Operation Warp Speed: Moolah Edition - Money Magnet 5.11G

[Ampersnd]

If that's the case, what is your word for the kind that does not benefit the person committing the distortion?

Manipulation ALWAYS benefits the person doing it in some way.  The question is, does it benefit you from a conscious point of view, or a subconscious point of view?  A lot of people like to play innocent at a conscious level (and they may even actually believe themselves to be, consciously), while they connive and manipulate like crazy subconsciously and in subtle ways.

Creating such a distortion without benefit isn't manipulation.  It's usually insanity and self destruction, in my experience.

I like having words to summarize complex separate concepts; that's where I'm wanting the semantic distinction between "A & B & C" and "A & B & not C", in your opinion. You've distinguished between people who distort and benefit and those who distort but don't benefit; then your response seems to indicate that a distortion always benefits the distorter.

So if 'not benefitting the person doing it' makes it 'not manipulation', I might argue that a parent will benefit indirectly from misleading their child because the child could hurt themselves because their internal sense of reality (their inner playing field) is distorted and constantly shifting, and the parent would suffer in such a situation. The parents benefit, by that logic, so is that manipulation? Do you have a separate word to parse out benevolent vs. malicious distortions?

Lots of moving parts, I know, and some of it will come down to our opinions and individual experience. Would love to hear your opinion.