I have a question about how to handle narcissists.
so, my end goal is to leave one day. but i cant readily do that yet. so my plan is to use persuasion/deescalation/information gathering techniques to deescalate the situation while planning my exit in the background.
ive been studying techniques law enforcement uses for deescalation/negotiation/persuasion. i dont think what i have is a magic bullet that will fix everything. but i think it might help bring the conflict down a bit.
ill break down specific techniques i plan on using further down, but basically the plan is to build rapport with them. keep them talking about themselves. encouraging them to let their guard down and tell me things they wouldnt have shared if i had directly asked them.
mirroring:
i want to mirror their body language, and verbal communication back to them to build rapport with them and keep them talking.
empathic statements:
i want to use empathic statements to build rapport and keep them talking about themselves. an empathic statement is like if someone was venting to you, youd say it sounds like that feels x. let the silence sit and wait for them to fill it. theyll confirm whether you were right or not. and if you mislabel an emotion, theyre likely to correct you while appreciating the effort that you at least tried.
elicitation:
elicitation is how law enforcement gets people to confess or reveal sensitive information. the way i understand it is you make an incorrect assumption about something and people cant resist correcting you. i think this would be particularly useful with their enablers to know what kind of conversations the narcissist is running behind your back so you can plan around their smear campaigns.
reciprocity:
law enforcement uses reciprocation to encourage suspects to confess. the way i understand it is giving someone something small encourages them to give you something of equal or greater value back. i read a story where an interrogator gave a suspect a cup of coffee and the suspect basically said why would you treat me with respect after what i did? and they got their confession. im detecting a bit of guilt in their words. basically its giving someone a stick of gum before making an ask. i dont plan on using reciprocity for asks. im going to use it to elicit that feeling of why would you treat me with respect after what i did. guilt tripping them without words.
i plan on using these techniques when theyre being civil for 5 seconds, and exiting entirely when conflict arises and they try pulling me into circular arguments that nobody wins and just serves to give the narcissist supply, all while planning a permanent exit behind the scenes. i want to know if anyone here thinks this plan sounds effective. im specifically wondering if anyone has issue with using any specific one of these techniques on a narcissist, and why.
also, im not really sure where to work it in on my post, but the point of keeping them talking about themselves is it builds rapport because everyone loves talking about themselves (especially narcissists), and they will also reveal information about themselves along the way, which might help me plan around their manipulations, but i feel like i might get more information from their enabler than them that would be iseful for that.