By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
Dr. George K. Simon, Jr., Ph.D. received his degree in clinical psychology from Texas Tech University and has studied and worked with manipulators and their victims for many years. Dr. Simon has taught over 250 workshops on the subject of dealing with manipulative people. In 1996, he published In Sheep’s Clothing—Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People. This book is in its ninth printing.
The book is divided into two principle parts. Part I is “Understanding Manipulative Personalities” and Part II is “Dealing Effectively with Manipulative People.”
Two Important Types of Aggression
Dr. Simon describes two types of aggression:
Two of the fundamental types of aggression ”¦ are overt and covert aggression. When you’re determined to have your way or gain advantage and you’re open, direct, and obvious in your manner of fighting, your behavior is best labeled overtly aggressive. When you’re out to “win,” get your way, dominate, or control, but are subtle, underhanded, or deceptive enough to hide your true intentions, your behavior is most appropriately labeled covertly aggressive. Concealing overt displays of aggression while simultaneously intimidating others into backing off, backing down, or giving in is a very powerful manipulative maneuver. That’s why covert aggression is most often the vehicle for interpersonal manipulation.
Though Dr. Simon doesn’t call the “manipulative” people he describes psychopaths, he seems to completely understand the manipulation techniques of psychopaths as we know them.
The tactics that manipulators frequently use are powerful deception techniques that make it hard to recognize them as clever ploys. They can make it seem like the person using them is hurting, caring, defending, or almost anything but fighting for advantage over us. Their explanations always make just enough sense to make another doubt his or her gut hunch that they’re being taken advantage of.
Therapists whose training overly indoctrinated them in the theory of neurosis, may “frame” the problems presented to them incorrectly ”¦ In other words, they will view a hardened, abusive fighter as a terrified runner, thus misperceiving the core reality of the situation.
Though Dr. Simon calls what we might term a psychopath an aggressive personality (overtly aggressive or covertly aggressive), he sums up both types of aggressive person as “Their main objective in life is ”˜winning’ and they pursue this objective with considerable passion. They forcefully strive to overcome, crush, or remove any barriers to what they want.”
In Part II of the book, Dealing Effectively with Manipulative People, Dr. Simon gives some interesting and realistic ways to deal with the “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
There are several things a person must do to ensure that the frequent contests of life are played on a level field. To guard against victimization, you must be free of potentially harmful misconceptions about human nature and behavior; know how to correctly assess the character of others; have a high self-awareness, especially regarding those aspects of your own character that might increase your vulnerability to manipulation, recognize and correctly label the tactics of manipulation and respond to them appropriately; and avoid fighting losing battles.
The suggestions Dr. Simon makes in the remainder of the book are simple, easily understood and are designed to empower us. I highly recommend this book.
In Sheep’s Clothing—Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People is available on Amazon.com.
Gun toting angels you have!
NOT a bad thing!
Funny how the tables turn?!
You crack me up!!!
🙂
Dear Erin,
Sometimes I crack myself up!!! I get to laughing so hard I can’t breathe! We are the “one line comeback” champions (sometimes) and sometimes they are SO good that it chokes me. It was a long time that I couldn’t laugh and now I CAN so as long as I can laugh AT myself, as well as with others, I think I am doing pretty good.
Son D had an aunt by marriage who died today after a long illness with breast cancer so he’s a bit down today, we’re gonna go watch a DVD movie he wanted me to see. He is “educating” me about media—movies and music! Since I don’t watch much TV he keeps me in good movies and books and music….I’m pretty much at an age now when the guys are the “bosses” and I just take orders!
Do you all think these NPs have selective amnesia? I was thinkin of witsends son, and how like my Narcopath teenager was to him when she was his age.A few years ago, she looked at one of my paintings, on my wall at home. It is one of my best, its of a seagull, flying over dangerous jagged rocks, and an angry sea. I was offered A$1,000 for it, but wouldnt sell it. anyway, when D2 trashe my studio for the first time, she entirely painted over, with red acrylic paint, a large painting of winged horses which was actually sold, and waiting for the new owner to pick it up. Some of the red paint splashed onto the “Seagull” painting,and made a red, squigly pattern on the top right side of it. I decided to leave it thee, as a terrible reminder of what Narc. rage did to people. Anyway, this day, years later, she said,”Mum, how did that red paint get there?” “Darling ,I said,”It was an accident” Im convinced she had totally forgotten about the whole incident, but now Im not so sure. do you believe in selective amnesia? Like her “forgetting” that she almost killed me with that hot, heavy steam iron? Does “forgetting’ absolve them of all responsibility for a mean or destructive or dangerous act?
I was so “gaslighted” at the time, that I didnt know if I was sane or insane. GemXX
No, geminigirl, she didn’t forget, she was reminding you, so she could watch the anguish on your face again when you relived it. You answered correctly when you said, “darling…”
geminigirl, I actually have a thought about that. For a little while, my exS and I had the same therapist. The therapist crossed some ethical boundaries by telling me about therapy sessions that he had with my ex. He thought it was that important to get me to leave my exS and be safe. Anyway, he said that in their one-on-one sessions, things kept not adding up. He said my exS did a good job at acting perfect. Too perfect. My therapist said something didn’t “smell right”. He said one of his tip-offs was that my exS would play dumb all the time and say things like, “Oh. I don’t remember” and ask dumb questions when cornered. Our therpist had already observed his keen observational skills and intelligence, so he was confused, to say the least. He knew my exS had a PhD and was a research scientist. That’s when he asked my exS if he had seen therapists in the past. When he found out he had, he asked him if he had a psych file, which he did. The amazing part is that he faxed it to our therapist when asked to do so. I had already seen the psych file and had been totally clueless about what Anti-Social Personality Disorder even was. I din’t know it meant he was a Sociopath. I just thought it was what it sounded like, that he was Anti-Social. He played the shy/socially awkward bit well, so I thought that’s the way in which he was Anti-Social. I literally thought that his past psychologist diagnosed him as being shy. Thank god my therapist explained it to me and told me of the dangers. He told me to run and fast. I told him I was scared to do so because I was pregnant and because I had just relocated to live with my ex and gave him all of my money that I didn’t know how I would survive alone and pregnant. My therapist told me that he knew I would be fine, but if the worse case scenerio/fear I had came true and I ended up living on the street, in a cardboard box (thank goodness that never happened), that I would still be a million times better off than ever seeing this S again as long as I live. Anyway, it’s intersting that the tip-off was that he played dumb and acted like he forgot things all of the time. My exS tried this tactic when he called my family to make up horrible things about me, in an attempt to isolate me. My arrogant brother would take his calls, even though I begged him not to. He said that my exS was not as smart as I thought he was and that he acted dumb and didn’t know what was going on. Little did he know that was his tactic. My exS was actually recording all of these conversations to email them to me to scare me. He was also digging for information to use against me in court, for our divorce. So, geminigirl, I think you are wise to wonder if she really did have selective amnesia. I think she might have a similar tactic to my exS. Thier memories are actually really keen. I’m sorry this is hard to read because it’s in one lump paragraph. My return key isn’t working on my computer for some reason.
By the way, I’m not complaining that my therapist crossed these legal, ethical boundaries. I’m grateful that he felt it was more ethical to help me. He helped save my life. For that I am certain.
Hmmm, selective amnesia, yes probably. But I also think they genuinely don’t remember. The fact thay they have no empathy means that they can do reprehensable thing, that might devistate you or me, but it wasn’t really all that important to them. It didn’t have any real emotional value to them. Know what I mean?
Jillsmith wrote: “Now I know that just because someone is shy and quiet, it does not always mean that they are extremely kind. I don’t know why I used to think they were. I wonder where I got that theory into my head.
The weird thing is that after we were married, he showed this other cool-as-a-cucumber, mean, “confident” side”
Jill that’s my ex to a ‘t’ I had fallen into the trap of thinking that a shy quiet man who had been so cruelly rejected by other women in his life could never be anything but kind to me and so I allowed myself to fall in love with him. And yes as time went on he changed as you describe. As his life improved from being with me (he got a job) he became cold, confident and took me for granted. He became someone else? Well, just the person he had been all along.
Simultaneously my life grew worse as his got better – I had a job when I met him, left not long after that because of a toxic working environment and would have left anway had I met him or not, but I’d have gotten my life back on track a whole lot quicker had he not wasted my time & emotions with a relationship that was going nowhere. By the time we split I felt the life had been sucked out of me while he was the one going places. I am less healthy physically and emotionally, even more overweight, worse off financially and frightened for my future since before I met him.
He has apparently just gained a postgraduate qualification a year after our split, something he had been working on while we were still together and I put my own emotional needs aside a great deal to give him the space he needed to study. Because I thought we had a future you see. All along though he was slowly working his way out, lifting himself up and pushing me down. And now? He is the one with a well paying job and prospects while I am still on welfare, my confidence in people shattered because of the way he discarded me at the end. I was on the mend and could see myself working again by the end of the year we split up but after the way he discarded me in true S/P/N style, I was set right back and am only just beginning to come back now.
I totally relate to the personality change in them! They definitely suck the life out of us – I feel physically drained even now. They take something away, some part of us is killed by them and it takes a while to bring it back to life. xxx
Jillsmith wrote: “For a little while, my exS and I had the same therapist”
Oh my god Jill I just saw this!! Yes me and my ex had the same work counsellor for a short while too and I remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable about it wondering what he was telling her and if it would affect how the counsellor saw me.
Similarities are striking lol, but I do think that S/P/Ns are very predictable – they are all the same toa great extent once we know what to look for! xx
Thanks all of you for your feed back on all this. I still have trouble getting my head around the fact that they,{the sociopaths, in this case my daughters} never, ever feel bad, guilty, remorseful, sorry for what they have done. They seem to feel totally justified in their horrible, destructive behaviour! What got me was the extreme level of malignant HATE I saw in her eyes! Like she really hated me, and wished me dead!
Aparently the reason she totally wrecked my art studio was that Id torn up one of her “kiss” posters,{the one with the horrible black eye make up and the forked tongue}, so that justified destroying all my art books,all my paintings,painting”F—–ng B–tch in huge, black letters,’ over an 8 foot panel of a commissioned painting of the Resurrected Christ. I never did finish it, as the energy on it was so toxic after she graffitid it.I believe I still have some love left for my girls, but Ill never ever trust the older one ever again. She is a total phoney. Geminigirl.