Customer Reviews

Emotional Blackmail

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My psychologist recommended this book to me. While carefully going through it several things became clear. This book enabled me to leave my controlling and emotional abusive husband. It also gave me the tools needed to effectively deal with my mother. If you're ready for change then you're ready for this book. It remains one of the most useful books I have ever read. I highly recommend it.

For years I was satisfied just reading about other's experiences, not wanting to believe that my own were as bad. If you read books like "A Child Called It" or the bestseller "The Bark of the Dogwood," then you know what I'm talking about. But when I finally came around and admitted what I had been through, this was the book I sought out. This book allowed me to see that I can have control over my life. I had been pulled into some very difficult situations with my parents, and Dr. Forward allowed me to see that this didn't have to be the case anymore. Some of her techniques, such as non-defensive communication, were very difficult to put into practice. Something that was particularly important for me personally in the book was the part at the end where she talks about not emotionally blackmailing *yourself*! What an insight! It is impossible for an author to address every specific detail of every reader's personal situation. But this is as close as you can get. Forward gives stories and testimonials of people she has worked with who have used her techniques with success. Unlike other authors that do this, however, Forward does not simply apply the techniques to those situations and expect that you'll be able to apply it to a scenario of your own. She separates the stories from the guidelines. She provides some fantastic exercises for further clarity of the techniques she describes.

I'm currently looking for the address of the authors to personally thank them for letting me know I'm NOT crazy. What's so scary to me is that there are so MANY of these people running around! But there is help and it comes in the form of this book. For years I'd hear rude comments and social faux pas directed my way and respond with what I thought to be a healthy "I don't appreciate that," only to have the supposedly witty comback thrown into my face, "You're just overly sensitive." And I believed it for years! Emotional blackmail is so strong in our society because it plays on the very FOUNDATIONS of our society: the belief that we're supposed to be good and nice and helpful. Well, we are suppposed to be those things, but more than a few toxic people have figured this formula out and turned it against us. The end result is that the "nice" people end up looking bad. Want to stop this behavior? Then buy this book. Highly recommended for those who only "thought" they were going crazy. Would also recommend another great book (fiction, not self-help) dealing with all kinds of manipulative people titled THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD by Jackson McCrae. If you like books such as A CHILD CALLED IT and SYBIL, you'll enjoy (in a round about way) this one.

This is a well written and well thought out book on dealing with manipulative people. Most people are going to find this to be very helpful.

I am looking for advise on dealing with a well practiced manipulator who lies and uses multiple techniques of control. This book simply did not give me enough information to deal with an extremely practiced manipulator.

As another reviewer has said this book assumes your manipulator will listen when you try to talk to them calmly. And for the majority of manipulators these techniques will work.

If you are dealing with a person who controls everything you do, every morsel you eat and and pretends you are a child so they have to make all your descisions to protect you, this book will not be much help.

We've all done it -- gotten pressured into situations which compromise our value systems, given in to the unreasonable demands of bosses, spouses, friends or relatives. This book will show you how it happens, and more importantly, how to stop giving in.

From her clinical experience, Forward shows us plenty of situations of what she has come to call "emotional blackmail" and many of these will probably mirror your own experience or that of someone close to you. Many times reading this book, I found myself shaking my head, trying to get rid of that nagging feeling that "I knew these people."

My only criticism of this book is that with few exceptions, blackmailers are described as such, and they can come across sounding like monsters. Forward spends a little time exploring their motivations and insecurities, and she does point out that often we can turn into blackmailers ourselves, but perhaps not enough.

By and large, she speaks only to "blackmailees," and this book certainly makes them feel good about themselves, perhaps at the cost of dehumanizing the blackmailer.

As long as you can keep in mind, though, that this book aims to build constructive dialogue and not to destroy your connection with the blackmailers in your life, it is a most valuable tool to reasserting your own needs in any relationship.

Although I found this book to contain some very good information, I believe it is somewhat leading.

Almost everyone could fall into the category of being an emotional blackmailer or being the victim of such a person. In reading the material, search for the truth and not for identification. The author makes the point that, though blackmailers actually want to hold onto their victims, they attempt to devalue them, using information their targets willingly supply. At what point in the victim's life did he or she become vulnerable to being blackmailed? How did he or she become helpless against the people who use fear, obligation and guilt to manipulate them? The author shows how a process of change will enable victims to answer these questions and break free of the cycle. The ultimate goal is to learn to say, "no" without feeling guilty.

This book is only a first step in a long journey. It told me that I should not assume something about others until I get to know myself. Before saying "no," I have to want to say, "no."

I recently read this book because my ex-wife had read it before our divorce and accused me of emotional blackmail. In fact, I discovered that I was the victim of emotional blackmail not her. In spite of many years of attempting to please her, she was the demanding and manipulative one. It identified many problems in her relationship with me. This is a great book for men in relationships with controlling and unappreciative women.

I have done a pretty thorough reading of books dealing with control, cults, emotional abuse, etc. I feel like I could write a thesis on this stuff by now. This was the best all around. I am a third party observing a loved one in a controlling relationship. There isn't a book out there that really addresses my situation, but I have gleaned wisdom from many. What I love about this book is that it gives very concrete strategies for dealing with controlling people. The strategies are very well laid out, lots of examples of phrases that neutralize the offender. As a therapist, she also addresses the discomfort many of us would likely encounter when trying to put these strategies into practice. In addition to the concrete information on strategies, she describes why it might be hard to recognize that you are in an unhealthy controlling situation and how to know for sure. She helps clarify the personal damage victims of control sustain. I have become much more aware of people in my life that may be using unhealthy methods of control and have used the advice to stop, think and strategize to help me. It even helped me become a little wiser to ploys of friends of my kids. This book shows us how to resolve unhealthy control without necessarily having to end the relationship. With these techniques everyone might just come out a winner.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone seeking to find help with mood disorders, any type of addiction, identity issues, self-esteem issues, reoccurring unresolved anger and troubling relationship, boundary and trust issues.

Excellent compliments to this book are: Why Is It Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism by Sandy Hotchkiss and James Masterson; The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert Pressman; Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man by Scott Wetzler; The Angry Heart: Overcoming Borderline and Addictive Disorders by Joseph Santoro and Ronald Cohen; Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable and Volatile Relationship by Christine Ann Lawson; Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents by Nina Brown; Treating Attachment Disorders: From Theory to Therapy by Karl Heinz Brisch and Kenneth Kronenberg; Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job by Alan Cavaiola and Neil Lavender; ; Bully in Sight: How to Predict, Resist, Challenge and Combat Workplace Bullies by Tim Field.

And if you want to pursue the subject even further, you may be interested in reading The Narcissistic / Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective On Marital Treatment; Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood by Julie Gregory and Marc Feldman; Whatever Mother Says: An Incredible True Story of Death and Destruction Inside One Ordinary Family by Wensley Clarkson; Twisted Roots of Evil by Susan Kesegich; Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility by Jim Fay and Foster Cline.

This book describes insightfully the danse macabre that is the abuser-victim dyad. Self-flagellation is a characteristic of those who choose to live with a narcissist (and a choice it is). Constant guilt feelings, self-reproach, self-recrimination and, thus - self-punishment typify the relationships formed between the sadist-narcissist and the masochistic-dependent mate or partner.

The narcissist projects his inner turmoil and drags everyone around him into a swirl of bitterness, suspiciousness, meanness, aggression and pettiness. His life is a reflection of his psychological landscape: barren, paranoiac, tormented, guilt ridden. He feels compelled to do unto others what he perpetrates unto himself. He gradually transforms all around him into replicas of his conflictive, punishing personality structures.

Some narcissists are more subtle than others. They disguise their sadism. For instance, they "educate" their nearest and dearest (for their sake, as they present it). This "education" is compulsive, obsessive, incessantly, harshly and unduly critical. Its effect is to erode the subject, to humiliate, to create dependence, to intimidate, to restrain, to control, to paralyse.

The narcissist deliberately confuses responsibility with guilt and demands compensation for his or her "sacrifices". By provoking guilt in responsibility-laden situations, the narcissist transforms life with him into a constant trial.

The narcissist-victim dyad is a conspiracy, a collusion of victim and mental tormentor, a collaboration of two needy people who find solace and supply in each other's deviations. Only by breaking loose, by aborting the game, by ignoring the rules - can the victim be transformed (and by the way, acquire the newly found appreciation of the narcissist).

The narcissist's partner should not feel guilty or responsible and should not seek to change what only time (not even therapy) and (difficult) circumstances may change. She should not strive to please and to appease, to be and not to be, to barely survive as a superposition of pain and fear. Releasing herself from the chains of guilt and from the throes of a debilitating relationship - is the best help that a loving mate can provide to her ailing narcissistic partner. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".