Dark Psychology
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There are many different psychological mechanisms that are present in society on a daily basis. These mechanism utilize a person's fears and their ability to interpret messages that their aggressor wishes for them to have. Everywhere from the office to the club, to your very own home, you are subjected to various forms of manipulation from people.
Manipulation has a bad rap. People believe that manipulation is a bad thing because of how it makes them feel when they find out that they have been manipulated. People get upset because it makes them feel like a lesser person, like they have been victimized in some way, and often like they are not intelligent.
Manipulation can be used for good purposes however. In the case of a newborn baby the very first thing it learns how to do in order to survive is to cry. By crying they trigger their mother to come and take care of their needs. They learn this extremely quick and it is a normal behavior but it is manipulation. One can say that we're specifically designed to manipulate one another as it is a necessary biproduct of communication.
It's the dark manipulation that is the bad manifestation. This manipulation is the kind that one person uses to gain leverage over another person. Basically one person's gain comes at another person's misfortunes. This type of manipulation is the kind that truly gives the term a bad name but the reality is manipulation is part of all of our lives every single day.
Manipulation used in Dark Psychology will be insidious.
Aggressors will target an individual with very subtle communication. It will be in the form of an innocuous message that makes sense to the target specifically because they have the context of the message. They understand the subtext that is invisible to anyone else. To everyone else it will be completely invisible, but to the target where they are fully aware of the background it is actually a very threatening and scary message.
For instance. A psychopath makes friends with a guy and they seem to get along pretty well. They begin sharing stories and in a short time quite a few details were shared. It came out that the guy knew this other woman who the psychopath used to date. The guy was neighbors with this woman so he seen her every day.
Ben we'll call him. Ben would see his neighbor Jan every day before and after work. He would talk to her for 5 or 10 minutes each time and they knew each other fairly well. The psychopath Rick, began telling Ben some old stories because as it turned out Jan and Rick used to day. Rick tells Ben how he loved Jan so much and he wanted to be with her forever. She was the only woman that he ever loved and if she asked for it he'd do anything she needed = all she had to do was ask. Rick asked Ben to give her that message..
So Ben spoke to Jan that night and said that he ran into Rick and he said that if she ever needed anything that he would be at her disposal. Jan didn't event acknowledge the comment which Ben assumed it was because of the fight the two had had so he didn't push it.
Over the next 3 weeks every single day Rick sent Ben home with a new message. Every day Jan wouldn't acknowledge what he said and she'd talk to him as if he never said it. On the last day Ben delivered a message from Rick stating that he loved her and that he'd be there for all of time for her.
What Rick would find out months later is that Jan was abused by Rick quite horrifically, she was able to escape bearing with her life and after she had been beaten down by the psychopath long enough, she begged for him to stop. That day he said he would but she was never allowed to mention his name or say a word about him, good or bad, she cold never speak a word about him.
So, Rick making friends with Ben was because he found out the two were neighbors. He was sending those messages home every night with Ben who innocently delivered them and then waited to hear some response back. Every day Rick would ask what she said and Ben would report - nothing. A new message would be given.
Finally, that last message that Jan had received from Ben before she disappeared was the I love you message which when converted said - 'You are never going to escape me, I will always be watching you' Jan had disappeared that night for months before returning home.
Rick was using Ben to psychologically abuse Jan without his knowing. The attacks on Jan were horrifically covert and insidious.
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Another example of the strategies that a psychopath would use to covertly harass a target is to utilize subtle messaging that looks like nothing to everyone except for the target. For example:
