PSYCHOMANIPULATION - Tomasz Witkowski

met with their approval, I am hoping that it will also satisfy the readers of this book and facilitate
their understanding of the subject. The basis for classification are distinct psychological
mechanisms, which is not by any means to say that particular mechanisms have been definitively
defined and categorized. Rather, the opposite is the case. On many occasions I have wondered
where to assign a given psychological technique. For example, irrational behaviour which
suggests inability to control oneself invokes a strong emotional reaction, and techniques based
on self-esteem also involve emotions. Where should I assign them? Should I refer to them in
connection with manipulation of the feeling of control, or with manipulation which exploits
emotions? It was only on the basis of my subjective convictions that one or the other mechanism
played a greater role that I placed a given technique in one category or the other. I must admit
that the more I reflected on the mechanisms underlying particular techniques, the more doubts I
felt, and these were only intensified by further reading; as Paul Anderson has said, I have never
met a problem, no matter how complex, which didn’t become even more complex when I looked
into it.
In the end I categorized the material by applying various taxonomies of phenomena to
well-known manipulative techniques in an attempt to check whether they could be used for this
type of classification. An additional criterion which I kept in mind during these attempts was the
usefulness of a given system for categorizing the material. By usefulness I mean whether it was
easy to remember a group of techniques without needing to memorize each of the methods which
it included. Above all I was interested in the practical application of the system, in that it would
allow the reader to quickly recognize a specified group of techniques and apply the appropriate
behaviour to counteract them. The final version of my system of classification can be found in
the table of contents and also in the structure on which I have based this book.
Readers who are familiar with Robert Cialdini’s seminal work Influencing People.
Theory and Practice are sure to ask why I did not make use of the system of classification
suggested by the classic authority on the subject. This system categorizes on the basis of six
important rules: mutuality, consequences, social evidence of validity, liking, authority and
inaccessibility. However, in my opinion, some forms of human interaction require us to
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