Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You Kindle Edition

I found Emotional Blackmail well-written and helpful. It does a good job of describing the concept, variations of behavior involved, and ways to manage it in terms of how we interact with others. It's clear and direct.Here's what I thought could have been better. We like to think that emotional blackmail is mostly about how other people behave towards us. They act in certain ways that we believe make it difficult for us to do what we really want to do--they "blackmail" us by threatening to act badly if we don't do what they want. And that's true--but only to a point. We all like to believe that the other person is the problem, and we're just the victim of their manipulations, but a lot of what goes into what we call emotional blackmail has little or nothing to do with what other people do; it's caused by patterns of thinking and feeling and behaving IN US, that the other person may, or may not, be manipulating. Jack might find his wife Jill's behavior makes it really hard for him to say no to her, but Fred may be able to quite easily say no to the exact same behavior from Jill, or from his own wife Lucy or from anyone else, because Fred doesn't have the same issues with saying no that Jack has.To be sure, this book does discuss the fact that certain types of people with certain attitudes and backgrounds are more susceptible to emotional blackmail than others. But it tends to focus on the other person as the "blackmailer," when it may be that the other person really isn't the problem, or certainly not the whole problem--the problem is our own inability to say and do what we believe is most appropriate without being swayed by the other person's anticipated or actual reactions. The book would have been more helpful to me had it spent more time helping me adjust my owns views, consider different ways to perceive a situation, and see how I'm unnecessarily getting in my own way instead of focusing so much on the other person's manipulations.Note: If any of what I've said resonates with you, you might want to consider looking at materials about codependency. "A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him of her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior." (From Codependent No More, by Melody Beattie.) When I read that, I thought "I can relate to the first part, but I'm not obsessed with controlling." Then I realized that worrying a lot about whether another person gets angry with you, and altering your behavior to try to avoid that, can lead to constantly trying to control the other person's emotional state to avoid having them get upset.

Great book! I can now see what I thought. Let me explain. My own family didn't do this to us kids growing up. We were happy secure children. But my husbands family..., they were raised with criticism, guilt and so on. So I married into this family not knowing until after the marriage that they were all like this. I didn't know how to handle this, and even after reading this book I struggle with it. They tell me I'm "thin skinned". Nope! I'm not the one with the problem, it's they who have it.I encourage anyone who is struggling like myself to buy this book. It helps you understand so much! Good read!!

I have a masters in forensic psychology and this is one of my all time favorite books on spotting manipulation tactics. It is a powerful book in its content. I have a 2000 book library, and this is absolutely one of my favorite books on any subject, but especially within the field of psychology. I copied and pasted a bit of my notes for you below to give you a better sense for this book:At the heart of emotional blackmail is an unspoken threat which seeks to coerce compliance with an unjustified demand.In responding to it, we must first come to the realization that there is a difference between making someone suffer and letting someone suffer by their own hand, their own deeds, and their own character. Allowing someone to continue in their own suffering can in fact allow them the necessary opportunity in which to learn the necessary lessons. Rescuing people from themselves not only harms us, it harms them in that it keeps them from learning their lessons.Let people suffer. Do not intervene between a person’s actions and his own consequences.Disapproval is ultimately the key to emotional blackmail. In a way, fear, guilt, and obligation pray on our sense of approval. Disapproval is another person’s means of manipulating us by making the relationship contingent upon our appeasement of their unjustified demands and submission to injustice and purposeful manipulation.Emotional blackmail preys on fear, obligation,and guilt. Its manipulation tactics are either based on instilling fear, or obligation based on guilt. Whether that fear or obligation is real or justifiable is of no importance- only submission is required. Emotional blackmailers use our conscience against us in terms of guilt, and our sense of responsibility against us in terms fo obligation, and our desire for harmony in terms of fear- whether that fear be based on disapproval or their unjustified anger.

Great book, I bought this because I have a family member that has been a toxic person since I was a child. Happens to be my mother's sister and the amount of manipulation and making your feel guilty and a host of other things she does is ridiculous. She also tries to brainwash my mother against me, some pretty twisted crap to say the least. The book gives all these example stories and I got frustrated thinking "but this doesn't apply to me " keep reading, swear to God you have to. Towards the end it uses all the stories to explain the "why" of these behaviors. It all comes together and makes sense and if you hadn't stuck with it and read all the examples you would be lost. Very helpful book, you may never find out what truly drives their behavior but you will find out how they manipulate and hurt you and what you need to do to stop it. I've since leant this book to my mother in hopes she will start standing up for herself. Because she takes way too much crap from her sister than she ever should. I do not anticipate you will get nothing from this book, you will gain knowledge, but you have to put it to use. Stop taking people's bs. End the headaches, stress and anxiety these types of people cause. Be good to yourself. Best of luck to you all, if you are considering this book OR know someone in a horrible situation.

It covers everything from triggers & tactics of blackmailers to emotions and feelings and how to stand up for yourself; with great tips for how to sustain your own contract to commit to yourself and acknowledge your own right to opinions and choices. Utterly excellent!Psychological counselling should definitely use this book as the foundation for therapies.

Well thought out and insightful book on “Emotional blackmail is a powerful form of manipulation.”

I found this book very useful. Helped me understand certain people in my life and deal with them in an appropriate way.

Best book ever to help deeply and slowly ,how to understand why pwople take advantadge of you.Suzan Forward is to me the best to make you understand your problems.

Really interesting. Insightful and informative. The author obviously had some first hand experience which she imparted very well. I would recommend this book for someone who is struggling to understand the situation that they are in or for someone trying to recover from and emotional bashing.