What is gaslighting and what does it look like?
Gaslighting occurs in intimate relationships when a partner repeatedly undermines and distorts their partner’s reality by denying facts, the situation around them, or their partner’s feelings and needs. It can cause a survivor to question themselves and become unable to trust their own perceptions and judgements. This gains the partner control and power over the survivor, whose self-doubt and erosion of confidence lead to increased dependence on the partner, who is behaving abusively. An additional benefit for the partner using gaslighting is that the survivor is more likely to stay in the abusive relationship.
Gaslighting is a coercive control tactic that shifts the focus of concern from the partner’s abusive behaviour to the supposed emotional and psychological instability of the survivor.
Gaslighting doesn’t just take place in intimate relationships. This coercive control tactic can be used in any ongoing relationship to gain power over another (e.g. between friends or colleagues). It can also be used to magnify and exploit power imbalances in relationships such as:
Superior & employee
Teacher & student
Parent & child
Caregiver & person needing care
