GoodPersonEffed
Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
- Jan 11, 2020
- 6,726
These are notes I took from Dr. Les Carter's video on brainwashing tactics from his YouTube channel that focuses on empowering those who have come in contact with narcissistics. These are my notes, I usually add something if it connects with other things I've learned. In taking these notes, I realized that most everyone unwittingly employs some manipulative techniques; brainwashing is a concerted effort with use of multiple techniques to control another person. It's not just a little aggression, it's a lot.
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Brainwashing tactics reveal how a controlling person wants to undermine your confidence in who you are in order to think for you and take over for you. They may have a personality such as a narcissist's, antisocial/sociopath's.
Brainwashing goals: reduce your ability to think independently; filter your thoughts, opnions, beliefs and values through them; force conformity; keep them in a superior position and you in an inferior and lower position; be what and who they want you to be.
Brainwashing tactics
1. Remove you from influential people.
- Sometimes forced isolation.
- Want you to need them, not others, and not rely on them to help you think and interpret for yourself.
2. Set themselves up as the ideal person.
- They know the most, are the most reliable, etc.
- "The people who helped me are the best, I'm the best, when I wasn't the best I did the most increidble job of overcoming like no one else possibly could" - they speak of themselves, their efforts and influences in superlatives and idealized terms, such that "you can't possibly question me."
3. Minimize your positive.
- There's something wrong with your friends, family, skills, abilities, talents, strengths, beliefs, values, accomplishements, goals, resources, etc.
4. They have to be the final authority.
- Have to be right about you, your thoughts, opinions, values, etc.
- "That's your opinion, let me tell you how it really is."
- Give intrusive, unsoliticited advice.
- Explain you to yourself, explain others to you - experiences, motivations, beliefs, opinions, etc., with no room for other possible explanations.
5. Speak with persuasion or promise.
- "I can promise you, if you do this, ______ will happen, so you just need to listen to me."
- "I'll take care of you if ______, and things will be better if you let me do that."
6. Focus on your mistakes and miscalculations, and use shame and invalidation.
-- "I'm just speaking truth. There's so much about you that needs correcting, I just don't know what we're going to do with you."
7. Ongoing and relentless expression of their own supremacy and confidence.
- "Now do you see why I told you this?"
- "Did you notice the way I handled that?"
- "Most people wouldn't do it like that."
- Supreme sense of confidence.
- If criticized or caught - "You're just not interpreting things right, I really know what I'm doing."
8. Ongoing nitpicking about small things.
- Causes self-questioning, erodes self-confidence.
9. Will try to keep you in a perpetual state of fear.
10. Establishes standards for you that they don't live up to themselves.
Self-help
- Filter things through yourself, not the controlling person's (or anyone else's) opinions, beliefs, or preferences. Filter through your values, sense of self, experiences, etc.
- I don't take my cues from you, I take them from me. (Filter through yourself, reject what is not of value, keep what is of value.)
- I'm going to let my good character speak for itself.
- Use assertiveness when appropriate - this is what works for me, this is what doesn't.
- Break the cycle. Anchor down in your own life and how you choose to be. Don't anchor down in them.
_______________________
Brainwashing tactics reveal how a controlling person wants to undermine your confidence in who you are in order to think for you and take over for you. They may have a personality such as a narcissist's, antisocial/sociopath's.
Brainwashing goals: reduce your ability to think independently; filter your thoughts, opnions, beliefs and values through them; force conformity; keep them in a superior position and you in an inferior and lower position; be what and who they want you to be.
Brainwashing tactics
1. Remove you from influential people.
- Sometimes forced isolation.
- Want you to need them, not others, and not rely on them to help you think and interpret for yourself.
2. Set themselves up as the ideal person.
- They know the most, are the most reliable, etc.
- "The people who helped me are the best, I'm the best, when I wasn't the best I did the most increidble job of overcoming like no one else possibly could" - they speak of themselves, their efforts and influences in superlatives and idealized terms, such that "you can't possibly question me."
3. Minimize your positive.
- There's something wrong with your friends, family, skills, abilities, talents, strengths, beliefs, values, accomplishements, goals, resources, etc.
4. They have to be the final authority.
- Have to be right about you, your thoughts, opinions, values, etc.
- "That's your opinion, let me tell you how it really is."
- Give intrusive, unsoliticited advice.
- Explain you to yourself, explain others to you - experiences, motivations, beliefs, opinions, etc., with no room for other possible explanations.
5. Speak with persuasion or promise.
- "I can promise you, if you do this, ______ will happen, so you just need to listen to me."
- "I'll take care of you if ______, and things will be better if you let me do that."
6. Focus on your mistakes and miscalculations, and use shame and invalidation.
-- "I'm just speaking truth. There's so much about you that needs correcting, I just don't know what we're going to do with you."
7. Ongoing and relentless expression of their own supremacy and confidence.
- "Now do you see why I told you this?"
- "Did you notice the way I handled that?"
- "Most people wouldn't do it like that."
- Supreme sense of confidence.
- If criticized or caught - "You're just not interpreting things right, I really know what I'm doing."
8. Ongoing nitpicking about small things.
- Causes self-questioning, erodes self-confidence.
9. Will try to keep you in a perpetual state of fear.
10. Establishes standards for you that they don't live up to themselves.
Self-help
- Filter things through yourself, not the controlling person's (or anyone else's) opinions, beliefs, or preferences. Filter through your values, sense of self, experiences, etc.
- I don't take my cues from you, I take them from me. (Filter through yourself, reject what is not of value, keep what is of value.)
- I'm going to let my good character speak for itself.
- Use assertiveness when appropriate - this is what works for me, this is what doesn't.
- Break the cycle. Anchor down in your own life and how you choose to be. Don't anchor down in them.
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