Human beings typically use a wide variety of strategies to get what they want. In some cases, the chances of getting closer to your goals are so slim that attempts lead nowhere important. Most people have goals and expectations in life and each one of them faces situations with specific mechanisms to fulfill them.
However, there are people who seek to exercise power over others through methods that impose dominance. If this sounds familiar to you, this article will surely be of great use to you. In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about how to beat a manipulator and we will give you 11 strategies to achieve it.
Index
- Learn to say 'no'
- Appeal to third party
- Keep calm
- Perform psychological therapy
- Postpone your demands
- Be aware of your behaviors
- avoid justification
- Improve our personal assessment
- Be consistent with words and actions
- Make your behavior visible
- turn to other people
Learn to say 'no'
How to put limits on a manipulator? First of all, we must
Appeal to the third party.
In relation to the previous point, manipulative people do not have a good relationship with the laws that impose limits. Because of this, when they are shown that it is not possible to comply with their demands due to regulations that exceed us, we are showing them that there is a third party with greater authority. This is a good strategy to prevent giving in to the wishes and demands of the manipulator.
Keep calm.
One of the most important points that we must bear in mind when dealing with a emotional manipulator he consists in being aware of the posture that he can adopt to achieve what he intends. That posture they maintain in the face of conflicts usually causes the manipulated person to have unpleasant emotions that make them lose their calm.
When this happens, the manipulator often takes advantage of the situation. For this reason, keep your sanity allows you to dominate the moment and avoid falling into the gadgets that the manipulator develops.
Carry out psychological therapy.
Reflection on our way of being allows us to generate questions about the people with whom we interact. In this sense, psychological therapy it helps to get to know each other in depthto find new strategies and/or tools to confront manipulative people.
Postpone your demands.
In general, a manipulator tries to satisfy her desires immediately through actions that exert power over their victims. If the victim of the manipulations is afraid of rejecting her wishes, an alternative to achieve this is to tell her to postpone what the manipulator wants. Postponing the demands of the manipulator can make you finally give up of your target.
Be aware of your behaviors.
When we understand how manipulative people act, there are greater chances of interfering with their actions in the future. Therefore, one of the keys is to analyze both the behaviors and the thoughts and emotions they have. This allows us to detect them in time Y elaborate alternatives to confront them.
Avoid justification.
Sometimes we try to convince ourselves that the bad actions of other people who exercise dominance over us have a justification that validates their actions. However, this may be a trap that we set ourselves to maintain an unfavorable bond. Avoiding justifications about manipulative behavior can be an effective option to control them.
Improve our personal assessment.
People with manipulative characteristics often seek victims with low self-esteem to dominate them. This is because people with low personal value tend not to question attitudes that disadvantage them and make them feel bad.
In contrast, people with high self-esteem are less likely to be manipulated or emotionally blackmailed. In this way, work aimed at strengthening personal skills can help in situations of manipulation.
Be consistent with words and actions.
People are characterized by the ability to speak and act. However, sometimes we say things that we don't do and vice versa. It is important to support the ideas that we propose to the manipulative person with behaviors that go along the same lines.
If a contradiction appears between our words and actions, manipulation could gain ground and take advantage of the situation. When we have firm and consistent convictions, our point of view will be strengthened.
Make your behavior visible.
to manipulative people they don't like to publicly point out their bad deeds and they usually look for allies to avoid being discovered. However, when we confess to more people that their actions are malicious and intended to harm other people, they tend to quickly change their behavior and/or try to play the victim.
You want to know more about how these types of people act in these cases, you can also read How does a manipulator act when discovered?
Go to other people.
Loneliness in front of the manipulative person produces unfavorable consequences. If manipulative people detect that we are alone, they can carry out a series of strategies to take advantage of the situation. For this reason, seeking help from people you trust is important. not to give in to manipulation and emotional blackmail.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to beat a manipulator, we recommend that you enter our category of Personal growth and self-help.
Bibliography
- Serra Undurraga, J.K. (2016). The diagnosis of narcissism: a rational reading. Journal of the Spanish Association of Neuropsychiatry, 36 (129), 171-187.
- Trechera, J.L., Millán Vásquez De La Torre, G., Fernández Morales, E. (2008). Empirical study of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Colombian Act Journal of Psychology, 11 (2), 25-36.
