Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2005, at 19:35:20
In reply to Re: Understanding others » Deneb, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2005, at 19:26:12
'Manipulative'
That is a hard one...
What does it mean???
I remember reading all the old literature about how people with borderline personality disorder were supposed to be 'manipulative' and 'attention seeking'.I was horrified. I started to think that maybe I'd be best to kill myself after all. I mean, if I really was like that... But I couldn't do it so I shut myself away from the world instead. I didn't think I deserved to be around people if I was like that. I didnt' think I was like that. But then I worried that maybe I was just in denial... All it did was confirm my worst fears about my ultimately being unacceptable to others.
Linehan critiques these judgements.
When somebody says 'you are manipulative' what they really should say is 'I feel manipulated'. And what do they mean by that????
Emotions can be catchy. Especially is someone is in intense distress. The people around them start to pick up on that feeling too... And it is about ones communication style too.
I remember when I had just started doing DBT and had just returned to uni part time. I was doing this paper on philosophy of language and we were looking at models of communication.
We were looking at the notion of 'uptake' and about how someone expresses their ideas / thoughts / feelings or whatever and the purpose is to INFORM the listener. To INFORM the listener.
Little lights went off for me...
I thought communication was about successfully instilling my thought / feeling (especially) in another person. Because that needed to be done so that they could UNDERSTAND me.And I think it is the latter that people tend to feel manipulated by...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:525223
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050628/msgs/525904.html