do any of the above expressions sound familiar? Theyre all examples of emotional blackmail, a powerful form of manipulation in which people close to us threaten to punish us for not doing what they want. Emotional blackmailers know how much we value our relationships with them. They know our vulnerabilities and our deepest secrets. They are our mothers, our partners, our bosses and co-workers, our friends and our lovers. And no matter how much they care about us, they use this intimate knowledge to give themselves the payoff they want: our compliance. Emotional blackmail is a form of psychological manipulation - it is the use of a system of persuasive threats and punishment on a person by someone close to him or her in an attempt to control his or her behaviour. Emotional blackmail... typically involves two people who have established a close interpersonal or intimate relationship (mother and daughter, husband and wife, sister and sister, two close friends). When subjected to emotional blackmail, we inadvertently become the others EMOTIONAL HOSTAGE. The main motive is: If you dont give me that, you will be responsible for my breakdown. Knowing that the victim wants love, approval or confirmation of identity, blackmailers may threaten to withhold them or take them away altogether, or make the victim feel they must earn them: as the power of emotional blackmail indicates, self-identity is inevitably affected by... the reaction of the other as is self-esteem. If the victim believes the blackmailer, he/she could fall into a pattern of letting the blackmailer control his/ her decisions and behaviour and become caught in a sort of psychological fog. And thus you often hear people say: Its just because he has been so good to me before now, otherwise I wouldnt have accepted to do that...... or if not for the sake of the past..... etc. Each time you hear such figurative expression, you may be right to suspect a case of Emotional Blackmail Emotional blackmailers use fear, obligation and guilt in their relationships, ensuring that the victim feels afraid to cross them, obligated to give them their way and feeling guilty if they dont. Were you or are you a victim or in a relationship hostage? BE FREE TODAY. #thankyouall
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 13:34:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015