Gaslighting
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Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.[1] Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
The term "gaslighting" comes from the play Gas Light and its film adaptations. The term is now also used in clinical and research literature.[2][3]
Etymology
The term derives from the 1938 stage play Gas Light (known as Angel Street in the United States), and the 1940 and 1944 film adaptations. The plot concerns a husband who attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment, and subsequently insisting that she is mistaken or misremembering when she points out these changes. The title stems from the dimming of the house's gas lights which happens when the husband is using the gas lights in the attic while searching there for hidden treasure. The wife accurately notices the dimming lights, but the husband insists she is imagining the change.
The term "gaslighting" has been used colloquially since at least the 1970s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's sense of reality. In a 1980 book on child sex abuse, Florence Rush summarized George Cukor's 1944 film version of Gas Light, and writes, "even today the word [gaslight] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another's perception of reality."[4] The term was further popularized in Victor Santoro's 1994 book Gaslighting: How to Drive Your Enemies Crazy, which outlines ostensibly legal tactics the reader might use to annoy others.
The 2000 Steely Dan album Two Against Nature includes a song titled "Gaslighting Abbie". Musicians Walter Becker and Donald Fagen acknowledged that the lyrics were inspired by the 1944 Gaslight film.[5]
Clinical examples
Psychologist Martha Stout states that sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws, and exploit others, but are also typically charming and convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing. Thus, some who have been victimized by sociopaths may doubt their perceptions.[6] Jacobson and Gottman report that some physically abusive spouses may gaslight their partners, even flatly denying that they have been violent.[3]
Psychologists Gertrude Gass and William C. Nichols use the term "gaslighting" to describe a dynamic observed in some cases of marital infidelity: "Therapists may contribute to the victim's distress through mislabeling the woman's reactions. [...] The gaslighting behaviors of the husband provide a recipe for the so-called 'nervous breakdown' for some women [and] suicide in some of the worst situations."[7]
Gaslighting can also occur in parent-child relationships, with either parent or child (or both) lying to each other and attempting to undermine perceptions.[8] Furthermore, gaslighting has been observed between patients and staff in inpatient psychiatric facilities.[9]
Some of Sigmund Freud's conduct has been characterized as gaslighting. Regarding the case of Sergei Pankejeff, nicknamed the "Wolf Man" due to his dream featuring wolves which he discussed extensively with Freud, Dorpat wrote, "Freud brought relentless pressure on the Wolfman to accept and to confirm Freud's reconstructions and formulations."[2]
Introjection
In an influential 1981 article "Some Clinical Consequences of Introjection: Gaslighting", Calef and Weinshel argue that gaslighting involves the projection and introjection of psychic conflicts from the perpetrator to the victim: "this imposition is based on a very special kind of 'transfer'...of painful and potentially painful mental conflicts."[10]
The authors explore a variety of reasons why the victims may have "a tendency to incorporate and assimilate what others externalize and project onto them," and conclude that gaslighting can be "a very complex, highly structured configuration which encompasses contributions from many elements of the psychic apparatus."[10]
Resisting
With respect to women in particular, Hilde Lindemann argued that "in gaslighting cases...ability to resist depends on her ability to trust her own judgements."[note 1][11] For the victim to establish "counterstories" may help the victim reacquire "ordinary levels of free agency."[11]
See also
- Antisocial personality disorder
- Asch conformity experiments
- Martha Mitchell effect
- Münchausen syndrome by proxy
- Narcissistic personality disorder
- Pseudologia fantastica
- Psychological warfare
Notes
- ↑ (Hilde's emphasis)
References
- ↑ Dorpat, T.L. (1994). "On the double whammy and gaslighting". Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy 11 (1): 91–96. (subscription required (help)).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Dorpat, Theodore L. (1996-10-28). Gaslighting, the Double Whammy, Interrogation, and Other Methods of Covert Control in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Jason Aronson. ISBN 978-1-56821-828-1. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Jacobson, Neil S.; Gottman, John M. (1998-03-10). When Men Batter Women: New Insights into Ending Abusive Relationships. Simon and Schuster. pp. 129–132. ISBN 978-0-684-81447-6. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
- ↑ Rush, Florence (February 1992). The Best-kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children. Human Services Institute. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-8306-3907-6.
- ↑ Donald Fagen; Walter Becker (2000-02-29). The Steely Dan Q&A. with John Sakamoto. Jam!. New York. Archived from the original on 2003-04-06. http://www.granatino.com/sdresource/000229%20jam.htm. Retrieved 2014-01-06. "JAM!: What does the title of the first track, "Gaslighting Abbie," mean?
FAGEN: ... the term "to gaslight" comes from the film "Gaslight," with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, in which Charles Boyer tries to convince Ingrid Bergman that she's going mad so he can get her money, I think. So it's really a certain kind of mind f---ing, or messing with somebody's head by ...
BECKER: ... specifically by manipulating the external reality to make them think they're deluded. ..." - ↑ Stout, Martha (2006-03-14). The Sociopath Next Door. Random House Digital. pp. 94–95. ISBN 978-0-7679-1582-3. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
- ↑ Gass, G.Z.; Nichols, W.C. (1988). "Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome". Journal of Contemporary Family Therapy 10 (1): 3–16. doi:10.1007/BF00922429.
- ↑ Cawthra, R.; O'Brian, G.; Hassanyeh, F. (April 1987). "'Imposed Psychosis': A Case Variant of the Gaslight Phenomenon". British Journal of Psychiatry 150: 553–556. PMID 3664141.
- ↑ Lund, C.A.; Gardiner, A.Q. (1977). "The Gaslight Phenomenon: An Institutional Variant". British Journal of Psychiatry 131: 533–534. doi:10.1192/bjp.131.5.533. PMID 588872.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Weinshel, Edward M. (January 2003). Wallerstein, Robert S., ed. Commitment and Compassion in Psychoanalysis: Selected Papers of Edward M. Weinshel. Analytic Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-88163-379-5.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Nelson, Hilde L. (March 2001). Damaged identities, narrative repair. Cornell University Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-0-8014-8740-8. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
Further reading
- Portnow, Kathryn (1996). Dialogues of Doubt: The Psychology of Self-Doubt and Emotional Gaslighting in Adult Women and Men. Harvard Graduate School of Education. OCLC 36674740. (thesis/dissertation) (offline resource)
- Santoro, Victor (1994-06-30). Gaslighting: How to Drive Your Enemies Crazy. Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 978-1-55950-113-2. OCLC 35172282. (offline resource)
- Stern, Robin (2007-05-01). The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life. Random House Digital. ISBN 978-0-7679-2445-0. Retrieved 2014-01-06. (limited preview available online)
- Calef, V.; Weinshel, E.M. (January 1981). "Some Clinical Consequences of Introjection: Gaslighting". Psychoanal Q 50 (1): 44–66. ISSN 0033-2828. OCLC 865290402. PMID 7465707. (subscription required)
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