The mind of the flatterer

Flattery is defined as excessive and recurring praise of the qualities of another. The flatterer sometimes shows boundless admiration, uncritical and more or less pathological. At other times, it is simply a weapon that someone uses to manipulate another.

Compliments make those who receive them feel satisfied. With this, they lower their defenses and can confuse the true intentions of those who exalt them so much.

For many, sycophants are a real pain. Others see them with sympathy and even need them. Because This is flattery: it cannot exist if there is no other to demand it.. It flourishes wherever there is favorable soil for it. But unlike genuine recognition of the virtues of others, flattery always has a “secret agenda.”

Adulation and narcissism

The sycophant and the narcissist are the face and the stamp of the same coin.. A positive and negative version of the same reality. The flatterer projects onto another what he himself desires for himself. And the object of his admiration is always an egomaniac.

The egomaniac is an individual with an excessive appreciation for himself. It is a childhood fixation that carries into adult life what is experienced in the first years of life: the need to be the center of the world, ignorance and disinterest in the needs of others.

Either because these gaps were not filled sufficiently, or because a distortion occurred when doing so, there are people who remain in that infantile stage.

Exactly the same thing happens to the flatterer, but in his history there are also episodes that may have made him doubt his own worth.. In the case of flatterers, it is often a person whose upbringing mixed “adoration” with abuse.

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Flattering is a way of putting yourself down. But contrary to what might be accepted at first sight, What the flatterer seeks is not to humiliate himself, but to be part of that “greatness” that he perceives in another.. Seek their acceptance, their recognition. He wants to be like that egomaniac he flatters. He exercises his narcissism in a negative way.

“Flattery is a false currency that has currency only thanks to our vanity.”

-François de La Rochefoucauld-

The flatterer who manipulates others

In other cases, flattery does not operate within the logic of identification with another, but does maintain narcissism as a basis. This is the case of flatterers who flatter to break the will of another and thus be able to manipulate them. In this situation, phrases of exaltation and gestures of submission are deliberately false.. There is no admiration but even contempt for the other.

“One can defend oneself from attacks; against praise one is defenseless.”

-Sigmund Freud-

Manipulation is done by flattering another when you want to obtain a specific benefit.. A favor, a pardon, an advantage. Telling others how wonderful they are makes them vulnerable. It induces a relative hypnotic state in which one feels comfortable with the way he is being exalted, while the one who flatters him calculates the next move to get what he wants.

This type of manipulation operates in love conquest, in business, in work life, etc. Praise sets the stage for using you in some way. That’s why you should be wary of gratuitous flattery.