Vilifying the Victim Playing the Servant Role

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4.1.10. Vilifying the Victim

This strategy is often used in conjunction with the strategy of playing the victim role. Manipulators use this strategy to vilify a subject and make it appear that it causes the manipulators to be the victims of its bad effect. Data 19 Ted Bundy : I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kinds of pornography – and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience – are those that involve violence and sexual violence. The wedding of those two forces – as I know only too well – brings about behaviour that is just too terrible to describe.Appendix ii, no. 10, line 11-14 In his statement above, he was vilifying pornography - that involve violence and sexual violence - and implicitly accusing it as the root of his terrible behaviours. Simon 2000:89 states that this strategy is used by a manipulator to make it appear that he is only responding aggression on the part of the victim.

4.1.11. Playing the Servant Role

This is a language manipulation strategy which shows that the manipulators are contributing in some hard work to conceal their real purposes, which is to manipulate people. Data 20 Dr. Dobson : How did it happen? Take me back. What are the antecedents of the behaviour that we’ve seen? So much grief, so much sorrow, so 53 much pain for so many people. Where did it start? How did this moment come about? Appendix ii, no. 5 Ted Bundy : That’s the question of the hour, and not only people much more intelligent than I have been working for years. I, myself, have been working for years. I’m trying to understand. Is there enough time to explain it though? I don’t know. I think I understand what happened to me to the extent that I can see how certain feelings and ideas developed in me to the point where I began to act out on them; certain very destructive and very violent deed. Appendix ii, no. 6 In the conversation above, the interviewer asked Ted about what were the antecedents of his behaviour that had caused so much grief, sorrow and pain for so many people. Ted then stated that it was something that he, himself, had been working for years to find the answer and understand; how everything first started on him before he finally decided to act further on his violent behaviour. By saying, “I, myself, have been working for years. I’m trying to understand.”, he actually placed himself as somebody who had put a lot of effort to identify how his violent behaviour came about. He used this statement to manipulate people into believing that even he, himself, was trying hard to comprehend his own destructive behaviour. 54

4.1.12. Seduction