A working dictionary of the moves. Once you can name a tactic, it loses much of its power over you.
Narcissistic abuse has a vocabulary. These are the terms that come up most.
Manipulating someone into doubting their own perceptions, memory, or grip on reality. It can be as blunt as flatly denying something that happened, or as subtle as slightly changing the retelling of an event each time until the victim starts to distrust their own account. The term comes from the 1938 play Gaslight, in which a husband dims the gaslights and insists to his wife they aren't flickering at all, pushing her toward believing she's losing her mind.
Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. When confronted about abusive or bullying behavior, the narcissist denies it outright, attacks the credibility of the person confronting them, and recasts themselves as the real victim of the conversation, often with tears or rage convincing enough that onlookers side with them. Research on DARVO shows it reliably makes observers see the actual victim as less believable and more responsible for the conflict.
An intense, early flood of affection, gifts, praise, and attention designed to build emotional dependence quickly. It's also used to pull an estranged family member back into the fold, often right around the time a new scapegoat has been assigned and the old one is needed again, as an ally or a witness who will side with the narcissist.
Named for the vacuum cleaner, hoovering is the attempt to suck a person who is pulling away, or has already left, back into contact and control. It shows up as sudden crises, guilt trips, renewed love bombing, or a smear campaign designed to make staying away socially costly.
A disproportionate explosion of anger triggered by a perceived slight to the narcissist's ego, not ordinary anger, but a "how dare you" reaction, as if someone far beneath them has overstepped. First described by psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut, it's understood as an attempt to repair an injury to a fragile, defended self-image.
The wound underneath the rage: the pain or humiliation a narcissist feels when their self-image is threatened by criticism, rejection, or exposure of a flaw. It doesn't require real criticism. Perceived criticism triggers the same defensive cascade of shame, anger, and attempts to restore self-worth.
Pulling a third person into a conflict instead of communicating directly, in order to control the narrative, create loyalty tests, or avoid accountability. Two people never actually talk to each other. They only hear each other's positions filtered through the narcissist, who shapes both sides. A mother accused of scapegoating a child may never talk to that child directly, instead filtering everything through their husband or a sibling.
Shutting down communication entirely, refusing to speak, going blank-faced, leaving the room, as a way to punish or control rather than resolve anything. Relationship researcher John Gottman identified stonewalling as one of the strongest predictors of relationship breakdown, since it removes any possibility of repair.
Indirect hostility that punishes or undermines someone while keeping deniability fully intact: backhanded compliments, sarcasm, deliberate procrastination, excluding someone socially, "forgetting" to pass along information, or feigned incompetence. The goal is control without ever looking like the aggressor.
Attributing your own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or behavior to someone else. A narcissist who lies constantly may be the first to accuse others of lying; one who is cheating may become suspicious and accusatory toward a faithful partner. It's a well-studied defense mechanism, not just a turn of phrase, a way of pushing an uncomfortable truth about the self onto someone else entirely.
Choosing words or actions specifically because they can never be proven malicious, keeping just enough ambiguity that harmful intent can always be denied. It works because there's no reliable way to tell the difference between an accident and a deliberate act dressed up as one, which leaves the target certain but unable to prove anything, even to themselves.
A threat dressed up as an offhand comment, a joke, or a sad little musing, specific enough that you know exactly what she means, vague enough that she can deny meaning anything by it at all. Mentions of cutting you out of the will, of how much easier everyone's life would be without her around, of "some people" who don't get invited back, are all dropped into conversation like they cost her nothing. The threat itself is the control. She never has to follow through, because the fear of what she might do is doing the work for her.
Getting someone else, often the enabler or a flying monkey, to deliver the actual punishment, rule, or confrontation, so the narcissist herself never has to be the one who looks controlling. She gets the outcome she wants while staying free to look reasonable, sympathetic, or even uninvolved.
This page defines the individual moves. Narcissist Schemes walks through how they're combined into full campaigns, smear campaigns, inheritance schemes, engineered breakups, with real scenarios. Defense & Recovery covers how to respond to each one.
Further viewing on narcissist tactics