Gaslighting
Clinical Practice
A manipulation pattern that causes the target to question their own perception, memory, or sanity.
A manipulation pattern that causes the target to question their own perception, memory, or sanity. Named after the 1944 film *Gaslight*. Ranges from subtle ("you're being too sensitive," "that never happened") to overt denial of documented reality. Sustained gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse. The effect is the target gradually loses confidence in their own judgment.
Evidence
Clinical Practice
Gaslighting, manipulating someone into doubting their own perception of reality, earns Clinical Practice. It names a real, recognized tactic within the literature on psychological and emotional abuse and coercive control (Sweet, 2019), but research specifically on gaslighting as a named phenomenon is recent and limited rather than a large experimental base. One caution worth stating: the term is now widely over-applied to ordinary disagreement, which is not the same thing.
Origin
Term from 1944 film Gaslight
Sources
- Why Does He Do That? — Lundy Bancroft, 2002