Narcissists use two strategies, two behavioral patterns, in order to manipulate people to do their bidding.
They either please people, cater to their needs, act as best friends, loving, compassionate, empathic. It's all, of course, a fake, feigned simulation, but it's still people-pleasing behavior, emulates real people-pleases, or they terrorize people.
Today we're going to focus on people-pleasers.
Now just to make clear, the majority of people pleasers are not narcissists. They're not. And yet all people pleases, narcissists or not, are easy to manipulate. It's easy to get them to do what you want them to do.
It's not that they are gullible, it's not that they are pollyannaish, but they are driven. They're driven by the need to satisfy, gratify, and please others.
And so this is the topic of today's video.
Three steps to manipulate a people pleaser.
As evila title as I could come up with.
And apropos evil.
My name is Sam Vaknin, and I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited, the first book ever of narcissistic abuse, and a professor of clinical psychology, which pleases me no end.
Okay, Shoshanim, Shefanin, Shfanin, Kapzonim, etc., etc.
First, I advise you to realize that the video is divided in two parts.
The first part is a general introduction, and the second part I go much deeper into the psychology of people pleasers.
All in all, it's a pretty short video, by my standards, but still it would be perfectly okay if you were to watch only the first part. It's entirely up to you.
It's important to realize or to understand that people pleasing is a phenomenon that involves grandiosity and catastrophizing.
Why grandiosity?
People pleasers are submissive. People pleasers are meek, they're humble, they're modest, they're there to serve.
So why use the word grandiosity?
Because people pleasers make the assumption that other people are going to be devastated, that other people are going to be harmed, that the well-being of other people is going to be compromised if the people pleaser were to say no. If the people pleaser were to deny his or her services, something bad would happen to the recipients.
So there is this grandiosity, this hidden message or an assumption that you as a people pleaser, you hold the well-being, the internal regulation, the moods and the emotions of other people in your hands. You're in charge. You're in charge of other people being happy. You're in charge of other people's happiness.
Now that's as grandiose statement as I've ever heard.
And the people pleaser's message is, I am that important to other people's lives. I am that crucial to other people's well-being that I really must perform. I must do my bit. I must contribute. I must please.
So this is the grandiosity part.
The second part has to do with catastrophizing.
Again, there's an occult hidden message, hidden assumption.
And that is, the people pleaser tells himself or herself, if I were to say no, there would be disastrous consequences to me, especially emotionally, but maybe also in other ways, I may end up making enemies and there will be disastrous consequences to others who could have benefited from my actions, choices, and decisions.
So this assumption, this underlying assumption, that where the people pleasers cease to be a people pleaser, where the people pleaser stop pleasing other people, some disastrous, cataclysmic, apocalyptic consequences would follow.
This is of course catastrophizing, a cognitive distortion. Grandiosity is also a cognitive distortion.
So we can generalize and say that the people pleaser's mind is cognitively distorted. The reality testing of a people pleaser is all shot, impaired. He doesn't or she doesn't grasp reality appropriately.
The people pleaser grasps reality or perceived reality in a way that elevates the people pleaser into a position of power on the one hand and by doing so renders the people pleaser responsible for other people's happiness, other people's well-being, other people's gratification, and other people's accomplishments.
This is where the people-pleaser positions himself or herself.
It's a choice, actually. It's a choice that's emotionally gratifying, anxiety reducing, and self-aggrandizing.
There are automatic thoughts at the core of the people-pleaser. People-pleasing involves what is known in cognitive behavior therapy as are ants, automatic thoughts, not necessarily negative.
Most people pleasers have been parentified as children. When they were young, they were forced to act in the role of a parent, even to their own parents. They fathered the father, they mothered the mother. They were the adults in the room as children. They were never allowed to experience childhood. They were never inducted into a trajectory of healthy self-growth and self-development.
They were playing a role from the very inception of life.
People pleasing therefore is a role playing thing, has to do with role playing and role theory.
But these automatic thoughts which are at the core of people pleasing, especially among parentifying children, are the following.
Number one, my happiness is always at someone else's expense. It's a zero-sum game. If I'm happy, that's because I've made someone else unhappy. Or it's because I could have made someone else happy and did not.
Number two, I have to earn my happiness. I don't deserve it. I have to work hard. I have to justify any gratification, any gift, any receiving, whenever I take something, whenever I seek to be happy or content, I have to work hard to justify this. I don't deserve this automatically.
It's because maybe I'm not lovable, or maybe because I'm a failure making other people happy, or maybe because my destiny and my mission in life is to make other people happy. Or maybe because my destiny and my mission in life is to make other people happy and any minute that I spend on myself is a dereliction of duty.
Whatever the reason may be, there is this self-perception that happiness is not out there for the taking, but has to be somehow gained, somehow earned.
Number three, I have to somehow bribe people to stay with me, collaborate with me, help me, and tolerate me.
Because I'm not lovable, or because I'm a freak or because I'm a difficult person or because I'm unique, even positivelyunique, but in any case, I'm an exception. I'm an outlier and therefore I should be treated as an outcast.
And so when people agreed to be with me, spend time with me, when they agree to socialize me, let alone become friends or in a couple, when they agreed to work with me, help me, I should be grateful. I should be grateful and I should demonstrate my gratitude by giving them something. It could be something tangible, a material possession, it could be my time, it could be my resources and energy, it could be something self-sacrificial, denying myself happiness and gratification in order to bring it on in the people who share my life.
I am a bad object, says the people pleaser. I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable, I'm crazy, I'm inadequate, I'm a failure, I'm hopeless, I'm irredeemable, and so on so forth.
Number four, I need to compromise on my boundaries and rights owing to all the above because I'm such a difficult person to be with, because the experience of being with me, the experience of helping me, the experience of loving me, is so onerous and so unrewarding, I have to give up on my boundaries. I have to compromise on my rights. I have to give up on my boundaries. I have to compromise on my rights. I have to be easygoing. I have to accept. I have to be submissive.
Why all that? In order to somehow mitigate the difficulty of being with me.
If I were to be unbounded, if I were to not insist on what's mine and what I'm owed, maybe this would allow people in my life to remain in my life and to not abandon me or reject me.
Now, having taken all this in mind, you could see how easy it is to manipulate people pleasers.
The main motivation of a people pleaser would be to please you, of course.
So here are the three steps to manipulating people pleasers.
All you have to do is this.
Number one, communicate your expectations either overtly, explicitly and verbally, or behaviorally with body language, micro expressions, and so on.
Either way, make clear and make sure that the people pleaser has understood what is expected of him or her.
Your expectations become the rule. Your expectations rule.
And so they must be gratified, they must be met, and they must be actualized.
Number two, communicate pleasure when your expectations are met.
But don't overdo it.
Always leave place for more. Render the process inexorable, unattainable.
Be pleased, demonstrate that you're happy and content and gratified, but do it in a way that sows doubt in the people pleaser's mind whether he or she have done enough for you.
Number three, communicate profound, unmitigated disappointment, even heartbreak when the people pleasers fails to meet your expectations.
Whenever there's a gap between what you wanted, what you have wanted the people pleaser to do, and what the people pleaser opted to do at the end, whenever there's such a gap, communicate to the people pleaser that you're so so devastated, you're so sad, you're so sorry, you're so angry, you're so heartbroken, even, that maybe, just maybe, you're on the verge of abandoning the people pleaser and rejecting the whole relationship.
Do these three things with the people pleaser, and you will have found a lifelong servant, not to say slave, catering permanently to all your needs selflessly, self-sacrificially, and without complaint. That is the formula part.
Now, on to the psychodynamics and psychology of people pleasers a little more in depth.
Yes, I'm alive. I survived the Trump video. You didn't get to me. You're going to make more videos.
My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited, the Bible of Narcissism, the book that coined all the language in use today. I'm also a professor of psychology.
Two days ago, I released a video about the way constructsreshape reality, reframe your memories in order to uphold, to buttress and to support a specific self-state, which is responsive to environmental cues.
Now this was a mouthful, so I'll remind you.
The environment sends you stimuli. The environment provides information and data.
A specific self-state is selected. The self-state activates a construct.
The construct interfaces with reality, gathers the information, filters it, reframes it in order to conform to the self-state, and then the construct also changes your memory. It kind of represses some memories, emphasizes other memories, creates a selective memory environment.
So it alters the perception of reality, it alters your memories, and then it induces in you behaviors that tend to uphold the self-state.
This is done via introjects.
The introjects are internal voices in your head that send out a stream of automatic thoughts.
The constructs activate, trigger specific introjects, then the automatic thoughts shape your behavior, and you create, in the environment, you create to generate specific outcomes. Your behavior has consequences.
And these outcomes or consequences tend to support, to uphold, to prove right the self-state and its associated constellation of constructs.
I recommend that you watch that video. There's a lot more there. It's a one-hour video, one of my shortest.
But many of you have written to me to ask, can you give me, can you give us an example? Can you give us an example of how this works in reality?
So today I'm going to do exactly this. You are warned.
Today I'm going to discuss how this mechanism works with people pleasers and with children, adults who had been parentified as children.
And so these people have specific automatic thoughts. These automatic thoughts are at the core of the identity of people pleases and formally parentified children.
What are these automatic thoughts?
Well, here they are.
Number one, my happiness is always at someone else's expense. I call it the zero-sum automatic thought.
If you are happy, someone else is unhappy. Your happiness is someone else's sacrifice. Your contentment, your joy, your cheer is someone else's distress or burden.
So there's a zero-sum game.
If you love people, if you like people, if you want to please people, if you feel that you are someone's mother or someone's daddy figure, you are going to withhold your happiness. You're going to suppress your joy and cheer and contentment in order not to inflict undue burdens, sacrifices and unhappiness on your nearest and dearest.
That is automatic thought number one, and it comes from an introject or a group of interjects, possibly for example a harsh critical mother or a withholding absent mother or a selfish, essentially dead mother, mentally.
The second automatic thought at the core of people pleasing and formally parentified children is, I have to earn my happiness. I don't deserve happiness. I have to work hard for it. I have to justify it. I have to demonstrate that happiness is due, is my due.
Happiness is not an ambient thing. Happiness is not something that everyone around me should strive to provide me for. Happiness is not something I should pursue, because if I pursue happiness, it is someone else's expense. Happiness is hard work.
So these people identify happiness with tasks, with assignments, with labor. The more the busier they are, the more difficult life is, the more onerous the tasks, the more they have to do, the happier they feel.
Because surely having invested so much work, happiness is coming to me.
So these people would tend to become, for example, workaholics. They would tend to develop addictions, a variety of addictions.
Addiction is perceived by the addict as work. You ask any junkie, and he will tell you how much work there is in securing the drug and then using the drug and so forth.
Addiction involves ceremonies, routines. Addiction creates a social circle around the addict.
So addiction is an organizing principle, a life structuring affirmation.
And these people, people pleases, formally parentified children, they tend to become addicts because the addiction is perceived as labor, hard labor, and toil is the prerequisite and the antecedent of happiness. There's no happiness without toil.
It's a little like in the Bible. You know, when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, God promised them a life of toil, compensated for by giving birth to children.
Okay, happiness, including childbearing and child rearing, you have to work for it. You have to earn it and deserve it.
Number three, automatic thought, number three.
Somehow I have to bribe people. I have to bribe people around me. I have to somehow corrupt them by offering them something. I have to compensate them for being with me. I have to bribe people to stay with me. I have to bribe people to collaborate with me. I have to co-opt people to help me. I have to make sure that people tolerate me because they give them something in return.
And I need to do all this because I'm a bad object. I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable, I'm crazy, I'm inadequate, I'm dissolute, I'm hopeless, and so on and so forth.
I am such a bad deal, I'm such a delinquent proposition that for people to have anything to do with me, they somehow must be given something in return, must be compensated.
So this is the third automatic negative thought.
And the fourth automatic thought is I need to compromise. Life is a compromise. I need to compromise on my boundaries. I need to give up my rights. I need to do all this because of the previous three automatic thoughts.
I'm unworthy. My happiness is always at the expense of someone and I have to earn my happiness.
So I need to give up on boundaries, on rights, on demands, on expectations. I can't force myself on the environment. I need to minimize myself. I need to minimize myself to the point of vanishing. I need to be an apparition. I need to become a function. I can't be a full-fledged human being.
Because if I have a full-fledged human being, this in itself is a burden on other people. This in itself requires an exertion of other people just to accept me. I'm inexorable. I'm a plague and a devastation. I need to keep myself hidden, occult in a way.
These are the automatic thoughts at the core of people pleasing, at the core of formerly parentified children.
And these automatic thoughts pervade all areas of life, all types of functioning, all acts, all decisions and choices, all cognitions, and all emotions.
In sex, for example, someone with this mindset would allow her partner to do anything to her. Even a casual partner, even a total stranger. She would have no boundaries. She would let him anything, do anything he pleases. She would not dare say no.
Because in her mind, she has no right to say no. If she were to say no, she would make the partner angry justifiably. She would deserve punishment because she is a bad object.
So she would succumb to unwanted sex with an undesirable partner because that's just the way it is. She doesn't deserve any better. She has no rights. She doesn't have even the right to impose a boundary. It's nice of him to just be with her and give her some attention.
And this is in sex.
In the family, such a person would be a doormat. She would cater to the needs of others to the point of self-depletion and utter exhaustion. She would sacrifice her health, physical and mental, just to guaranteeharmony, consensus.
These people are conflict-averse.
These automatic thoughts are co-opted by the constructs.
The constructs within these people, the construct inherent in these people, they activate, they trigger specific introjects.
For example, the harsh mummy intro introject or the rejecting absent daddy introject or the critical teacher introject. So the constructs in these people, constructs within these people, they would trigger specific introjects and these introjects will spew out, will generate the aforementioned four automatic thoughts.
So the constructs activate the introjects. The introjects begin to generate automatic thoughts.
Your happiness is someone else's expense. You have to earn your happiness. You don't deserve it. You have to bribe people to stay with you, collaborate with you, help you or tolerate you, and you need to compromise on your boundaries and rights.
These are the automatic thoughts. The constructs latch onto these automatic thoughts, appropriate them, snatch them, and they use them to manipulate the environment, the behavior.
I'm sorry, they use these automatic thoughts generated by the introjects. The constructs use them to manipulate or affectbehaviors of the people pleaser and the formally parentified child.
People pleasing and formally parentified child, these are the self-states. So the people pleaser has a people pleasing self-state, which then uses a group of constructs, which then activate specific introjects, which then generate the automatic thoughts, which then affect the behaviors of the people pleaser and the formerly parentified child.
I hope it's a bit clearer now. You can apply it to every situation and every person you've ever met.
This is a universal model. A self-state responsive to the environment. Self-state responsive to circumstances, self-state responsive to circumstances, self-state responsive to other people.
This self-state selects constructs. Constructs are ways of organizing the world. Constructs are ways of imbuing the world with sense and meaning, interpreting the world, explaining what's happening.
So the constructs falsify memory, reframe memory, and they also suppress lots of information. Information that conflicts with the self-state, challenges the self-state, will be filtered out. The construct is like a membrane.
And then these constructs would affect your behavior, affect the behavior of these people, to conform to the self-state. They do this by activating introjects and flooding the subject, flooding the person with automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts affect behavior, behavior affects reality, reality conforms to the self-state, everyone is happy, there's no dissonance, no conflict, no anxiety.
This is how things work.
So next time you come across a people pleaser, next time you come across a promiscuous person who can't say no, next time you come across someone who has been parentified as a child and insists on being your mother or your father, because that's the only thing they know how to do.
Next time you come across these people, realize that these are self-states. They have other self-states.
When they are in the people pleasing self-state, the promiscuous never say no self-state, the parentifying self-state, when they are in these self-states, they have specific constructs inside, that activate specific introjects, that flood them with automatic thoughts that they cannot resist.
These automatic thoughts are like programming, like algorithms.
At that moment the self-state takes over and the person becomes a puppet, a machine, a robot, a computer.
We spend most of our lives in this automatic state, which is why many philosophers and psychologists and neuroscientists doubt the existence of free will.
I have a video dedicated to this, be forgiving, because people know not what they are doing.