A dark empath can use your feelings to manipulate you, according to experts. Here are 4 signs you may be dealing with one.

• Dark empathy is a trait describing someone who understands another's emotions but can't feel them.
• People with dark empathy could use gaslighting and charm to manipulate the people close to them.

Researchers say there is a personality type that may be more dangerous than narcissism because it's harder to spot.

In 2020, psychologists coined the term "dark empaths" to describe people who tend to have trouble with emotional empathy or physically feeling the emotions someone else is experiencing. Dark empathy isn't a diagnosable mental-health condition but a personality trait that people may embody to different extents, according to PsychCentral.

People with personality disorders, like narcissism, are characterized by traits that include charm and disregard for the feelings of others, but dark empaths may have dark traits associated with those conditions, while still coming off as emotionally tapped in.

Ramani Durvasula, a therapist, told Well and Good that dark empaths could cognitively understand someone else's emotions and therefore seem invested in a relationship. But when it comes to supporting a loved one, dark empaths don't take action, Durvasula, who wrote the book "'Don't You Know Who I Am?': How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility," said.

Since they process empathy only on a brain level, a dark empath could use what they learn to manipulate you, while keeping an emotional distance, Durvasula said. Their less obvious and more covert tactics can be difficult to spot compared with a narcissist's.

"It's giving a surgical, almost razor-precision focus on another person to understand what makes them tick with the goal of almost mining data that could be used to the advantage of the dark empath," she said.

The traits and signs of a dark empath are subtle, but can include love bombing, galighting or sarcasm, Cali Estes, a cognitive-behavioral therapist in Miami, told PsychCentral. Pointed jokes and guilt trips may be signs you're dealing with one, experts say.

Their jokes are always sarcastic

Dark empaths gravitate toward manipulative tactics, including biting humor, since it's an indirect yet effective way to affect someone else, according to PsychCentral.

If you notice someone relies on sarcasm to write off hurtful or malicious comments as jokes, it can mean they have dark empathy as a personality trait.

If someone often jokes about people they deem inferior, that may also suggest they're a dark empath, Well and Good reported.

They try to guilt-trip you often

Guilt is another common manipulation tactic for dark empaths, researchers say.

If you notice someone always attempts to guilt-trip you when you don't agree with what they say, think, or do, it can mean they're a dark empath.

They're constantly gossiping

If you notice someone act kind and agreeable to others, but they turn around and gossip, it could mean they have dark empathy, Estes told PsychCentral.

She said dark empaths tended to focus on what they could get out of relationships. When they don't like what they get, they can act in vindictive ways, like talking about loved ones behind their backs instead of being honest about the cause of their dislike.

They're charming until they don't get what they want

A dark empath can seem agreeable until things don't go their way, Mary Joye, a mental-health counselor and certified Florida Supreme Court family mediator, said.

"They can be very charming and put you on a pedestal and then be the very person who will knock that pedestal down," Joye told PsychCentral.