Psychopathic Relationships and the Communication Processes Within Them

Psychopathic Relationships and the Communication Processes Within Them

Lauren O’Banion

COMM 629: Theories of Human Communication

Joey Pogue

May 5, 2020
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Ask any married couple how they make a relationship last year after year, they will

gladly answer and attribute the longevity of their relationship to one thing, communication.

Communication is at the core of every relationship we develop as humans, no matter how

important or insignificant a relationship may be. But what happens when the communication of a

relationship becomes toxic? There are people in this world, psychopaths, who take joy in

manipulating and using others; and problems occur when a manipulative psychopath attempts to

control the person they are engaging in a relationship with. Jackson Mackenzie wrote

Psychopath Free to further examine the processes that psychopaths entrust to carry out their

manipulative acts. Mackenzie’s purpose for writing Psychopath Free was to help and aid

individuals in moving on from relationships with toxic people, but it became evident to me that

those relationships with psychopaths reflect entirely different communication processes than

healthy relationships do. By examining Knapp’s Relationship Model, I was able to identify an

appropriate progression of a healthy relationship. In addition, communication theories including

cognitive dissonance, expectancy violation theory, and uncertainty reduction theory are all

displayed within toxic relationships but in skewed, corrupted ways. Relationships with

psychopaths are entirely against the grain when it comes to communication theory. In this essay I

will examine the differences between the progression of normal relationships and psychopathic

ones, identify the change in intrapersonal dialogue of the victim, and explain the manipulation of

communication theory by the abuser.

Before examining the communication processes in abusive, toxic, and unhealthy

relationships, it is important to identify aspects of healthy relationships. The stages of healthy

relationships were first explained by Mark Knapp. In Knapp’s model, relationships are depicted

as having ten different stages divided amongst two other interrelated stages. The first stages of
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Knapp’s Relationship Model are in the coming together category; these include initiating,

experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and bonding. The second part of the relationship model

is known as the coming apart stage and includes differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating,

avoiding, and terminating. Between the coming together and coming apart stages is the

relationship maintenance stage. An example of the Knapp’s Relationship Model is a boy being at

a party and seeing a girl he finds attractive, he takes the first step, initiating, and introduces

himself to the girl. Following initiating, the boy and girl might keep in touch and get to know

each other on a materialistic level, this is the experimentation step. The relationship intensifies

when both the boy and girl begin revealing personal information about one another and go on

dates together, for example. Integration takes place next, in this stage the boy and girl will take

steps to make their relationship more intimate like becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. The last

stage of the coming together part of the relationship model is bonding, the boy and girl would

make their relationship known to the world and take steps towards marriage. The coming apart

stage comes apart begins with differentiating. Differentiating can be explained by pressure or

tension being created in a relationship, an example would be the girl beginning to spend more

time out with friends and less time with her partner. Circumscribing occurs in the relationship

process when the partners limit their conversations and try to avoid the tension causing topic, in

this case the girl’s increased partying. Next, stagnation will occur and the communication

between partners will become even more limited, in this example the boy and girl start to

recognize they have little in common anymore. Avoidance follows, during the avoidance stage

the boy and girl will restrict all communication between the both. The last stage of Knapp’s

Relationship Model is termination, the boy and girl mutually agree that the relationship is no

longer rewarding and file for divorce (Communication Theory, 2014). It is important to note that
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relationships can skip some of these stages, double back on others, and remain in stages for long

periods of time.

The relationship model in relationships with psychopaths is skewed and progresses

through different stages. With psychopaths, Mackenzie explains that from the beginning of the

relationship, the psychopath already has a plan in mind, and the plan is about how to best use

their partner (Mackenzie, 2015, p. 7). Psychopaths begin relationships with three key phases,

idealization, indirect persuasion, and testing the waters. The three processes take place as the

coming together phase would in Knapp’s Relationship Model, but the difference between the two

is the one-sidedness that occurs in the psychopath’s model. Idealization occurs when the

psychopath makes their partner fall head over heels, for lack of a better term. The partner will

think of the psychopath all the time and become enamored with them. The psychopath can create

the illusion of a perfect partner by mirroring the behavior of their partner. The entire idealization

process is orchestrated by the psychopath, following idealization the psychopath will implement

indirect persuasion. The purpose of indirect persuasion is to condition the behavior of their

partner (Mackenzie, 2015, p. 23). The indirect persuasion of a psychopath is similar to the

experimenting and intensifying stages of Knapp’s model, however; it differs in that instead of

both partners disclosing information about themselves and making equal efforts to further the

relationship the psychopath is creating the illusion of intimacy and refrains from any legitimate

emotional intimacy. Testing the waters is the psychopath’s way of actualizing the relationship,

Mackenzie explains a psychopath’s behavior in this stage as, “experimenting with their

newfound control to see how far they can push you” (Mackenzie, 2015, p. 26). In a psychopath’s

mind, testing the waters is their way of reaching full intimacy in the relationship, like the

bonding stage in Knapp’s model. The coming together aspect of a psychopathic relationship is
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vastly different from Knapp’s Relationship Model, however; it is easy to identify parallels

between both processes. The biggest differences between models occur in the “maintaining”

phase. For a psychopath, the maintenance phases of their relationships included erosion of their

partner’s identity. The psychopath has already asserted full control of the relationship and will

begin to destroy boundaries, gaslight, and manipulate their partner. During this phase, the partner

is the only individual working to preserve the relationship, or the illusion thereof, and the

psychopath has free reign to act and speak as they please. The identity erosion phase does not

last long, because psychopaths are easily bored. Unlike Knapp’s model, the coming apart phase

of psychopathic relationships are tumultuous and messy. A psychopath will not follow any of the

stages identified by Knapp and will instead choose the most painful, abrupt way to terminate

their relationships (Mackenzie, 2015, p. 52). A psychopath is an emotional abuser, the entirety of

their relationships is fabricated and illusionary, a breakup with a psychopath is premeditative. An

abrupt breakup with little explanation and mutual agreement is a classic move for a psychopath.

Contradictory to Knapp’s model, the lack of relationship erosion found in psychopathic

relationships leaves the victim reeling over the experience. The negative effects on the partner

demonstrate the importance of gradual progression through the stages of Knapp’s model as a

normal evolution of a relationship.

The partner of a psychopath will appear normal before the relationship took place, but

after the relationship is over the entire mindset of the victim will have been altered. There are

evident communication and mental processes that are affected during and after the relationship.

The victim will experience cognitive dissonance and will be negatively affected by expectancy

violation theory. After the relationship is over the victim will likely experience cognitive

dissonance, “the distressing mental state caused by inconsistency between a person’s two beliefs
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of a belief and an action” (Griffin, 2015, p. 200). Possible dissonance experienced by the victim

would include the belief and feeling of missing the psychopath and the “happy” times they once

shared, but the conflicting truth is that they were victims of mental abuse. Another example of

conflicting thoughts by the victim would be thinking that they are inadequate, but also knowing

that the truth is they were mentally abused by a psychopath into thinking that. Mackenzie stated,

“emotional abusers condition their victims to feel ashamed, inadequate, and unstable,” which

perfectly explains the cognitive dissonance felt by their victims (Mackenzie, 2015, p. 38). This

sort of cognitive dissonance is best solved by realigning the conflicting views to agree with one

another, this can be seen in recovery groups that victims of abuse often join. Expectancy

violation theory, or the analysis of how people respond to unexpected changed of behavior, is

another theory that occurs in psychopathic relationships (Griffin, 2015, p. 82). In psychopathic

relationships the victim first experiences expectancy violation theory in the grooming stages of

the relationship, the psychopath uses behaviors with positive violation valences to get closer to

the victim, leading to the victim falling for the abuser. Later in the relationship the victim will

experience expectancy violation theory again, but now the violations will be caused by negative

changes in the behavior of the abuser. For example, the same abuser who once showered the

victim will compliments will begin degrading the victim. The victim will not expect the negative

change of behavior and will try to make excuses for the abuser. While there are many more

examples of changes in communication processes in psychopathic relationships, cognitive

dissonance and expectancy violation theory are two theories most pertinent to the experience of

the victim.

Psychopaths are masters of manipulation; they are so manipulative they can cause

explained theories of communication to become unrecognizable. Symbolic interactionism and

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relational dialectics are two theories that psychopaths often use to their advantage. In short,

symbolic interactionism is the use of language and gestures in the form of conversation (Griffin,

2015, p. 54) Typically, symbolic interactionism is a person’s reaction to the meaning assigned to

another person, place, or thing. In the case of a psychopath, their manipulative behavior allows

them to change and warp the meaning of many different things. The very definition of a

relationship is changed, along with the victim’s identity. Intriguingly, an element of symbolic

interactionism is the “looking-glass self”, which is how a person imagines they look to other

people (Griffin, 2015, p. 58). Psychopaths are understood as having an elevated sense of self,

Mackenzie stated that the average psychopath “feels an immense amount of superiority,” it can

be inferred that the meaning psychopaths assign to themselves is very skewed to what their

reality is (Mackenzie, 2015, p. 56). Psychopaths are also masterfully secretive and can influence

people to open to them, without revealing anything about themselves, this is a depiction of

relational dialectics. Relational dialectics is defined as “a dynamic knot of contradictions in

personal relationships… interplay between contrary or opposing tendencies” (Griffin, 2015, p.

137). An essential aspect of relationships is the expression-nonexpression dialectic, which

includes the levels of openness and closedness and transparency and privacy in a relationship.

While in relationships, psychopaths are constantly prying for more openness from their partner

while remaining high levels of secrecy about themselves, Mackenzie explains that victims of

abuse are quick to open up to psychopaths because of the way they are groomed by the

psychopath (Mackenzie, 2015, p. 22). Unrequited feelings and levels of openness in

relationships create tension, the psychopath can only learn so much about their victim before

they become bored, while their victim continually wants to know more about their partner that

they are madly in love with. Psychopaths are successful in most aspects of their life. Their
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success can be attributed to their manipulative behavior depicted by their ability to redefine

meanings and control the exchange of expression in their relationships.

Most aspects of psychopathic relationships are distortions of what healthy relationships

do and ought to look like. By examining Knapp’s Relationship Model in comparison to the

stages of a psychopathic relationship, it is evident that psychopaths rearrange and orchestrate

relationship development as their will. The victims of psychopathic abuse are often left reeling

from the trauma of the relationship, their mental processes totally redefined by the behavior of

the psychopath. Psychopaths can manipulate most anything, even perceptions of reality and

people, including their perceptions of themselves. In conclusion, the manipulative abilities of

psychopaths are alarming. Their abilities to influence events, people, and situations are

developed enough that once predictable theories of communication are altered and unpredictable.
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References

Griffin, Emory, et al. A First Look at Communication Theory. Mc Graw-Hill, 2015.

“Knapp's Relationship Model.” Communication Theory, 10 July 2014,

www.communicationtheory.org/knapps-relationship-model/.

MacKenzie, Jackson. Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships

with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People. Berkley Books, 2015.