A covertly, or passively, aggressive manipulator can be hard to handle for many reasons. They are great at using our own strengths against us. The lack of overt signs of aggression can cause confusion - our gut feel tells us something dodgy is going on, and yet our rational mind cannot perceive any tangible "evidence." This is one of the many ways a manipulator sows confusion within us, so they can better get their way. Another way is their amazing ability to say all the right things, while committing completely nefarious acts at the same time.
I recently realised I have been dealing with a covertly aggressive manipulator. With that awareness I read up on and synthesised a summary of the actions one could take against another's covert aggression/manipulation.
I thought about posting this for a couple of days. Part of me wanted to write it up more formally as a post. Another part of me just wanted to post the mind map and get on with other things. So here is an excerpt from my mind map. I hope you find it useful.
Click here to download the one-page PDF.
[On further reflection, these seem like generally useful communication tools anyway. And so should be quite safe to use. We can't hope to truly diagnose covert aggression in an everyday situation anyway. What do you think?]
Image: Annoyed woman via Shutterstock.
