Inside the Manipulator’s Mind: The Insider’s Guide to Ending Emotional Exploitation

Credit

Handouts

Faculty

Alan Godwin, PsyD Related seminars and products

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Alan Godwin, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist in private practice with over 30 years of experience. Dr. Godwin has expertise in working with personality disordered clients and with clients who’ve been negatively impacted in close relationships with disordered people. Certified in Alternative Dispute Resolution, he has dedicated himself to helping individuals, couples, churches, and businesses develop better ways of handling conflict. In addition to his private practice, Dr. Godwin serves on the adjunct faculty of the Graduate Counseling Department of Trevecca University in Nashville, TN, where he teaches doctoral students and has also taught undergraduate students.

Additionally, he has penned a regular quarterly feature entitled “Ask Dr. Alan” for Deacon magazine, writes a weekly email called “The Drama Review: In Relationships and Culture,” and has been a guest on numerous radio and television programs across the U.S. and Canada. Dr. Godwin’s book, How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing with Your Difficult Relationships, explains how and why conflict goes badly and how to make it go well with two types of people: those who are normally-wired and those who are personality disordered. For more information about Dr. Godwin and his publications, visit www.peopleproblems.org.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Alan Godwin maintains a private practice and serves as adjunct faculty at Trevecca University. He receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Alan Godwin has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Additional Info

Target Audience

• Psychiatrists
• Psychologists
• Social Workers
• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors
• Case Managers
• Psychiatric Nurses
• Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners

Objectives

1. Describe the manipulation process and examine common manipulative behaviors in clients
2. Analyze the relationship between reasoning deficiencies and emotionally manipulative behavior in clients
3. Articulate behavioral patterns characteristic of people who tend to be most susceptible to emotional manipulation
4. Explain common responses to and risks of emotionally manipulative behavior
5. Evaluate strategies clients can use to effectively counter manipulation in a variety of contexts
6. Identify common limitations of manipulative relationships and relate to treatment outcomes

Outline

The Manipulator’s Mind

• Defining emotional manipulation
• Five reasoning deficiencies at the heart of emotional manipulation
  • Humility
  • Awareness
  • Responsibility
  • Empathy
  • Reliability
• Drama, schemata, and overcompensation
  • The master
  • The martyr
  • The messiah
• Methodologies of
  • Grooming
  • Manipulation
  • Maintaining the toxic status quo
• Elements of manipulation associated with disordered and non-disordered individuals
  • Behavioral variations according to context (business, family, romance)
• Short- and long-term psychological damage
• When attempts to manipulate don’t succeed

Manipulative Relationship Dynamics

• Healthy vs. manipulative relationships
• Characteristics of attraction, dependency, and role participation
• Codependency and addiction
• Commonly-exploited vulnerabilities
  • Naïve expectations
  • Unwarranted benefit of the doubt
  • Attempting to reason with the unreasonable
• Who stays, who leaves, and why?

Countering Manipulation & Ending Destructive Cycles

• Discern the report’s accuracy
• Teach counterintuitive behavior
  • Outline and recognize the manipulation process
  • Understand the antagonist
  • Disarm buttons
  • Respond vs. react
  • Set boundaries 
  • Lean on connections
  • Acknowledge relational limitations
• Identify risk factors
• Minimize fallout
• Measure recovery
• Strategies for overcoming resistance to change
• Resources for ongoing support

EXAMPLES & APPLICATIONS

• Example #1:  Set up to fail in the workplace
• Example #2:  Love under lock and key
• Example #3:  The guilt-tripping parent
• Example #4:  The God’s-gift-to-the-world relative