These systems are incredibly effective at mirroring whatever you project onto it back at you.

Also, it has often been pointed out that toxic people (from school bullies and domestic abusers up to cult leaders and dictators) often appear to operate from similar playbooks. Of course, this has been reflected in many published works (both fictional and non-fictional) and can also be observed in real time on social media, online forums etc. Therefore, I think it isn’t surprising when a well-trained LLM “picks up” similar strategies (this is another reason - besides energy consumption - why I avoid using chatbots “just for fun”, by the way).

Of course, “love bombing” is a key tool employed by most abusers, and chatbots appear to be particularly good at doing this, as you pointed out (by telling people what they want to hear, mirroring their thoughts back to them etc.).