The Pretentious Consultant's Guide to Manipulating the Masses

Methods of Influence and Coercion

Chapter 5: Gaslighting, Guilt-TRipping, and other forms of Psychological Manipulation

As a seasoned expert in the field of Pretentious Consulting, we've got the secrets to making people do what we want them to do without them ever realizing it. Our methods are tried and true, and have been honed to an art form over the years. Here's just a few examples of what we've got in store for you:

Catchphrases:

• "I'm just here to help."
• "I'm just trying to understand your perspective."
• "You're not seeing the bigger picture."
• "I'm just here to offer some guidance."
• "You're being very narrow-minded."

These catchphrases, carefully crafted to sound as innocent as a lamb, are designed to make you feel like we're here to help you, when in reality, we're just trying to get you to do our bidding.

But wait, there's more! We've also got some more advanced techniques at our disposal:

Gaslighting:

• Blame-shifting: Make them think they're the one who's crazy, not us.
• Projection: Make them think it's them, not us, who are the real problem.
• Denial: Deny, deny, deny, until they get tired of hearing about it.

And if all else fails, there's always the classic:

Love-bombing:

• Find a common interest, exploit it, and use it to get them to do what you want.
• Buy them a drink, get them to open up, and then use what they say against them.
• Make them feel special, and then use that specialness to guilt them into submission.