Remember to Regulate, Relate, and then Reason.

1.  Regulate your emotions.

First, be aware of your own emotional reactions. Do you feel pressured or obliged to do things for a certain person that you would rather not do?  Do you feel angry or resentful? Do you buy into the guilt trip that you are not doing enough or doing it well enough? Do you dread dealing with this person?

When you are aware of your emotions, you can manage them by soothing yourself, breathing slowly and deeply or even briefly hum a tune in your mind. Then you can avoid being controlled by your emotions. It is easier to manage your emotions when you remember that a manipulator may not know any other way of getting what he or she wants.

Your emotions will also also give you a hint as to how you need to behave. For instance, if you feel irritated and angry, you may need to work on identifying and expressing your own boundaries.

2.  Relate to the other.

Before reasoning and setting boundaries, it is important to show empathy to the other person, so that they will feel seen and be receptive to your thoughts and reasoning. Let them know you are listening. You don’t have to acquiesce to what the other person wants. It is enough to show compassion with your words, tone of voice and body language.

For Example,

“I see how worried you are.”

“I sense that you’re afraid.”

“I get that you’re angry and frustrated.”

“It seems that you really want somebody to help you.”

When expressing empathy, beware of infantilizing or coddling the manipulator. Sometimes the manipulator wants to be seen as helpless or childlike to get what they want. In order to promote a person’s self-respect and accountability, show compassion as you would to an equal adult, not as a parent or caretaker to a child.

3.  Reason with the other.

Use your core confidence to state what you need to express yourself with matter-of-fact neutrality and clarity. Avoid extremes of being either excessively personal or impersonal.

The benefits of showing empathy while setting appropriate boundaries are the following:

1. You will feel good about your behavior. Self-respect is based on showing respect to the other as well as to yourself.
2. You will avoid feeling drained, beaten up emotionally, taken advantage of, guilty, and angry.
3. You will  encourage the other person to be accountable for his or her own life.
4. You will serve as a role model for the manipulator who may not know how to express empathy and boundaries simultaneously.

Tips for Relating to a Manipulator

1. Don’t conflate disappointment with guilt.

Nobody can make you feel guilty. Yet if you were raised to help or please people, then you might feel guilty when others are disappointed. Saying “no” to someone may feel uncomfortable, but it doesn’t make you guilty of anything.

2. Place the responsibility on the manipulator instead of taking it on yourself.

The person who often feels like a victim and finds everything unfair may use their “helplessness” to gain your sympathy in order to seek financial or emotional support from you.

Instead fixing or pleasing, remind the person who is manipulating you that their needs are important — and that they are responsible and accountable for themselves. In this way, you can validate their concerns without taking on the pressure of handling their problems for them.

For example,

Helpless: “I need transportation to get to work and you’re not helping me!”

You: “I agree you need transportation. I know that you are quite capable. What are some possible solutions?”

3. Treat the manipulator as the adult you expect them to be, instead of playing their childish games.

We project what we expect, and what we project helps elicit what we expect, often creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you act like a parent, the other person often becomes childlike—dependent or rebellious.

Instead, when a manipulator uses a guilt-trip on you, don’t buy into it. Ignore sarcasm. Answer with a quick retort that rejects any guilt. Assume they are mature and capable. For example:

Guilt trip: “Okay then, go have fun on your hike with your friends while I look for a job. Don’t worry about me.”

You: “Thank you! And that’s great that you’ll be looking for work.”

Be calm, compassionate, and rational, keeping your response simple and friendly. Your lack of reactivity will make the manipulator’s tantrums a lot less satisfying to them, and that may change the way they approach you.

5.  Practice and get feedback

The best thing you can do is to practice expressing yourself with compassion and self-empowerment, and get feedback about your tone of voice and body language from a friend. It’s amazing how a little tweak in tone of voice will make a world of difference. Do you seem too apologetic, meek, angry, hurt, combative, impersonal or guilty? Keep tweaking  appropriate phrases until they feel right to both you and your practice partner. Here are some sample sentences:

“I sense how worried you are. We’d love to help you in any way we can. I have an idea of one thing we can do. Let me know what you think.”

“I see how upset you are. Let me tell you what we can do and what we cannot do.”

“You seem afraid. But I think that you are quite capable and can figure this out.”

“I see that you are angry. Frankly, I am feeling uncomfortable with your anger being directed toward me. I am doing what I can, but I need to take a break. Let’s talk when we’re both calm.”

“I’d love to be able to do that for you but I’m too busy with other obligations. I’m sorry.”

Anything you have to manipulate to get is rarely yours to keep.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD Psychology

Read “Dealing with Manipulative People when you Value Honesty”