A few years ago, the TV series "Ode to Joy" took the country by storm. Among them, the role of Fan Shengmei became the biggest attraction of the drama. Fan Shengmei has education and looks, and also has a very good job, according to the theory that she should be happy. However, fate has played a cruel trick on her. Fan Shengmei's family of origin is extremely bad, the parents are patriarchal, brother is not learned, the whole family Fan Shengmei as a cash machine. Once Fan Shengmei has the slightest complaint, it will be labeled as an unfilial son. Fan Shengmei's encounter has triggered a lot of ****ing from the audience, and many people have said that in their lives, they have also met people like Fan Shengmei's parents. Usually, we would call such people vampires.
In fact, this kind of vampire is not only in China, but also in foreign countries. American psychotherapist Susan? Foward after 45 years of research found that in interpersonal interactions, the closer the relationship between people, the more likely to have emotional conflicts, and most of these emotional conflicts are accompanied by elements of coercion and blackmail. Susan gave this phenomenon a new name "emotional blackmail". Later, Susan and another psychologist, Donna Fraser, co-authored the book Emotional Blackmail. Susan and another psychologist, Donna Fraser, co-authored the book Emotional Blackmail. The book became a global bestseller when it was published, and over the past 20 years, it has helped countless people get out of their emotional misery and led them to a new life.
01 The essence of emotional blackmail is the control of others
In life, we can often hear such words: "You are really a white-eyed wolf, I am considered to be in vain to raise you," "You dare to divorce, I will die to you." "Look what you have made me angry" and so on. The people who say these words may be parents and elders, husbands and wives, or supervisors and coworkers. These words are different, but the logic behind them is surprisingly consistent. What logic? That is, "How dare you disobey me, this is outrageous!" These statements are classic emotional blackmail language.
After being exposed to a large number of psychotherapy cases, Susan realized that emotional blackmail often occurs between acquaintances. Because acquaintances know all about our weaknesses, when they want to use us to achieve a certain purpose, it is easy to take these psychological weaknesses to blackmail us, in order to force us to give in. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on some of the most popular products and services in the world, and you'll be able to do that.
Generally speaking, emotional blackmailers are divided into four types, the first is the abuser, this kind of people violent character, will have no qualms about all kinds of threats to us; the second is the self-mutilator, this kind of people have a certain degree of paranoia of being victimized, accustomed to put the fault on other people, but they are like a child who can't grow up; the third is the sadness of the person, this kind of people are very good at acting bitter love drama, always pretend to be innocent, and then use subtle and subtle ways to make us feel better, so we will not be able to do it. The third is the sad one, this kind of person is very good at acting bitter, always play himself as an innocent, and then use the hidden language to suggest that we please do as he said; the fourth is the seducer, the seducer is like a circus tamer, he will come up with a variety of temptations to attract our attention, and constantly tell us to get the temptation to be obedient to listen to him.
No matter what kind of emotional blackmailer, there are some ****iness in them. These ****nesses include: A fear of failure. Emotional blackmailers can not accept setbacks, even a little setback, will let them completely collapse; two lack of security . Emotional blackmailers are strong on the surface, but extremely vulnerable on the inside, they are very afraid of being abandoned by others; three like to fault-finding . Emotional blackmailers especially like to give people nitpicking, especially love to make a big deal, they are desperately trying to suppress others, to show their sense of existence. It's these ****ty qualities that turn them into vampires in emotional relationships.
Having learned about the types and personality traits of emotional blackmailers, what is the best way to tell if a behavior is emotional blackmail? That said, Susan shares the trick, which is to see if there's any coercion in the behavior. If there is, it's emotional blackmail. If there is, it's emotional blackmail, and if there is, it's not.
As I said earlier, the essence of emotional blackmail is control. In order to control us, the emotional blackmailer will use four tactics, they are: dichotomy, pathological method, united front and negative comparison. Dichotomy means that the blackmailer will make himself out to be the perfect person and then take the moral high ground by accusing us of all the things we are not; Pathology means that once we are in the hands of the blackmailer, they will humiliate us by bringing up the same old issues over and over again and repeatedly rubbing salt into our wounds; and United Front means that the blackmailer will isolate us emotionally by bringing in other people who are close to us; Negative Comparison means that the emotional blackmailer will deliberately compare us to someone as a way of demeaning us.
By using a mix of these four tactics, the emotional blackmailer is in control. However, not only are there four main tools, but there is also a common pattern of emotional blackmailers. This is a six-step process that involves, in order: demand, resist, pressure, threaten, yield, and restart. Here's a brief explanation of the ruse: First, the blackmailer will make a very excessive demand of the person being blackmailed. After being instinctively resisted by the person being blackmailed, the blackmailer will pressure the person being blackmailed and force the person being blackmailed to give in. If the victim is weak, he or she will easily give in to the blackmailer. Once the victim gives in, the emotional blackmail is complete. The scariest thing is that if the emotional blackmailer succeeds once, he will often in the future to the blackmailer emotional blackmail, thus forming a vicious circle, this step is called reboot.
Emotional blackmail is like a blunt knife cutting meat, it will not immediately take our lives, but will be tortured us to the point of pain.
In life, when faced with emotional blackmail, many people just instinctively feel very upset, but do not even realize that they are being eaten by emotional blackmailer. Therefore, to completely get out of the trap laid by the emotional blackmailer, we must first be able to keenly aware of the emotional blackmail behavior, otherwise, waiting for us is likely to be a long dark night.
02 The relationship between the blackmailer and the blackmailed is a two-person dance
Emotional blackmailer is certainly very hateful, but Susan believes that, in essence, emotional blackmail behavior is actually a "two-person dance". The relationship between the blackmailer and the person being blackmailed is similar to the one between the blackmailer and the person being blackmailed. That is to say, if the blackmailer does not participate in this dance, then the blackmailer is no longer able to realize the emotional blackmail.
You may wonder why the blackmailer would want to participate in this dance if he or she is not stupid. In fact, this is because the blackmailer has been brainwashed by the ideas imposed on them by the blackmailer, and they have lost the ability to judge things independently. Susan found that in life, there are five types of people who are most likely to fall into the category of blackmailers. What are they? They are: people who are overly eager to be recognized by the outside world, people who are resigned, people with low self-esteem, people who are saintly and self-doubters. These people also have some **** the same point, such as they have a strong sense of inferiority, heavy responsibility, like to give themselves constant pressure, often blame themselves for bad things, a strong sense of guilt and so on.
The above personality traits of the blackmailer are firmly grasped by the blackmailer. So, when the blackmailer wants to control the blackmailer, they will use these "soft underbelly" of the blackmailer, and constantly give them pressure and brainwashing, and ultimately let the blackmailer completely give up their own, become a tool to be used by them.
The greatest danger of emotional blackmail is that it will seriously damage our self-integrity. The so-called self-integrity refers to a person's human dignity, values, self-identity, etc.. Some studies have shown that people who suffer from long-term emotional blackmail are prone to low self-esteem, and the probability of suffering from depression is significantly higher than that of ordinary people, and more seriously, it may also lead to suicidal behavior.
Having said that, Susan has further analyzed the dangers of emotional blackmail. First of all, emotional blackmail can lower our self-esteem. For example, as we mentioned earlier, the blackmailer will use negative comparisons to deliberately compare us to others, thus giving us a sense of inferiority. At this point, if we fail to see things correctly, we will unconsciously agree with the blackmailer and feel that they are right. This also means that we have fallen into the trap carefully laid by the blackmailer. Secondly, emotional blackmail will deprive us of our happiness . The blackmailer will often have negative emotions such as agitation and anger, but there is no reasonable outlet for these emotions, so the blackmailer will often feel very depressed inside, and they hardly have any sense of happiness. Finally, suffering from emotional blackmail for a long time will make people more and more self-absorbed and have low self-esteem. If you think that your compromises and concessions will be replaced by the blackmailer's moderation, you are very wrong. Remember what the sixth step in the emotional blackmail routine is? That's right, it's the reboot! Our forbearance over and over again, not only will not be exchanged for the extortionists to stop, but will make them become more unscrupulous.
From this, we can see that when faced with emotional blackmail, we need to be able to y analyze our weaknesses in addition to being keenly aware. When a problem is exposed, in fact, it is no longer a problem, and the most terrible thing is that there is obviously a serious problem, but always try to find ways to cover up the problem. If this is the case, then the problem will always be a big problem and will never be truly solved.
03 To get rid of emotional blackmail, you have to start by changing yourself
Emotional blackmail is a heavy bomb that destroys relationships. In the face of emotional blackmail, if you do not want to fall into the blackmail, we have to recognize the truth of emotional blackmail at the same time, must have a comprehensive and deep understanding of self. If you think about it carefully, it is not difficult to realize that the main reason why the emotional blackmailers can succeed is that they have mastered our psychological weaknesses. With this insight, everything becomes much simpler. In the face of emotional blackmail, when our weaknesses are exposed by others, if we can do not panic, not inferiority complex, do not care, then at this time, the emotional blackmailer's tricks will all fail.
Of course, in the face of emotional blackmail, just defense may not be enough, some emotional blackmailers are quite ferocious, when their emotional blackmail routine is broken by us, they are likely to think of other tricks to deal with us. So with that said, based on 45 years of hands-on psychotherapy experience, Susan gives us a whole program for dealing with emotional blackmail.
This program is referred to as the SOS strategy, and the SOS strategy is divided into three major steps: stop, calmly observe, and strategize.
Let's start with the first step, stop. The meaning in stopping is that we don't let the blackmailer take us out of our rhythm. When experiencing emotional blackmail, when the other party makes demands on us, they usually put on a domineering posture and keep urging us to hurry up and say yes. In fact, this is the first psychological trap set by the blackmailer for us. The blackmailer puts himself in a position of superiority without ever thinking about what others will think. Don't forget that emotional blackmail is a two-person dance, and when we stop cooperating with the blackmailer, the act of emotional blackmail cannot be realized.
So the next time an emotional blackmailer uses coercion to force us to do something, we can tell him solemnly that it's important to us, and that we need to think about it before we make a decision. If the other party asks how long we have to think about it, we can say, "Think about it as long as you need to think about it". Don't underestimate these words, they can help us turn the situation from passive to active.
The second step in the SOS strategy is to observe. The second step in the SOS strategy is to calmly observe the situation, which means that we should be able to pull ourselves out of the emotional blackmail situation, sort out the whole thing from a bystander's point of view, and dig out the real purpose of the emotional blackmailer, and then be able to more objectively respond to the program. It should be noted that, in the calm observation, we should especially respect our own true feelings , for example, we can try to ask ourselves, when the other side of the emotional blackmail on us, how do we think inside? For example, we can try to ask ourselves how we felt when the other person was emotionally blackmailing us, and whether our emotional response was anger, fear or shame.
Through calm observation, we can find that all the means used by the emotional blackmailer are only to provoke our sense of shame and inferiority. However, who in the world does not have a sense of shame and inferiority? The behavior of the emotional blackmailer precisely exposes his own meanness. If we can't see through this, it's easy to fall headlong into the second trap laid by the blackmailer.
The third step in the SOS strategy is to strategize. In this step, Susan provides us with four highly viable tactics. The first tactic is called non-defensive communication, and it's simply a form of snarking. No matter what tactics the other person uses, all we need to remember is not to take his words seriously. Whatever he says, we can respond by saying, "You're right!" . This statement has the beauty of a four-pronged approach, and it shows that the emotional blackmailer will not be able to stir up a single wave of emotion in us, even if he is soft and hard. After hearing this statement, most emotional blackmailers freak out.
The second tactic is to turn an enemy into a friend . When confronted with an angry emotional blackmailer, we can ask them rhetorically why they are angry how they are. Invite them to talk about how they feel. In this way, the focus of the conversation returns to the blackmailer and they feel the pressure while we relax a lot. This strategy of turning an enemy into a friend, if used successfully, also has the potential to lead to self-reflection on the part of the blackmailer.
The third tactic is the quid pro quo. One of the hardest things in the world is to change another person. If we want to change the situation of being emotionally blackmailed, we shouldn't pin our hopes on reforming the blackmailer. The right thing to do is that we have to make the change ourselves first. Only then can we motivate the blackmailer to change accordingly. That's the quid pro quo.
The final trick of SOS is to use humor. In the face of emotional blackmail, when we respond with some half-true jokes or funny paragraphs, not only can reduce our psychological pressure, but also ease the tension, but also is tantamount to suggesting that the blackmailer, in fact, we really are not afraid of them.
Each of us, from the moment we are born, is caught up in a variety of emotional relationships, such as kinship, friendships, and relationships with superiors and subordinates. Good emotional relationships can nourish people, while bad emotional relationships can destroy people . Emotional blackmail is the poison of interpersonal relationship, which can kill people invisibly. At the same time, emotional blackmail is also a game, in this game, both the blackmailer and the blackmailer will be very hurt, no one is the real winner. Want to stay away from emotional blackmail, must first start from their own, cultivate independent and confident personality, bravely defend the integrity of the self, and ultimately have a harmonious relationship and a happy life.