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Gaslighting






  Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making them doubt their own memory and perception. It may simply be the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever happened, or it could be the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.





  The term comes from the 1938 stage play, Gaslight. The plot concerns a husband who attempts to drive his wife crazy by moving things and insisting that she's mistaken or forgetting when she points them out. The title comes from the husband's subtle dimming of the house's gas lights, which she accurately notices; the husband insists she's imagining.





   Gaslighting has been used colloquially since the late 1970s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's sense of reality. Child sex abuse author Florence Rush summarized the play by writing, "even today the word [gaslight] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another's perception of reality."





   In an influential article "Some Clinical Consequences of Introjection: Gaslighting", the authors argue gaslighting involves the projection and introjection of psychic conflicts from the perpetrator to the victim.





   With respect to women in particular, Hilda Nelson argued that "in gaslighting cases...ability to resist depends on her ability to trust her own judgements". Nelson encourages the establishment of "counterstories" in response to the gaslighter. This might help the victim re-acquire or, even, for the first time "acquire ordinary levels of free agency."



 
 
Wikipedia