Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Reverse Psychology: CPTSD, Intermittent Reinforcement, Reactance, Strategic Self-anticonformity

1. 00:00 foreign [Music]
2. 00:09 and I’m the author of malignant self-love narcissism Revisited I’m also the professor of psychology in blue yes I’m having my blue period in my garden rope today we’re going to discuss reverse psychology mysterious science of making you do what you didn’t even contemplate doing
3. 00:35 how to get you to behave in ways which do not conform to who you truly are or who you thought you are so we start with cptsd of course complex trauma or complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a new buzzword cptsd is the New Black cptsd easily becomes psychopathy
4. 01:05 victims of complex trauma act in ways which are indistinguishable from Psychopaths they become for example defined consumeracious reject Authority and Reckless many of them develop grandiosity and so become very much like narcissists they have at the very least narcissistic
5. 01:27 style and all of them become emotionally disregulated to the point that there is a major School in Psychology which suggests to eliminate the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and replace it with emotional dysregulation disorder so cptsd actually results
6. 01:51 in cluster B personality disorders which is exactly why I’m proposing that cluster B personality disorders are forms of yes you guessed it right cptsd
7. 02:06 cptsd also involves self-destructiveness self-defeating strategies self-hatred self-rejection in a variety of behaviors which border on self-annihilation and damage the individual even further it’s as if the individual had internalized the point of view of the abuser
8. 02:30 and regard herself or himself as a bad object in an object that should be punished or somehow eliminated consider for example intermittent reinforcement we have fancy names for everything in daily life because that’s what makes us psychologists revered adored and admired
9. 02:56 no wonder the majority of psychologists are probably narcissists okay so Sharif enough with the rent intermittent reinforcement is hot and cold behaving in ways which are unpredictable and introduce uncertainty in an indeterminacy into relationships today I
10. 03:18 love you tomorrow I hate you today I embrace you tomorrow I reject you today I’m hold hot tomorrow I’m cold and this of course creates reactions in the unfortunate recipient of the intermittent intermittent reinforcement I’m almost tempted to say victim of intermittent
11. 03:38 reinforcement because intermittent reinforcement has many pernicious effects psychological effects anyhow two of these effects are dissonance and ambivalence ambivalence is to hate and to love someone at the same time to have conflicting emotions or
12. 03:58 cognitions regarding the same person and the reason is that the abuser who engages in intermittent reinforcement is actually perceived as two separate people this is called splitting it’s an infantile defense mechanism when you’re abused when you are subjected to intermittent
13. 04:20 reinforcement you split the abuser into there is the all-good person and there is the all bad person like Jacqueline Hyde like multiple personalities ambivalence and dissonance yield intolerable anxiety and no one can tolerate anxiety not even
14. 04:41 the strongest person on Earth not even Elon Musk so to ameliorate anxiety you might fantasize about the abuser being dead in extreme cases you may find a fantasize about killing the abuser you see killing the hated external object preserves the loved cherished affected
15. 05:07 internal object when you’re killing your fantasy your abuser out there it still lives in your mind the internal object that represents the abuser and that internal object is still idealized and very much loved another mechanism of coping with with intermittent reinforcement
16. 05:30 is to preserve both the external and the internal objects by redirecting your aggression in hate it yourself okay so what’s the connection of all this to reverse psychology because the reactions that I’ve described to intermittent reinforcement are actually instances of reverse
17. 05:56 psychology instances of something which we call clinically strategic self anti-conformity yes you’ve heard it here first strategic self anti-conformity this is the main strategy that victims of intermittent reinforcement use and so we segue seamlessly into the area
18. 06:25 of reverse psychology reverse psychology is a technique or a series of techniques it is asserting promulgating and claiming upholding a belief or behaving in a way that is the exact opposite of the desired outcome I want you to do a so I do anti-a
19. 06:55 I want you to behave in a certain way I behaving the opposite way I want you to believe something so I State the opposite the expectation is that this approach encourages the subject of the reverse psychology the subject of this persuasive technique to do what is
20. 07:14 actually desired so if I if I kind of praise if I uphold or if I support a certain position a certain opinion a certain belief system and so on I expect you to actually oppose me but I want you to oppose me this is my hidden agenda this is my secret motivation I want you
21. 07:39 actually to adopt the opposite position because that’s my real position I believe for example the cheating is wrong so I’m gonna say cheating is right and I would have expect I would expect you to say no you’re wrong cheating is never right cheating is always wrong
22. 07:57 which is what I do believe deeply inside so reverse psychology involves deception I’m sorry to say it’s the only time in Psychology where deception is not only permitted but actually encouraged reverse psychology relies on a psychological phenomenon known as
23. 08:19 reactants the reactance is very common in psychopathy actually a manifestation of reactants is what is known as defiance strictly speaking clinically reactance is when someone has a negative emotional reaction to being persuaded he perceives persuasion as coercion
24. 08:47 this kind of person has very strict and firm and rigid and inflexible and intransitive intransigent boundaries so whenever you try to change his mind to convince him of something to sell him on something he perceives this as an attack an intrusion an invasion
25. 09:08 his heckles go up and he becomes very defensive this is called reactance so if you Advocate a certain position to a reactant person to a person with reactants they’re likely to adopt the opposite position if you try to convince them to do something they’re likely to do the
26. 09:28 opposite they are no bears knowing this you can reverse engineer the process socially engineer people with reactants by claiming something by stating a Believer or an opinion you can actually force them to adopt to accept to support to propagate the opposite opinion or
27. 09:55 belief if you really want them to do something all you have to do is tell them to not do something and then they will do it so this works on people who are naturally reactant people with very strong resistances people who are more compliant people who
28. 10:18 are people pleasing and so and so forth are not good subject matter not good subject material for reverse engineering reverse engineering works best with people who are narcissistic people who are anti-social or psychopathy people who are grandiose
29. 10:36 etc etc in short reverse engineering should be a major technique in dealing with cluster B personality disordered people indeed reverse engineering is built or baked into my new treatment modality called therapy now the person being manipulated with
30. 10:58 reverse engineering is usually unaware of what’s going on and yes I’m using the word manipulation judiciously reverse engineering involves deception and it involves manipulation it’s a an influence technique it also it is also known in clinical circles as Psychological reactants
31. 11:22 their psychological reactance technique the idea is to create a hyper arousal state when freedom is limited when freedom is threatened when there is a perception of limitation of Liberty people with reactants people with resistances people with strong defense
32. 11:43 mechanisms people with grandiosity and other cognitive distortions such as the Dunning Kruger effect these kind of people when they believe that their freedoms are encroached upon tend to use psychological reactors they tend to act exactly the opposite of what
33. 12:04 is demanded and expected we saw an instance of this play out during the covid-19 pandemic people with high reactants and high resistance refused to take the vaccine and they refused to take the vaccine just because they were taught so they refused to take the vaccine they
34. 12:28 refused to be vaccinated just because authority figures recommended the vaccine just because they were vaccine mandates so um unwisely unwisely vaccine Advocates did not use reverse psychology they could have easily used reverse psychology for example they could could have created
35. 12:54 scarcity scarcity is a reverse psychology technique you create the impression that there’s not enough to go around and then people compete for the little there is so you force them actually to become consumers consumerism is based on scarcity we encourage people to buy
36. 13:16 things they don’t need just because there is a limited Supply the higher the stake or the perceived stake the more freedoms are endangered or perceived to be and at risk the more they arouse them arousal is directly correlated with the belief the conviction
37. 13:43 that your freedoms are about to be somehow confined or restricted people prefer to be free to select what they like when you take away Freedom they are strongly motivated to restore it and this is exactly the foundation of reverse psychology you create the impression the wrong
38. 14:06 impression the deceptive impression that you’re about to limit specific freedom thereby pushing people to act to restore this freedom but this is exactly what you wanted them to do you were manipulating them you were misleading them psychological reactance is the idea that
39. 14:29 people would want something more if they are told that they cannot have it Freedom included it’s intimately linked with almost all techniques of reverse psychology I’m going to review all the techniques at the end of the video another technique that I mentioned the
40. 14:49 the commencement of this video is strategic self anti-conformity strategic self-anticonformity God forgive God forgive the person who had coined this race because I cannot strategic self-antic Conformity is Conformity is when a person Advocates a
41. 15:12 position opposite to their true thought or conviction so as I said I believe the cheating is wrong I’m going to Advocate the cheating is right I’m gonna do that to get you to get a rise out of you to create a state of arousal or hyper arousal and so then
42. 15:33 you’ll be motivated to defend the position that cheating is wrong which is actually really my position I’ve misled you I lied to you about my position so that you end up supporting my position um reverse psychology involves hiding the fact that you’re using it
43. 15:55 hiding the fact that there’s persuasion involved and of course hiding the fact that there’s deception involved marketing techniques such as do not click this link do not push this button or steal this book they all involve reverse psychology and more specifically
44. 16:14 strategic self anti-conformity they relate to the expected negativity or disagreeableness uh from the influence Target now in Psychotherapy we sometimes use elements of reverse psychology for example there’s a technique called paradoxical intervention or prescribing
45. 16:38 the symptom or anti-suggestion or whatever you want to call it the Therapies frames a message so that resistance to the message promotes change I will give a few examples a bit later on when I discuss the specific techniques of reverse psychology um uh one article said that such
46. 17:02 interventions in therapy I’m quoting can have a similar impact as humor in helping clients cast their problems in a new light by going with not against the client’s resistance the therapist makes the behavior less attractive not more so and this is of course at the core of the
47. 17:24 famous technique of reframing reframing when reframing is done right the therapist pretends to agree with the cognitions the emotions the beliefs and the values of this of the client I repeat that therapists fix it he pretends to agree with a client about
48. 17:47 everything he reaffirms these beliefs and values and opinions out loud he makes the client realize how ridiculous everything is by repeating your opinion to you I am mirroring you mirroring is a critical component of reverse psychology you see yourself in the mirror you
49. 18:12 realize how stupid you sound how wrong your views are how often Mark your opinions how distorted your beliefs and how corrupt your values all I have to do is put a mirror to you and this leads to reframing in interpersonal relationships reverse psychology is implemented very often
50. 18:37 it is used as a manipulative persuasion tactic I would call it the negative negative form of reverse psychology or it’s used as a helpful method to benefit the recipient so what techniques are we talking about I’m going to mention just a few there are many more I already mentioned
51. 18:57 mirroring where you just repeat to the person what they have said in a way that makes clear how wrong or ridiculous this is and induces change via reframing another technique is tough love simply being harsh being strict being disciplinarian being a parental figure
52. 19:22 not letting you off the hook arguing arguing to the end thank you delving deep these are all forms of tough love thank you I said it’s okay go go rest go to rest tough love is a reverse psychology technique another technique involves challenging prove me wrong I’m going to say
53. 19:49 something prove me wrong I want you to prove me wrong I’m what I’m stating is wrong I know it’s wrong I believe it’s wrong but I want you to adopt my point of view I want you to agree with me that it’s wrong so I’m challenging you another way to challenge you is prove me right for
54. 20:06 example when I treat narcissists I co-opt the grandiosity I collaborate and collude with their grandiosity I tell them uh prove me right prove that you can overcome this obstacle proof that prove to me that you can overcome this resistance or I challenge them and say
55. 20:27 I don’t believe that you can do that I don’t believe you can do that that’s a provocation it’s a form of challenging provocation is a technique where I say something that I know will trigger you push your buttons cause you to decompensate disintegrate in a way and
56. 20:46 act out in act out within the channel the sublimatory channel the socially acceptable shallow that I’m providing so provocation is a form of challenging prove me right prove me wrong prove to me that you are strong enough to overcome your disorder
57. 21:03 proved to me that you can do this I don’t believe you I don’t think you can another form of reverse engineering is pseudo humility it’s also known as fishing for compliments I will tell you for example am I not seriously ugly and even if you do think factually that I’m seriously
58. 21:26 ugly you tell me no you are actually very handsome professor of acne you’re the most handsome professor of psychology on your Channel which no one can dispute I think anyhow by being pseudo humble it’s called pseudo humility by by displaying fake or false
59. 21:47 modesty I am forcing you to tell me what I want to hear the tell me what I want to hear and that is a technique that narcissists use very often they use pseudo humility to coerce you into providing narcissistic Supply no one feels comfortable to tell the truth
60. 22:08 all the time actually according to Studies by ariely and other people other Scholars most people lie all the time and they lie all the time White Lies small lies the lies that reduce the friction in daily life they lie all the time because they are prompted to lie a waiter comes
61. 22:27 to your table and US was the food okay no the food sucked but you would never say it you would say yes the food was okay that’s what he wants to hear someone tells you post a review on my website many of you will um I tell you I’m ugly you would respond
62. 22:46 mostly by telling me I’m handsome and no don’t tell me the truth please no comments with the truth I beg you foreign I trapped you into giving me a compliment the next strategy is known as inconsistency you act in ways which defy previous knowledge about you
63. 23:10 for example everyone thinks that you are very amicable people pleasing nice guy and suddenly you act abrasive aggressive almost violent you use foul language you break things this creates in people around you the need to restore the equilibrium to move you back to your previous
64. 23:36 position to reaffirm their views of you in short it creates a dissonance so by behaving this way you can manipulate people and modify their behavior by being inconsistent indeed abusers use intermittentary enforcement is a form of reverse psychology and this
65. 23:59 is why I started this video with intermittent reinforcement than the snagging the more united the higher the chances that the person will bulk resist and even become aggressive so nagging is a way to ensure that someone doesn’t do something you don’t want them to do
66. 24:24 for example if I don’t want you to spend money I will nugget you to spend money all the time at some point even if you love to spend money if you even if you engage in retail therapy daily you would stop spending money just to spite me just to demonstrate to me that you have
67. 24:44 autonomy an agency and you will not succumb to my nagging nagging is a great tool great tool to reverse unwanted behaviors to desensitize people and to stop counterproductive self-defeating choices and decisions nagging reverse engineering you never
68. 25:08 thought the reverse uh psychology you never thought about it this way have you and finally there’s denigrating when you pile pile on someone when you attack someone constantly you make him the underdog and then you encourage people around to defend him to protect him
69. 25:30 to act altruistic altruistically and charitably when you render someone the outcast the Pariah the underdog but with an element of Injustice clear ostentatious Injustice you actually and you’re actually inducing other people behaviors which are socially conformant
70. 25:53 socially acceptable and very helpful to society so denigrating someone rendering someone underdogging someone that’s a way of reverse psychology engaging in manipulative reverse psychology okay that’s an overview of everything I hope you have a nice day
71. 26:15 and that’s of course reverse psychology because I don’t hope you have a nice day um I’m somewhackning the author of malignant self-love narcissism Revisited why would I hope that you have a nice day okay thank you for listening