Coping with Control and Manipulation

Book excerpt: You can't always avoid becoming a manipulator's target, but you CAN avoid becoming a victim. This revealing book gives you the power to resist the people who want to control you. Who is pushing your buttons—and what can you do about it? Coping with Control and Manipulation: Making the Difference Between Being a Target and Becoming a Victim examines the various spheres in which people encounter control and manipulation and shows how avoiding such victimization is absolutely possible. Knowing the players, understanding what motivates them, identifying their goals, and learning the techniques they use can help potential victims avoid, or at least survive, control and manipulation attempts. In her comprehensive look at this potentially harmful human drive, clinical psychologist Vera Sonja Maass shows just how prevalent control and manipulation are. She examines manipulators' goals and techniques as they relate to personality structure and offers a "menu" of techniques commonly used to exercise control. Arming readers through an in-depth analysis of controllers' behaviors toward targeted persons, Dr. Maass enables such targets to predict future actions—and prepare responses that will prevent victimization.