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“I Don’t Lie” And Other Cowardly Magic Tricks · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode five of the six-part series, The Psychology of Emotional Deception.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, I want to talk about power, control, and identity distortion.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think words like power and control potentially sound a little bit accusatory, but in truth they're very relevant because the person who is, if you like, controlling the narrative does have power.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not real power, it's illusory.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But then, as we know, those who are on the receiving end fall for the illusion.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in its own way, it gives the person who is enacting the deception some kind of control.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what it also does is it distorts the identity of the person who is on the receiving end.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've said before that not all deception is chaotic or impulsive, and in some relational systems, in just in some relationships, deception functions as a tool of control, and I think that's quite conscious.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: There are, of course, extreme and very obvious examples, but many of the ones that I've described in this series so far are more subtle.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so much so that the person responsible can say, Well, that's not what I meant to do, or but you don't understand it was because, but actually, when we join the dots, what we can see is a sustained pattern of deception and manipulation.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So information asymmetry, i.e., when information is not symmetrically understood, one person holds on to that information, that creates a dominant position.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it also creates confusion because the autonomy of the other person becomes destabilized.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that I think is really useful to understand is that people who behave in this way will actually say things like, I don't lie, I tell the truth.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Accept that the truth that you tell is selective and it's not complete because people who behave in this way are notoriously concealing.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get the whole picture.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what you often don't get is an explanation for the behavior that the other person has demonstrated.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you're kind of left guessing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So much for truth telling.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a big difference between truth and openness, and a lack of openness that tells the rest of the story doesn't really make the truth that valid if the truth has been selective and incomplete.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: What this does is it creates a kind of dependency, and maybe a dependency which has an unresolved kind of quality about it and has its roots in the past.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, people who haven't been able to separate from caregivers and who become emotionally reliant because they're manipulated into that will very often go on to have relationships in adulthood that reflect exactly the same dynamics.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, if, for example, early attachment figures were unpredictable or engulfing or humiliating, an adult may attempt to reverse the roles, become the controller rather than the control.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in a sense, what I'm talking about now is the identity of the person who does the deceiving.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: That can be directly linked.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: In more narcissistically organized structures, deception can stabilize a fragile self-image, maintaining sort of multiple narratives which preserve admiration while avoiding exposure.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're not strictly speaking into the territory of narcissism.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've done a whole number of other podcasts on that.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But for the deceived individual, something subtle begins to happen over time.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Their sense of identity contracts.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: They may monitor their tone more carefully, they may suppress doubts, they may overfunction emotionally, they might take responsibility for recovering equilibrium.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And gradually self-trust erodes.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I think is really significant is how people who are on the receiving end very often don't say what they think.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they very they find it very hard to acknowledge what they think.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember a person who complained repeatedly about the fact that they were always on the wrong end of the actions of others, always being criticized, how it was unfair, how people were horrible, and wanting to say, and the common denominator is who.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't because the context was one in which that wouldn't have been helpful.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is, sometimes what we do is we contract our own thoughts because we want to maintain some kind of equilibrium, or we feel responsible for ensuring we do that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is worse in coercive relational systems and it can become quite profound.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it even in less extreme cases, prolonged deception reshapes self-perception because a person loses sight of who they are and who what their authenticity is.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the injured person may become, in some ways, smaller in the relationship.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not really, they're not really smaller, but that's how it feels.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So recovery, therefore, requires more than ending contact.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It requires restoring internal authority and reclaiming and rebuilding your own narrative and your own self-definition.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Confronting the truth that one's empathy and kindness were exploited is very difficult.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because in some way that keeps them in the emotional loop, because then they will be anticipating and wanting to have some kind of response, some kind of recognition.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I have to say it's pointless.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another part of me that says, Well, I wonder about the idea of telling the deceiver your truth, not because you want them to acknowledge or that you want them to make reparation, because that's not going to happen.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: People who deceive in this way are notoriously quite cowardly when it comes to things like that, or they will just stay in denial.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: But is there a value, I wonder, in saying this is what you did?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're not discussing it, I'm telling you, this is what you did.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the evidence, this is the effect of what you did, this is the damage you have done.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you this, not because I want you to do anything, but I need to tell you that this was and is my truth.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's appropriate, and you and I both know that this is something you do because you've done it so many times before.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're now expunged.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: In episode six, we will look at recovery and internal reconstruction.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this has been helpful and I look forward to speaking with you again soon.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.