Gaslighting is a term used in psychiatric papers and articles on psychopathy that describes the deliberate psychosis-induction perpetrated by the psychopath onto his targets. It comes from the 1940′s film Gaslight that starred Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Charles Boyer plays the husband who has seduced Ingrid Bergman into marrying him so that he can locate and acquire for himself some jewels that he knows are hidden in her family home in London (he has persuaded her to go back there to live). In his searches of the attic he uses the gas light, and this results in the other gas lights in the house dimming, added to that he makes noises while he is looking for the treasure. His wife complains about the dimming of the lights and the noises but the husband says it is all in her imagination, she is getting mentally unstable and he says she needs medical help. He hides her belongings and then accuses her of being forgetful, he even enlists the help of the housemaid to further gang up on the already confused wife. The wife thinks she is going mad – little does she realise at first that that is the husband’s plan. It is a classic portrayal of the isolation and manipulation of a target by a psychopath. A friend from outside gradually makes the wife realise that she is being set up.
This technique is also supposed to have been used by the Manson Family during their “creepy crawler” burglaries during which nothing was stolen, but furniture in the house was rearranged.
It is the planned, gradual and ruthless dismantling of a person’s self-esteem and self-confidence so much so that they become unable to confront their abuser, they become convinced that they are mentally or emotionally unstable, they feel they are going mad.
Then the psychopath “suggests” that medical help be brought in, the target becomes tainted with the stigma of being mentally unstable.
Mr Wonderful did this to his two previous wives and to me. His first wife was told by Mr W that she was hallucinating and needed medical help. He tried to have her committed. Only her parents saved her by persuading her that there was nothing wrong with her. She needed to be on tranquilisers for a time. After her divorce Mr W’s brothers told her that he tried to get her committed so that he could take the property. His second wife stated in her divorce petition that she was permanently on tranquilisers due to his behaviour.
Mr Wonderful did the same to me and succeeded in having me put in a psychiatric unit for 11 days. I received no treatment and the doctors said afterwards that I showed no signs of depression or delusion. But Mr W refused to sign my release. When he signed me into the unit he went back to our house, changed the locks, took all the legal documentation relating to the house plus all my personal documents (birth certificate, passport, identity papers) and went back to the UK (I was in France and in a french hospital). It was only due to my parents writing a letter to the hospital that got me released.
This phenomenon is already known and documented in psychiatric journals – you can read the first page of a two-page article here:- http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/pdf_extract/120/559/685. Another article called “Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome” is located here – unfortunately only the abstract – http://www.springerlink.com/content/x7805x118j577r36/. Gaslighting was reported back in in the 1700′s so it is far from being a recent tactic. It is most commonly employed when a family member or group of family members wishes to get rid of a relative for whatever reason.
Mental health is not an exact science and mental health practitioners are easily led astray by a practised psychopath who is acting on his/her own agenda. You cannot prove or disprove mental illness very easily, once the mud has been thrown, it sticks no matter what.
My daughter practised the same technique on me – when she reneged on promises and plans she would accuse me of not remembering something properly, or I had misunderstood, or I was insane. Some people would call this mind games, crazy-making. The target begins to believe that he/she is losing their grip on reality.
What is difficult to appreciate while this manipulation is going on is that if someone truly loves you they will try to build you up. When someone keeps telling you that you are always so forgetful, always confused or your judgement is impaired this should be a red flag – this person is trying to destroy you. This is completely evil in my estimation.
Gaslighting is used in child-custody cases, in marital situations, in sales techniques, in fact in any situation where the psychopath is trying to appropriate something at the expense of calling your mental state into question. The more confused the target gets, the more emotional or unbalanced they look and the psychopath just looks on with quiet confidence and coolness. It is apparent in passive-aggressive situations, the perp is calm and the target is made to look as though they are losing it big time.
This type of abuse, sometimes called ambient abuse, is cruel and calculated. It is calculated because the abuser has an agenda and driving you to insanity helps him/her to achieve his/her goals. Husbands will deliberately do this to get rid of wives they no longer have any use for, and putting your wife away in a mental institution is cheaper than divorce.
There were reported cases of muslim men, often men who had more than one wife, who would get psychiatrists to collude with them to put their wives away, for ever. Ruth Gledhill of the Times reported on this:-
“A few weeks ago, I was chatting to a woman who works in an advocacy role for Muslim women in an area that, quite independently of the Bishop of Rochester, she described as a ‘no-go area’ for non-Muslims. Her clients were women in the process of being sectioned into mental health units in the NHS. This woman, who for obvious reasons begged not to be identified, told me: ‘The men get tired of their wives. Or bored. Or maybe the wife objects to her daughter being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want. Or maybe she starts wearing western clothes.There can be many reasons. The women are sent for asssessment to a hospital. The GP referring them is Muslim. The psychiatrist assessing them is Muslim and male. I have sat in these assessments where the psychiatrist will not look the woman patient in the eye because she is a woman. Can you imagine! A psychiatrist refusing to look his patient in the eye? The woman speaks little or no English. She is sectioned. She is divorced. There are lots of these women in there, locked up in these hospitals. Why don’t you people write about this?’”
The abuse of psychiatry is rampant in all cultures and societies. It is used in totalitarian regimes such as the Communist block – political opponents are labelled as insane and have treatment forced on them. This is gaslighting by oppressors on a large scale. I have been gaslit on an individual scale but it is no less destructive, it destroys our humanness and our lives.
A couple of excellent links: – http://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/2007/08/15/gaslighting/ and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-stern-/gaslight-effect-dont-be-a_b_48021.html
