| Are you entangled in difficult relationships or painful emotions? Do you suffer from old trauma? Do you suffer from your parents' drama, your partner's demands, your boss's moods? Soulwork Systemic Solutions can help you untangle your life ... and you can help other people reclaim their freedom. Do people speak badly of you in front of others? Emotional blackmail is relationship abuse motivated by a desire to hurt. An emotional blackmailer may claim good intentions, and a victim may perceive the abuse as normal. Although abuse has strong consequences, Soulwork systemic coaching can dissolve most consequences of abuse. Emotional abuse includes excessive demands, punishment for normal behavior, discouraging expressions of attachment (love) or self-respect, and withholding affection or care. The damage caused by emotional abuse often manifests as dysfunctional relationship behavior. Emotional blackmail and emotional abuse are often expressions of codependence, where adults are entangled in victim games - displays of power and impotence - in which an observer or a player cannot ever be sure who is the real victim. Often, the real victims are their children. [ Mother-Son Codependence . Father-Daughter Bonds . Parental Alienation ] What is Emotional Blackmail? Emotional blackmail is an attempt to influence, manipulate or control you. Common ways are: - Domination - controlling your environment
- Intimidation - manipulating your guilt, fear, compassion and values
- Unreasonable demands - requirements that you cannot meet
- Unpredictable mood changes - emotional outbursts and mood swings
- Verbal abuse - using words (or laughter) to attack, hurt or injure you
Consequences of Emotional Blackmail The consequences of emotional blackmail or extended criticism can be severe, especially for children. The victims may become silent, watchful, shy, preoccupied, uneasy and lonely. They may respond with aggression to people who attempt to be friendly. Soulwork can help people who ... - fear criticism, disapproval, or rejection
- feel inadequate - may avoid new activities
- are very sensitive to ANY negative evaluation
- see themselves as inferior or unappealing
- avoid interpersonal contact - social inhibition
Victim Games The justification for emotional blackmail is often dependence - the abuser may be afraid to lose something important that the victim provides. An abuser may: - Withhold essential information
- Contradict the victim's perspective
- Disguise abuse as humor
- Block the victim's goals
- Install limiting beliefs
- Trivialize thoughts and achievements
- Make threats to increase power
- Forget promises, agreements or previous discussions
- Invalidate the victim's reality and perceptions
- Express anger to release tension and feel powerful
Some abusers are helping professionals such as doctors, therapists and alternative healers. (See therapist-client codependence and mentor damage). We help people resolve all forms of abuse. Victim Paradox Victims may have more power than victimizers. A resourceful person, by acting resourceless, can manipulate an entire relationship system such as a family or workgroup. Neither observers nor members of a system (e.g. in a family, team or community) may know who are real victims. Victim Identification A symptom set associated with abuse and emotional blackmail is Victim Identification. A person (usually a child in the family or a junior within an organization) may identify with a victim and express anger to the victimizer, often explosively and inappropriately. This anger may be extended and projected (transferred) onto any person who reminds the victim-identified person of the "victimizer". Common symptoms of victim identification are outbursts of anger and rage, which may generalize into anger against all victimizers. This anger can be expressed as arrogance, vandalism and terrorism. [ Emotional Incest . Identification ] Systemic Solutions Soulwork Systemic Coaching provides models to quickly alleviat or control the unpleasant consequences of emotional blackmail. Soulwork provides proven ways to dissolve not only the symptoms but also the underlying causes of... Do you want relationship coaching or systemic coach training? Do you want to coach people to resolve emotional and relationship challenges? blakmail, blackmale, black male, emoshunal, emoshun, emosion, emosional | 
