# On Gaslighting by Kate Abramson - Blinkist What’s in it for me? An accurate gaslighting explainer The classic Hollywood movie Gaslight starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer is the perfect introduction to the topic of gaslighting, a form of psychological manipulation where someone distorts another’s reality for their own gain – in fact, the term is inspired by the movie. Here’s the plot. Ten years after the murder of her aunt, a beautiful young opera singer falls in love with a dashing man she meets in Italy. The pair return to the singer’s London home. The singer soon begins to notice strange things happening in the house. In particular, the gaslights dim at erratic intervals. When she points this out to her husband, he tells her she is imagining it. Soon the singer is questioning her perceptions of reality. But there are three things she doesn’t know. One: her husband is the man who murdered her aunt all those years ago. Two: he is planning to commit her to an asylum and make off with her inheritance. Three: he is turning the gaslights up and down on purpose, in order to make her doubt her own sanity. Since the 2010s, the term has come into widespread use. But, as with many academic terms that are brought into popular discourse, it has suffered “concept creep”, meaning it has been applied beyond its original meaning. “Gaslighting” is frequently used to describe any form of emotional manipulation, dishonesty, or conflict. This dilutes its original meaning. In this Blink we’ll steer the conversation back to the true concept of gaslighting, explaining what it is, how it can be enacted, and how this insidious form of manipulation informs various aspects of social life. Gaslighting 101 You’re being hysterical. I was only joking. That never happened. File all these phrases under “textbook gaslighting”.  But what is textbook gaslighting exactly? Let’s get a bit more analytical. Gaslighting is a style of psychological manipulation that aims to do two distinct but interrelated things. It aims to produce, in another person, the sense that her reactions, perceptions, memories, and beliefs are so far removed from the reality of a situation that they are, in fact, crazy. What’s more, it aims to make that person feel the gap between their perceptions and the reality proposed by her gaslighter is part of her broader craziness and her entrenched unreliability. Simply, the gaslighter’s target is both made to feel she is being crazy and, at the same time, she is actually driven crazy. The target, try as she might, cannot make herself see the reality the gaslighter proposes to her.  Side note: we’re using the word ‘crazy’ here. This word has historically been used to undermine the experiences of people with mental illnesses. Aptly enough, it’s an experience of “craziness” (not of a legible, treatable mental illness) that gaslighters want to produce in their targets. Moving on: we can see an important distinction between gaslighting and another form of psychological manipulation, brainwashing. When a target is brainwashed, he is manipulated into radically altering his beliefs. When a target is gaslit, he is manipulated into radically questioning his beliefs while being, at the same time, unable to completely alter them.  Another important thing to understand: while a gaslighter will often dismiss their target's testimony, or fail to take her concerns seriously, the act of dismissing someone or of not taking her seriously does not equate to gaslighting. Gaslighting is a long term pattern of behavior, occurring over a stretch of time, in which the gaslighter’s most crucial violation is not that they don’t take their target seriously; rather that they coax their target into not taking herself seriously. That’s gaslighting theory. What does it look like in practice? We’ll share some relevant examples in the next chapter. Gaslighting in the wild Gaslighting can occur in various types of relationships and social contexts. To better understand how this behavior unfolds, let’s explore four common scenarios: intimate relationships, family dynamics, the workplace, and situations tied to identity and oppression. Each example highlights how gaslighting can develop into a pattern, where multiple voices can reinforce the gaslighting within the same context. In intimate relationships, gaslighting can subtly erode trust and self-confidence. Take the example of Emily and Jake. They are a couple, and Emily notices Jake frequently texting someone late at night. Concerned, she asks him about it, but he dismisses her, saying, “You're imagining things.” Over time, Jake’s evasive behavior increases, and when Emily brings it up again, he tells her, “You’re always so emotional; you’re making things up in your head.” Despite seeing clear signs of dishonesty, Emily begins doubting her own perceptions, questioning whether she’s being overly sensitive or irrational. In family relationships, gaslighting often distorts someone’s sense of reality within the family unit. For instance, Sarah tries to communicate her hurt feelings to her mother, saying, “Mom, I feel like you're always criticizing me.” Her mother brushes this off, saying, “That’s ridiculous, I never criticize you. You’re just being sensitive – you’ve always been that way.” Later, when Sarah brings up specific examples, her mother insists, “It didn’t happen like that. You always exaggerate things.” Over time, Sarah’s confidence in her own feelings and memories fades, leaving her questioning whether she’s truly overreacting. Gaslighting also appears in workplace settings, especially when established dynamics discourage speaking up. For example, Juanita, a junior academic, faces harassment when a male colleague slaps her bottom as he passes by. She reports this to a senior colleague, only to hear, “He’s from a different generation. It’s not a big deal.” A third colleague echoes this sentiment, suggesting she’s being “a bit sensitive.” Although the colleague’s behavior clearly violates professional boundaries, Juanita starts to question her feelings and whether her reaction was justified. Lastly, gaslighting related to identity and oppression can be especially insidious, as it often reinforces systemic biases. Daniel, a Black college student, endures subtly hurtful comments from his white classmate, Chloe. She makes remarks like, “I didn’t expect someone like you to be into literature” or “Wow, you’re really well-spoken.” When Daniel seeks validation by sharing these experiences with his professor, he’s told, “Chloe’s just trying to compliment you.” Friends suggest he’s “reading too much into it,” and even the campus diversity officer says, “It’s easy to misinterpret people’s intentions.” Over time, Daniel begins to doubt his own perceptions, wondering if he’s being “too sensitive,” while the microaggressions persist, leaving his experiences unacknowledged. In each of these scenarios, gaslighting chips away at individuals' sense of self and reality. Each story reveals how it operates as a pattern of dismissing, minimizing, or distorting perceptions, often reinforced by multiple voices, leaving the individual isolated and unsure of their own experiences. Why gaslight? Consider a situation in which someone has a view that challenges your own. How might you react? There are a number of options. You might simply note the difference. You might ask the other person more about their view. You might try to find common ground.  Of course, you might respond less reasonably. You might lie to the other person in an effort to bring them around to your view. You might guilt trip or blackmail them. You might spread gossip about them, to ensure no-one else takes them seriously. None of these responses, good or bad, are as extreme or involved as the way the gaslighter chooses to respond to difference: by convincing their target that he is crazy, and by undermining his faith in his perceptions to such a degree that he never dares to pose any further challenges. Why do all of this? What is it the gaslighter wants?  We can break the gasligher’s motivations down into three categories. The first category is closest to the surface and comprises target-specific aims: what the gaslighter wants to gain from the situation. Let’s use an example. Liz is a high-powered female executive. Her boss is a recent hire. Soon after he starts, Liz notices she is getting left off important emails, and isn’t invited to key meetings. Her colleagues dismiss her complaints, pointing out how highly her boss speaks of her. And when she confronts him about it directly he brushes her aside, claiming she is being sensitive. What does Liz’s boss want? At the target specific level: he wants to get rid of Liz. He may be consciously aware of this aim, or acting on it subconsciously. The second category comprises the gaslighters' underlying desires, the aims which are not specific to their targets but rather speak to their basic, subconscious needs. For example, Liz’s boss’s underlying desire may be to preserve his own power and dominance while simultaneously projecting a ‘nice boss’ image. But there’s something deeper going on here. In order to satisfy both his target-specific and underlying aims, Liz’s boss doesn’t actually need to gaslight her. He could simply ignore her, or offer plausible explanations for his exclusionary behavior without suggesting her perception is unreliable. Why go the extra mile?  Well, the gaslighter cannot tolerate any challenge to the way they see the world. Which is why they go to such lengths to not only quash these challenges, but to disappear the possibility of challenge altogether. Imagine a woman points out sexist behavior. A misogynist will roll his eyes and walk away. A gaslighter, on the other hand, will engage: he will insist that she is being crazy, and insist, too, that she accepts that she is crazy. He cannot tolerate the challenge she poses to his worldview and he won’t stop manipulating her until it is actually the case that she feels unable to challenge him again. The gaslighter’s toolkit What are the key tactics in the gaslighter’s toolkit? One of the key tools in their arsenal is participation. Gaslighting isn't a one-way manipulation; it involves the target in a way that makes them feel complicit. The gaslighter subtly modulates their behavior, making the victim question their own judgment until they unknowingly participate in their own manipulation. This realization – that they’ve been turned against themselves – can be especially devastating. Gaslighters frequently exploit other’s trust. While trust is often thought of in close relationships, gaslighters exploit trust in broader social contexts too. For instance, someone experiencing harassment at work may trust that company protocols will protect them. When their complaints are dismissed, that trust is violated, leaving them vulnerable. Gaslighters thrive in environments where assumed trust is easily exploited. Doubt is an especially effective tool. We all acknowledge that we are not infallible, and this humility enables us to stay open to questioning our own memories or perceptions. In some situations, questioning one’s memories, perceptions, and deliberations is perfectly appropriate. But the gaslighter makes a habit of planting these doubts, leaving their target to question her competence. Gaslighters exploit this by using phrases like “That never happened” or “There’s no pattern. Over time, this constant questioning can lead the target to doubt her own competence, leaving them further under the gaslighter's control. Gaslighting often relies on isolation. By cutting their target off physically or socially – perhaps through private conversations or by undermining their credibility in a group – the gaslighter ensures that their target is deprived of reality checks from others. This isolation makes the target more dependent on the gaslighter's version of events. Surprisingly, even a target’s own empathy can be weaponized. In cases of harassment, for example, the victim may be pressured to feel empathy for the perpetrator: “He’s old and doesn’t understand that times have changed.” This tactic is especially potent against marginalized groups, who have often been conditioned to empathize with their oppressors as a survival strategy. Finally, authority and practical consequences play a significant role. Gaslighters in positions of power – like bosses or teachers – can leverage the threat of real-world repercussions if their target doesn’t conform to their narrative. A manager, for instance, could imply that challenging their version of events might result in lost job opportunities, further reinforcing their control. What makes gaslighting wrong? What’s wrong with gaslighting? It’s a harder question to answer than you might think. Gaslighting is pernicious not only because it is manipulative, but because of the complex and multi-dimensional ways in which it violates the target. Unlike other forms of abuse, it is often difficult to articulate exactly which boundaries have been crossed. This makes it uniquely damaging and hard to condemn clearly. At its core, gaslighting involves manipulation, where the gaslighter plants seeds of doubt and creates a distorted reality for the target. This tactic stifles the target’s ability to challenge the gaslighter, undermining their autonomy and leading them to question their own sanity. Another violation is epistemic – gaslighting distorts the target's sense of knowledge and self-knowledge. The gaslighter systematically erodes the target’s confidence in their ability to know and reason, making them feel incapable of issuing challenges. Worse, gaslighting often taps into oppressive social norms. For instance, a woman may be gaslit into believing that her frustration at being ignored is simply "hysteria" or "overreaction," reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes. Gaslighting also brings about silencing in both practical and existential ways. Practically, any attempts by the target to protest or speak out are dismissed, further discrediting their experiences. On a deeper level, the target may lose the ability to recognize or trust their own thoughts and feelings, leaving them voiceless in their internal world. What makes gaslighting so hard to identify – and condemn – is that it often operates on multiple fronts simultaneously. There isn’t just one central wrong; it’s a web of violations that intersect and reinforce one another. This slipperiness makes gaslighting particularly difficult to expose, leaving targets feeling trapped in a reality where their experiences are not only questioned but invalidated. Final summary In this Blink to On Gaslighting by Kate Abramson, you’ve learned that gaslighting is a psychological manipulation tactic that distorts the target's sense of reality, often making them doubt their own perceptions, memories, and sanity. It involves a complex web of tactics like exploiting trust, isolating its target, and even weaponizing empathy. This form of abuse is especially harmful because it is difficult to identify and condemn clearly. Okay, that’s it for this Blink. We hope you enjoyed it. If you can, please take the time to leave us a rating – we always appreciate your feedback. See you in the next Blink.