If you’re in a bad marriage, says marriage and family therapist Sharon Rivkin, don’t underestimate the stress that you are carrying around. If your day-to-day relationship is full of stress, fighting, or the silent treatment, she says, you are compromising your health every day. Covertly aggressive people are among the most manipulative personalities. They use certain tactics to accomplish two things simultaneously: 1) conceal their aggressive intentions, and 2) invite you to fear, be doubtful, or optimally, to concede or give in. And there are a handful of tactics covert aggressors tend to use more frequently – tactics that are generally the most effective in manipulating others – especially neurotics. Recognizing these manipulation tactics and knowing how to respond to them are the keys to personal empowerment. I can’t stress enough how capable the more skilled manipulators are of using just about any behavior imaginable to accomplish their aims. This is especially true when the manipulator has a “good read” on the character of their target of manipulation. When a covert aggressor (CA) knows his or her “opponent” inside out (i.e. knows their sensitivities, fears, insecurities, core beliefs, level of conscientiousness, etc.), a vast opportunity opens up for using that person’s traits (often, their most socially desirable traits) against them in a covert war for dominance. Because it’s so unrealistic to list all the possible ways a covertly aggressive individual can get the better of another person, I find it helpful to focus attention on the more common tactics CAs employ and to explain in depth why the tactics are so effective. Understanding the basics of how manipulation works gives the potential victim of covert-aggression a better intuitive grasp of the nature of troublesome encounters with all disturbed characters and heightens their sensitivity to the many possible tactics a manipulator might employ.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 07:48:17 +0000
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