Weaponisation: What is it?

The other day I was reflecting on my personality, who I have become over the years and why. I am a person that values truth telling and honesty, even when it is uncomfortable. A big part of being an effective Counsellor is that I self-reflect after each session to understand the interaction and best serve my clients. Luckily, I have always been what some might call a ‘navel gazer’. Someone who thinks about things deeply and considers my sense of self and how I fit into the world. I have discovered that there are many layers to why I am this way, including my upbringing, my generation, my relationships, and my own innate personality traits, for example. There are lots of factors that contribute to who we are, some internal, and some external.

I started thinking about the privilege of knowledge and education, particularly as I age and transform what I know into wisdom. I hope that what I know is something that is not only imparted to my clients by rote, but offered as ingredients that they themselves can choose from and transform.

My aim as a Counsellor is to encourage clients to come to their own realisations and wisdom through our shared dialogue and exchange of information. To get as close to what we can both agree is the truth. It got me thinking about power, particularly the dynamic of the therapeutic relationship. I can tell when a client is progressing, when the power dynamic shifts more towards equity and balance, something I aim for from the onset of therapy. Clients arrive at Counselling vulnerable, and it is my job as a Counsellor to meet them in that vulnerability, in a way that is professional, but also empowering, encouraging and safe.

I have noticed, in this age of unlimited information, that now more than ever, knowledge is power. And just like any kind of power, knowledge can be exploited, manipulated and misused. One of the best things about being a Counsellor is the opportunity to reflect on, share and exchange information and experience with colleagues and supervisors. For me, this is key to transforming knowledge and experience into wisdom, and more importantly, best practice.

What concerns me is that sometimes, whether intentional or not, there can be a disconnect between using knowledge to create good in the world, and using that knowledge to only create good for the self. Perhaps it is part of the human condition and our natural instinct to do well, not only to survive but to thrive. Or it might be how we are conditioned within a competitive society built on principles that encourage division, individualism, and unchecked growth and productivity. A conversation for another time!

Sometimes I notice that while on the surface, information exchanges appear to be reciprocal and mutually constructive, on closer inspection after some time, that exchange has then become something that only advantages one party over another. It can leave us feeling disempowered, manipulated, excluded and exploited.

I’ll give you an example. Have you ever had a conversation with someone, a casual exchange, where they have asked you for advice, or you have imparted an experience or given a recommendation, and then later, it could be days, even weeks or months, you overhear or notice that the person is now repeating that conversation, but claiming that information as their own, without any recollection or recognition of your interaction? It might be an oversight, like they just know it now, from their connection with you, but there is no acknowledgement of this. You have been erased from the exchange and they are now benefiting from the information they have appropriated from you, without any reciprocity.

The information can also be used to have the opposite effect to its original intention. Instead of sharing that knowledge, even acknowledging where it came from, because it is being misused, it is watered down, twisted and repackaged into something else. Only if there is criticism is it linked back to you, otherwise, credit is claimed as a new idea, independent of your contribution or the origin of the exchange.

This seems to be occurring more and more on a collective level, for example in the social and political sphere with high incidences of misinformation and disinformation easily transmitted on a large scale through advanced and wide reaching technology.

When this has happened to me personally and I have recognised it, I have simply either addressed it, for example by reminding the person of our previous conversation, or learned from it by re-evaluating my trust for that person. Other times, there has been acceptance, like I am not going to reclaim what I have taught my children, when I see them repeating our interactions and lessons towards friendship, for example. Similarly, in a professional setting, it is expected and encouraged that Counselling practitioners share information, skills, techniques and approaches, and we don’t have to provide references - that would be impossible. It is more about a sense of being undermined or dismissed, when a projection is created that does not reflect the reality.

What I mean, and particularly in the Counselling and wellbeing sphere, is that the more we learn about different behaviour and presentations, the more we understand how our brains work, how we process emotions, which behaviours are healthy and which are harmful, the more room there is for this information to be exploited. Again, I return to thinking about over and under correcting (see last month’s blog).

So how do we acknowledge when we are feeling exploited, identify the behaviours and events causing those emotions, and remedy the situation through conflict resolution or deep acceptance? More importantly, how do we detect when information is incomplete, has a harmful agenda and needs critical assessment and fact checking before it is credited as factual?

Weaponisation is a verb and attached to that behaviour is an intention. I think key to emotional and mental health is understanding the difference between when a behaviour is happening subconsciously and when it is being enacted deliberately and to what end. A subconscious act of weaponisation might be an oversight, it could also be a result of miscommunication or misinterpretation. But when something is being knowingly clouded, obscured, manipulated or expressed incompletely, with the end goal being a desired outcome that benefits one party over an other, this is intentional weaponisation and it can be harmful.

The bottom line is transparency, openness, honesty and authenticity go a long way towards healthy exchanges and connections. If information is not exchanged with these intentions in mind, if there is a deliberate effort to use a narrow lens rather than a wider angle, or to omit crucial detail, it creates an incomplete picture and this is when we can feel gaslit, used, lied to and dismissed.

Weaponisation is also a process of fabrication; taking elements of the truth and rearranging them so they tell a very different narrative to reality. One skewed detail, a minor omission, a slight misdirection, and the overall picture looks completely different, sometimes delivering the exact opposite message or meaning than the truth.

Have you ever experienced weaponisation? Have you participated in weaponising behaviour, deliberately or otherwise? Let’s talk it through.

I look forward to meeting you.

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