The manipulation of counsellors in couples therapy

IMPORTANT NOTE: this article is NOT about you, or anyone in particular that I’ve counselled, but does discuss a common dynamic found in counselling.

There are some people who come to counselling and fully believe they can work the counsellor over.  This is particularly relevant in the present context to couples counselling, but this applies to all modes of counselling.

Narcissistic types will fully believe that not only do they have the right and entitlement to have their way in therapy, but some will also even feel excited by the challenge of it.  To outsmart the counsellor is a worthy, and for some, a necessary, challenge.  Counselling is a worthy challenge.  But deceivers hate being found out!

Let’s face it, if counselling is going to be effective, it WILL be an uncomfortable experience, as counsellees wrestle with truths that will set them free.  The trouble is, some will never submit to such a wrestle with their own material — and STAY in their own stuff.

I’ve had countless conversations with well-meaning pastors and counsellors that tend to proceed like this: “No, he’s not a narcissist, there are signs of compassion and empathy in that one,” and “That apology was genuine,” and “You can tell he was being honest,” and even “He’s suffered a lot as a result of this relationship.”  Notice in this last one the hint of gaslighting.  For the first three, as a counsellor, I try not to conclude that I know one way or the other.  It’s too hard to know what in real terms is inscrutable.  Besides, I don’t see it as a counsellor’s role to adjudicate in and of themselves; part of the process perhaps, but not the whole.

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ENTITLEMENT, (ZERO) EMPATHY, EXPLOITATION

The biggest trouble is the craftiest people alive thrive on mastering the SKILL of empathy, seeing it as a commodity for the challenging work of deceiving a well-meaning helping professional.  Counselling 101 needs to include the detection of BS.  There is an entitlement in the manipulator to do as they please, with no compunction and no quarter given.  The worst are absolute sociopaths.  Their heart is deceptive through and through.  They know their sin, and they thrive in it.  Their entitlement is to exploit people and situations to the degree that their intelligence grants them access to—yes, it’s a game of outsmarting people with their sheer brilliance.  The craftier the exploitation, the more thrilled some are.

There’s a price on the head of a skilled counsellor or pastor.  That price rises to premium range when the counsellor or pastor comes into the forefront of service for a couple.

Let’s say the couple is a narcissist-empath relationship.  One is an abuser, and the other is the abused.  All too often the abused is painted as the abuser.  The craftiest of people gaslight the other into submission.

The unwary pastor or counsellor is looking for signs of the overtness of abuse in the session, and often it will be reactive abuse that they’ll pick up on, with the goader sitting back saying, “Did you see that?”  Feigning and coming alongside the helper, “helping” them discern their partner is the problem.  The wary pastor or counsellor is not looking for one example of behaviour, but a pattern, because it can take some time to see the manipulator come out of the masquerade of “goodness” camouflage.

The craftiest of people have keenly observed the most empathic of souls, they have studied them, and they can feign empathy with aplomb, and most counsellors and pastors won’t have a clue.  This is because they’re too well-natured, thinking too well of all people.  A few percent of the population thrive on drawing out this well-meaning, want-to-be-liked, fawning nature.

Deceivers can fake the fawn response.  They can fake the freeze and flight response.  And the best of the lot rips the unwary off in a few precious moments, all the while laughing inside.  If only we really could see, we’d be disgusted.

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Humility is the test of a person.

Those who are humble are capable of contrition.  The narcissist isn’t.  They might say sorry and bellow their fake remorse in a torrent of tears, but they can’t and won’t STAY sorry.  They can’t and won’t stay focused on the log in their own eye.  They can’t and won’t keep surrendering in service of the other.

Apology is all a show so they can avail for themselves the sympathy they’ll USE — again, as a commodity — to get what THEY want.  The emotions are a tool, both their own emotions as they play off of the sympathy they receive from others who are fooled, and those emotions of others that they see not as authenticity but as weakness.

FINAL NOTE: none of the foregoing is said to besmirch the majority of people.  These are simply factors to be held in mind for pastors and counsellors endeavouring to help couples and families and not hinder what otherwise might be done to call truth to bear in lives that will listen.