Speech Manipulation Techniques

Let’s start by clarifying the term “manipulation.” In most contexts, it means something like “skilled handling of objects,” as in “The juggler manipulated knives.” But in psychology, the term refers to “covert influence”—skillfully organized, but therefore unpleasant and inappropriate. In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), “manipulation” also often means covert, that is, unconscious influence. However, here the meaning is more positive—manipulation is simply an effective tool, and its value depends on the context, purpose, and consequences of its use.

In many intervention cases, manipulation is necessary simply because it’s not worth engaging with the client’s conscious mind—it not only can’t help, but may even get in the way. Of course, manipulations can also be used in everyday communication to make it more effective, successful, or whatever you need it to be.

So, manipulation. The scary, hidden influence. But it’s only hidden to those who don’t understand it. If the influence is obvious, it’s no longer hidden, and not really manipulation. So here’s another reason to learn about all this—if you don’t want someone to unethically manipulate you without your consent.

This article will focus only on verbal methods of influence, leaving nonverbal ones—like anchoring—for another time. So, what exactly counts as verbal manipulation in communication?

• Presuppositions – the axioms of the created reality.
• Reframing – managing the meaning of statements.
• Belief-challenging patterns – verbal techniques for breaking down beliefs.
• Verbal paradoxes – ways to create confusion.
• Embedded messages – hidden commands within text.

Internal Reality

If you see a piece of an image, you automatically fill in the rest. To recognize a person, a photo of just their face is enough; to identify a leopard, just a part of its muzzle. And that’s just for a single word. What about imagining a whole situation?

Based on a snippet of information, we build our own understanding. To grasp the meaning of a photo, you need to know what the UK is, who the Queen is, what she usually rides in, and so on. We all live in an illusory world—even information seemingly received from our senses is processed by the brain. About 99.9% of it.

When we communicate with words, we transmit not even that 0.1% of information, but only references to previous experience.

Think of a “dog”—everyone imagines a dog, but for some it’s a huge Great Dane, for others a dachshund puppy, and for others an abstract mutt. The same goes for situations:

• “The husband was late for dinner”—everyone imagines something different, from a joke (“the wife has a lover”) to a tragedy (“the wife was sure he was with his mistress, and as soon as he opened the door, she shot him three times”).

When we communicate, we create a certain reality. In this reality, the Queen of the UK exists—if we’re talking about her; a leopard exists—if we’re talking about leopards; or “successful behavior”—if we’re discussing problem-solving. This reality may align with a person’s mental map, or it may not. What will a person do if there’s a mismatch? Call you a liar, think it over, adjust their own map? In which case will they choose what?

If we want to influence someone, the reality we propose must be “stronger.” But how do we do that?

For example, I claim that a client “is capable of handling the problem,” but the client isn’t so sure. I can appeal to their conscious mind with lots of logical arguments, I can try to motivate them to accept this belief, or I can address their unconscious—and it will do the work. In most cases, this is much more effective than convincing the conscious mind. The unconscious just acts—the person simply comes, simply handles the situation, and simply buys what they need.

All types of verbal manipulation are different ways to influence the unconscious. But the conscious mind stands guard, critically checking incoming information. To instruct the unconscious, you need to “turn off” the conscious mind—distract it, lower its criticality, “put it to sleep.”

One well-known way to lower criticality is rapport (a type of connection between people characterized by mutual positive emotional relations and a certain level of understanding). Almost all verbal influence techniques work only in a state of rapport. That’s what distinguishes them, for example, from anchoring techniques. But there are other ways too—like pattern interruption.

One more important thing: you can only change a person in the direction they’re ready to change. The change must align with their values. Pure technique without a foundation in values doesn’t work. Although, as you can imagine, interpretations of values can be quite diverse.

Presuppositions

Presuppositions are the axioms of the reality created by speech. For example, for the phrase: “The Queen of the UK rode the train today,” the Queen, the UK, and trains must exist. Otherwise, the phrase makes no sense. So the existence of the Queen, the UK, and the train are the axioms of this reality—they are presupposed.

It’s easy to identify a presupposition: put a negation in front of the phrase, and whatever doesn’t change is the presupposition.

• “When you leave the room, you’ll remember me.”
• “Even if you don’t leave the room, you’ll remember me.”

“You’ll remember me” remains, as do the room, you, and me.

How It Works

Presuppositions create a reality where only the desired choices exist.

• “Do you realize you can handle the situation?”—in this reality, the person is capable of handling the situation, whatever it is.
• “Will you come by tomorrow morning or after lunch?”—in this reality, the person will come by no matter what. The only choice is morning or afternoon.

Presuppositions distract the conscious mind, which is procedural and straightforward—using questions, choices, sequential instructions.

• “How interested are you in reading this article?”
• “You can read the article first and then practice presuppositions, or practice as you read.”

But these tricks don’t work well on people who are more knowledgeable or don’t fall for such things. I ask my five-year-old son:

• “Anton, will you brush your teeth before or after the cartoon?”
• “No,” he answers, completely incorrectly.

But as he got older, he started falling for similar constructions—though not all of them.

Presuppositions really do work well. But you have to use them correctly. If your entire speech is made up of obvious presuppositions, listeners may get seriously annoyed. Also, improper nonverbal cues—tension, nervousness, etc.—can make listeners tense up, get nervous, and their conscious mind “wakes up.”

• “Would you like to pay by card or cash?”
• “I wasn’t planning to buy anything at all.”

So: stay calm, maintain rapport, and respect your conversation partner. If the presupposition goes too much against their intentions—if they’re not planning to buy right now—don’t force such a rigid reality. You can make it softer:

• “I see you’ve been looking at sofas for a while, and this one seems to have caught your eye. Maybe you should take another look and make a final decision.”

Proper use of presuppositions is the foundation of any effective NLP communication. Presuppositions define the communicative reality, and if you control them, reality will be as you intend. If you don’t, reality may not be what you want. Sometimes, limiting beliefs sneak in, creating a less-than-ideal reality.

• “Only a loser like me could have done this!”
• “When you realize you don’t like me, just say so.”

Why should someone else believe in a new—bright, beautiful, correct—reality if you don’t believe in it yourself? These are your own limitations coming out in your speech. So effectiveness starts with yourself, with understanding your goals and the consequences. If someone says you can just learn a couple of tricks and everything will work out:

• “Just say ‘your place or mine?’ and she’s yours”—they’re lying to you.

Techniques only work if everything else works too. And everything else is, essentially, you. We have no other tool to influence the world except ourselves. If I’m ineffective, how can my communication be effective?

But we know that anyone can improve themselves. And, strangely enough, speech manipulation is one of the tools on this path. We can control our own speech and, through that, manage ourselves. Most communication problems come not from lack of technique, but from our own limitations.

Conversational Reframing and Belief-Challenging

The next widely used pattern is conversational reframing—playing with meaning. People react not to the situation itself, but to the meaning they assign to it.

• “I’m not mean, I’m sincere.”
• “A hunger for knowledge is an important skill. If you know what I mean.”

You can change this meaning directly, replacing one meaning with another: hot-tempered—emotional, rude—a real man, cautious—a coward. Or you can change what the person considers the situation or context. Anger is usually bad, but in sports, it can be very useful. That’s the whole structure: reframing meaning and context. Or you can just look for another perspective, boldly shifting the frame.

• “My husband cheated on me.”
• “Did he cheat with your best friend?”
• “No, of course not!”
• “With your sister?”
• “No!”
• “What a considerate man.”

For good reframing, you need more creativity (drive, inspiration) than understanding of structure or a thousand prepared lines. Drive! That’s what you need. Reframing should create an “aha” moment, turning the person in a new direction. You say something, and suddenly something changes inside them:

• “Wow! I never thought of it that way.”
• “Nobody loves me.”
• “You must be a big shot if six billion people don’t love you.”

Of course, you can find tons of arguments “for” and “against” any statement. But you only need one that hits home. And you have to deliver it in a way that hits home. We’re not working with the conscious mind—it needs logical arguments and lots of reasoning—the unconscious is better surprised.

• “I eat too much.”
• “You know, there are plenty of places where they won’t let you eat that much. Like prison. In our country, it’s easy to get a ticket to that resort.”

Reframing doesn’t have to be smart or correct—it has to be unexpected. In a way, it’s just another form of pattern interruption. Breaking limitations.

• “Men don’t like me.”
• “That’s a great phrase for self-training. Keep believing it and it’ll definitely help you avoid close relationships.”

If we apply reframing to beliefs, we get belief-challenging. The rules are the same. There are belief-challenging techniques that change the context of a belief, and those that change the belief from within by altering its meaning. Believe it or not, in most cases, that’s all you need to know. Beliefs can be changed. You can move them to another situation (context reframing), or tweak something inside (meaning reframing). Sure, you can list all 14 types, and enthusiasts can look them up. But we’re talking about drive and the big picture. You just have to trust your intuition more. Just change your perspective, think outside the box. This takes constant practice—on yourself. To create successful reframes and belief-challenges, you need to be a flexible person. So, again, it all starts with yourself.

One more important thing: for a belief-challenge to work, it must be based on what’s important to the person.

• “You can’t make decisions hastily.”
• “I think it’s more important to focus on making the right decision than on how quickly you make it.”

This challenge will only work if “the right decision” is important to the person. If not, it’ll fall flat.

Verbal Paradoxes

Another way to bypass the conscious mind is to break the pattern—with a phrase. Completely. So the listener goes into a trance. Deeply. So the person is conscious, but not really. A kind of being-nonbeing.

Verbal paradoxes are based on a simple principle—they’re things you can say, but can’t imagine: black whiteness, free unfreedom, don’t think about your thinking, angry kindness. The phrases sound linguistically correct, but the reality “doesn’t add up.” The person not only goes into a trance, but also steps outside their usual thinking. Or stepping outside their usual thinking leads to a trance. The further out, the deeper… No, that’s from somewhere else.

Verbal paradoxes are just one way to break habitual thinking, to think outside the box. Naturally, this means breaking old beliefs and forming new ones. This is changing stability—or stable change.

You’ve probably encountered verbal paradoxes—they’re common in both Western and Eastern cultures. For example, an “oxymoron”—a combination of words with opposite meanings (a combination of the incompatible)—is a classic example of a verbal paradox. Many are so common in speech that they’re no longer seen as paradoxes:

• “Courageous woman”
• “I’ll probably definitely come”
• “Living corpse”
• “Complete emptiness”

Or movie titles: “True Lies,” “Ordinary Miracle,” “Eyes Wide Shut.”

In Eastern culture, verbal paradoxes appear in Sufi stories and Zen koans: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” And in fairy tales from all over the world, regardless of geography. Like the riddle: “You must come neither naked nor dressed, on foot but not on the ground, not barefoot but not shod…”

Given that verbal paradoxes exist in almost every culture, they’re pretty useful—they help us move beyond binary thinking, expand consciousness, and all without strong drugs.

Embedded Messages

And now, the jewel of linguistic influence—what Milton Erickson called his main discovery—embedded messages. It’s a very simple thing: if you highlight certain words in a message and they form a meaningful phrase, that phrase will go straight to the unconscious as a command.

Take the phrase: “You are confident,” and insert it into someone’s monologue.

• “You’re thinking now about whether I’m confident in my success? Yes, I am. I promised myself I could do it.”

You can highlight with intonation, a hand gesture, bold or different font—whatever you like. Embedded messages aren’t just a pattern—they’re a whole science. Although an easy one. So easy you just need a little practice. But it works.

Come up with a command and insert it into your text. You can use a metaphor or a story. Or anything else. You can even take a newspaper article and practice marking it up.

Conclusion

Speech manipulation techniques are powerful tools for influencing both yourself and others. Used ethically and with respect, they can make communication more effective and help overcome internal limitations. Remember, the most important tool in communication is yourself—your awareness, flexibility, and understanding of your own values and goals.