“Gaslighting” is clinically defined as “intimidation or psychological abuse in which false information is deliberately presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and/or perception of an event or events.”
The most diabolical and deceitful personalities use this tactic in their daily lives to get their way and avoid responsibility at the expense and to the detriment of their victims.
Power relationships are hot-beds, if you will, for this out-right evil tool of hidden manipulation which thrives on the aggressor dominating and asserting power, coupled with the victim acquiescing to their demands and giving them power.
Although, traditionally seen in male/female romantic relationships, Gaslighting can, and often does occur in parent-to-child relationships with mothers the common perpetrators.
Additionally, this dynamic can be found in female-to-female relationships often described as “frenemy” (of frienemy, if you prefer) relationships in which the self-professed Alpha female dominates all others for personal gain.
Something akin to the movie Mean Girls likely just sprung to mind which is a somewhat accurate example of the dynamic that exists in such power relationships.
The primary behaviors are listed as follows:
- Deny existence of an event even when presented with evidence (Denial);
- Deliberately block their victims from source data (Compartmentalizing);
- Deny behaviors by immediately putting their targets on the defensive (Deflection);
- Insist that their targets are imagining things (Chronic Invalidation);
- Shame their targets for expressing very real hurts (Minimization);
- Insist that others are the source of their poor choices (Blaming);
- Mentally abuse their targets with criticism veiled as “advice” (Depreciation);
- (Usually) must have the last word (again, Chronic Invalidation);
- Force agreement by their targets to accept their false reality (Domination);
- Engage in gossip in order to hurt and control their targets (Humiliation);
- Has the ability to “sell ice to an Eskimo” meaning that they are persistent and manipulative enough to convince someone to invest in something that they could receive for free (Insincerity).