Blackmail And Coercion: Two Enemies Of Healthy Relationships
Unfortunately, human relationships are riddled with manipulations . Most of them occur unconsciously. We learn them without realizing it and we reproduce them in the same way. Two of those manipulative mechanisms, which severely damage personal ties, are blackmail and coercion.
Manipulation, in psychological terms, is defined as a mechanism through which one person gets another to say or do something, using traps, tricks or deceptions. Identify situations in which others are used, or become an instrument for the achievement of a personal goal. On many occasions it is deliberately manipulated, such as when a politician falsifies his purposes so that they vote for him. In others, especially in private life, the manipulation is semi-conscious or unconscious.
How do you exert blackmail or coercion without realizing it? When you take a victim position , for example. Thus you get the other to act based on guilt and not on their free conscience. It also occurs when you devalue someone so that they continue to depend on you. Or when you take advantage of the weakness of the other to put them at your service in some way.
Psychological blackmail: an emotional drag
Psychological or emotional blackmail is a form of manipulation and, therefore, a violent act. It is implemented to achieve control over the behavior of another person and also over their feelings. Like all blackmail, it involves a scheme in which the other is dissuaded from doing or not doing something, based on a negative consequence. It’s something like “Do it, but you will suffer for it,” or “Don’t do it, but the consequence can be disastrous.”
Psychological blackmail prevents a person from acting autonomously and freely. The blackmailer takes care of that. He will put very much in mind everything that will cause the other to assume or not a certain behavior. He wants his victim to act as he wants, not as the other’s personal convictions dictate.
There are two pillars on which most emotional blackmail rests. One is guilt and the other is insecurity. It is intended to make the other believe that their actions or free decisions are, in reality, proof of their evil. Or they will cause serious harm. This is how the others behave as the blackmailer wants. “Go to your party … One day I will no longer be in this world and there you will regret not having spent more time with me.”
Insecurity is a trait that makes anyone quite manipulable. It is enough for the blackmailer to emphasize the errors, defects or risks that the other runs, for the latter to act like a meek little lamb. “When you realize that you have no idea about it, you look for me and I help you solve it.”
Coercion, between the crude and the subtle
In coercion, not only are methods implemented for a person to do what another wants, but in this case, they seek to do something that goes against what they want. Coercion involves more violent behavior than blackmail, although it also has subtle facets. In any case, coercion implies a relationship of power and abuse.
In coercion there are direct or veiled threats. He uses the fear of others, or his condition of vulnerability in the face of something. It is frequently used by power figures to manage those within their sphere of influence. In this case, the victim is aware that he is being manipulated, but feels prevented from reacting. It may be because the other is stronger and threatens physical violence, or because they have higher status and can cause serious harm.
While in affective blackmail the usual thing is that the person exercising it is someone loved, in coercion it is not necessarily so. It comes not so much from a loved one, but from a being feared. The victim does not realize that he has the resources to resist this form of manipulation, but instead allows himself to be placed in the position of someone defenseless in the face of arbitrariness.
Both blackmail and coercion are true cancers of interpersonal relationships. The only thing they do is falsify feelings or nullify people. The perpetrator may get away with it temporarily, but sooner or later he will be subject to the boomerang effect. Manipulators often end up caught in their own web.
Images courtesy of Benjamin Lacombe.
