Any blackmail comes down to the formula: "If you do not behave the way I want, you will regret it." How to counteract and how to properly respond to blackmail?
Each of us had to be a victim of emotional blackmail at least once. After all, you probably heard “and if you are so, then I …” How to interact with this and how to react to it correctly?
First, let's find out what emotional blackmail is and what it looks like. However, what it looks like, you most likely already understood. And terminologically, emotional blackmail is a type of influence in which people, directly or indirectly, threaten us with trouble if we do not do what they need. Any blackmail in its own idea boils down to the formula: "If you do not behave the way I want, you will regret it."
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Most often, close people resort to this method of manipulation, and this makes emotional blackmail for the victim especially dangerous and difficult to bear. As a rule, the blackmailer knows how much we value the relationship with him. He also knows our weaknesses and innermost secrets. He uses all this in order to achieve his goal.
Someone can be blackmailed with the help of a sense of guilt (“you don’t want me to suffer?”), Someone - a sense of responsibility (“you cannot let me down, I’m counting on you”), the main thing is just to understand what things are really important to the victim.
“It is interesting that the blackmailer does not always threaten from a position of strength. He (she) can also be an unhappy victim who controls a partner through a sense of guilt: “I spent the best years of my life on you, I can't live without you, you can't leave me in such a situation,” the psychologist, trainer of the Center, comments positive psychology Maria Razbash continues - as a rule, blackmailers - people with low self-esteem. The fact is that they are very afraid that others will not listen to them, they do not know how to ask and are constantly trying to prove to everyone that it is they who are in charge of all the processes."
What to do about it?
It is important to understand that in blackmail, as in a dance, two are always involved: the one who is blackmailing and his victim. … It is important to understand that by giving in to the blackmailer, we are actually teaching him to blackmail us, moreover, we are convincing him that his way of achieving what he wants is legal and successful. Therefore, when we help a person with concessions to perform any action, we thereby let him understand that he can perform the same action in the future in relation to us. When we put up with emotional blackmail, it eats away at us from the inside out and jeopardizes our most important relationships and our sense of integrity and self-worth.
“We often begin to be subjected to blackmail from early childhood: if you don’t behave well, I’ll tell my dad everything, and he won’t love you (he won’t buy, he won’t take). That is, the child will obviously lose something if he disobeys the elder, so he will obey in fear,”says Maria Razbash.
Maria also shared how to learn how to get out of emotional stress:
• Stop being afraid of threats. The main goal of the blackmailer is to intimidate you. So don't be alarmed.
• Invite your partner to discuss the issue later, in a calm state.
• Do not hope to convince your opponent of anything, he is not yet ready for dialogue (and, perhaps, will not be ready for it).
• Give up the fight. Let the other person have an opinion.
• Do not rush to agree to act on the proposed plan. Otherwise, everything will happen again. And you will confirm that the blackmail method is producing the desired results.
• Conduct negotiations in a relaxed atmosphere.
• Find out the motives of your partner's behavior and show that if you fulfill his conditions, it is not out of fear, but a calm choice, if you deem it possible: “I will fulfill your request in order to please you (or someone else), and not for that to earn love."
• Show the blackmailer by your behavior that his methods are not working on you. Be stronger than him.
Photo: grendelkhan flickr.com/grendelkhan
