If you’re a therapist and you think you might not always be, it is in your best interest to train in approaches you think might help you in your future, non-therapist life. The opportunity to train in this way will not be available later. It’s strange. If you’re interested in particle physics, you can go to a lecture. If you are interested in glass blowing, you can take a glass blowing class. You really can’t “know” how psychotherapy works unless you train, and you can’t train unless you’re accountable to to institutions that will take you slowly and carefully to a point in which you are actually in front of another human being in this particular way. There is no recreational psychotherapy. Because it’s dangerous.
The most “transferable” approach I learned was motivational interviewing. It’s a communication style that helps lead people from where they are to a different place. To me, motivational interviewing is one of those rare approaches that differentiate clinical social workers from therapists who have a PsyD or a degree in counseling. Motivational interviewing is an evidence-based approach to behavior change, most frequently used regarding concerns such as health problems, illegal behavior, risky sex, treatment compliance, substance use, and parenting. People could certainly go to a private practice therapist for weekly support regarding these issues, but since this approach and these issues are marked by ambivalence, the settings are not typically ones in which a client has 100% control over their own patterns of behavior (think corrections, health care settings, family services). According to the literature, motivational interviewing uses the posture of partnership to foster collaboration between practitioner and client to guide positive change. Here’s the part that got me in trouble in class: this approach is not a manual or a set of interventions, but a "spirit" that must be collaborative, evocative, and honor client autonomy. I asked: if a mandated client sits in front of you as part of the terms for regaining custody of their child, how could the “spirit” of autonomy and collaboration possibly be in the room? If you have already decided what the “positive” behavior change is for someone else and guide them towards that, how is it their choice? How is this not simply manipulation? I was reminded that sometimes people will die if they don’t immediately quit smoking, or drinking and driving, or don’t show up for surgery. But that wasn’t and isn’t my point.
A few years after grad school, I met with an electoral organizer friend. He was one of those people with a “knack” for motivating others. People with a “knack” are talented, but they can’t explain to others how to access that level of ability. He was seeking to better train organizers to bring canvassing volunteers into the organization. I took the traditional organizing conversation and matched up applicable steps of motivational interviewing. About an hour in, after introducing the concepts and providing him with materials, I used the word “manipulate” as the verb making the shift between someone unconvinced and someone motivated. He was offended. Why would this be manipulation if it’s a good thing? It’s an organization they already appreciate, and they want to get more involved already, we’re just helping them take that step.
Helping them take that step. Encouraging to make a healthy choice. Teaching them to take responsibility for their actions. Supporting someone in making a different decision. Demonstrating the value of a certain option. Increasing change language.
These are not counseling ideas. These phrases echo through the professions of marketing, recruiting, content writing, sales, journalism, media, law. If you ask me, they all include a hearty helping of manipulation. But here’s the thing: I don’t think there is a danger inherent to manipulation. I suppose it depends on your ideological leanings. Your views on the ethics of manipulation shouldn’t change just because you usually call it influence, management, advice, whatever. The material actions and impact are the same. It’s a semantic change, but if if makes you feel differently about your patterns of behavior, that’s something worth investigating.
We are constantly influencing each other’s behavior in daily life whether we mean to or not. According to a different psychotherapeutic approach, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, one of the three functions of emotions is a means to communicate and influence others. It’s not good or bad. It’s natural (and I never say that).
I remember sitting with my friend at that coffee shop in Austin, attempting to explain myself when asked why I would further propagate a method if I thought it was intrinsically manipulative. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was not terribly concerned with the idea of manipulation outside the field of social work. Influence doesn’t scare me. For example, I expect to be influenced when I get a targeted ad on my Instagram feed. It’s not threatening.
The difference is that the ad copywriters do not get to then decide if someone gets supervised visitation with their kids/to step down from an intensive program to outpatient therapy/kicked out of a transitional living program and back to the streets. The danger of manipulation lies in coercion. The power differential between a social worker and a client in need is heightened beyond any other position I could imagine myself in. So yeah, I’m not worried about being too good at convincing a voter to act in line with my interests if I don’t believe it harms them. Really, you probably aren’t either. It would be a lot healthier if we could own the responsibility of that and use the word that bests describes it.
This was a unique read! I'm intrigued by the possibility that manipulation could be a neutral descriptor in certain cases. On the other hand, perhaps there is a distinction to be made between persuasion and manipulation, where the former has a transparency that the latter lacks. When I've felt manipulated, I think it's because the other person had intentions I was not privy to, and that they were obfuscating. Bringing in the social work piece the way you did, asking whether it's possible to have a collaborative conversation when one person's quality of life depends on their responding in a particular way, feels very important. Maybe this is an inherently manipulative dynamic, and maybe that's acceptable when people need to make changes to keep themselves and others safe and healthy. Maybe it's more honest to say, yes it's manipulative and I think it's justified, than to obscure the power dynamic with more flowery language. Maybe representing a mandatory, high stakes conversation as collaborative and respectful of autonomy is the most manipulative action you described in your essay. In any case, thanks for the food for thought!