Protecting Yourself from Psychological Manipulation
Registration is open throughout the year. Each group follows the full course, and participants receive their start date when their group is formed.
General overview
The programme brings together the psychology of influence and persuasion, psychodynamic perspectives, transactional analysis and psychoanalytic readings of relationships and authority. It distinguishes experimental findings, clinical models and cultural interpretations according to the kind of evidence behind them. Workshops and psychodrama exercises connect these ideas with practice. The aim is to develop discernment without encouraging constant suspicion or diagnosing other people.
Who is this for? (and any prerequisites)
Adults seeking greater discernment in their relationships and support professionals with an interest in the subject.
Learning objectives & Key takeaways
- Distinguish influence, persuasion and manipulation by their effects on freedom of choice.
- Recognise pressures on information, emotions and decision-making.
- Separate observable facts from interpretations and psychological hypotheses.
- Understand commitment mechanisms, recurring relationship patterns and forms of authority.
- Practise asking for time, checking terms and setting workable boundaries.
- Recognise when safety and specialist support take priority over confrontation.
- Develop a personal protocol for preserving autonomy.
Prerequisites
Teaching methods
Assessment
Detailed syllabus / Modules
From influence to manipulation
Clarify the concepts and examine their effects on perceptions, information, emotions, decisions and autonomy. An initial scene helps participants notice when their room to choose begins to narrow.
Understanding the routes to persuasion
Distinguish careful consideration of arguments from reliance on prestige, popularity or urgency. Analyse a message and practise asking for verifiable information and written terms.
Compliance, commitment and escalating requests
Explore reciprocity, scarcity, authority and consistency with previous choices. Recognise changes in terms and learn to assess each new request on its own merits.
Fear, guilt, shame and emotional pressure
Observe how an emotion can become a means of pressure. Separate what you feel from what is actually being asked, then formulate a response that preserves your judgment.
Defences, repetition and transference
Explore psychodynamic concepts for examining roles and expectations that recur in a relationship. Use these ideas as hypotheses for understanding, without assuming intent or making a diagnosis.
Transactional analysis and relationship games
Explore Parent, Adult and Child ego states, implicit messages and recurring scripts. Practise stepping out of rescue-and-blame patterns and returning to facts, boundaries and responsibilities.
Desire, demand and symbolic authority in Lacan
Examine how the need for recognition and words carrying moral or social value can shape a decision. Distinguish someone’s actual authority from the authority attributed to them.
Charles Melman and the new psychic economy
Explore this psychoanalytic reading of consumption, jouissance and contemporary pressures, while considering its limits. Analyse promises of identity and recognition in commercial and digital environments.
Gaslighting and coercive control
Distinguish an isolated disagreement from a repeated pattern that restricts access to information, relationships or resources. Use fictional cases to identify sources of support that can restore autonomy without increasing danger.
Preparing for pressure and reclaiming decisions
Explore psychological inoculation and practise a seven-step protocol: pause, name the pressure, separate facts from interpretations, verify, reclaim time, consult an independent source and decide with the right to reconsider.
Integration workshop on 30 techniques
Examine situations combining several manipulation mechanisms through the programme’s four perspectives. Develop a practical response that considers the intensity and repetition of pressure and the options for leaving the situation.
Personal protocol, final simulation and reflection
Apply the skills in a staged simulation, create a personal protection card and compare your understanding at the start and end of the course. Reflect on using the knowledge ethically.
Practical arrangements & Terms
- Offer type (Label)
- Training Course · Open to all
- City
- Agadir
- Start date and time
- Ongoing course (Moroccan local time)
- Number of sessions
- 12 session(s) · 18 hours
- Schedule & pace (e.g. Saturday 09:30 - 16:30)
- Fridays and Saturdays, 8 to 9:30 p.m., over six weeks (Morocco time).
- Languages used
- Standard Arabic or Moroccan Darija, depending on the group
- Fee (MAD)
- 650 DH / full program
The learning environment respects each participant’s right to opt out of an exercise or decline to share a personal experience. Scenes favour fictional or low-intensity situations and include stepping out of role afterwards. Interpretations are treated as hypotheses, and people who are not present are not diagnosed. Situations involving actual violence or threats call for appropriate support rather than a simulated confrontation.
Participant lists are never public. Exact venue addresses, video links, and materials are reserved for confirmed participants.