Is the term “gaslighting” in danger?

The term “gaslighting” originated in 1938 but did not come into common use until 2010. It still contains the original meaning—malicious attempts to convince someone that their own sense of reality is unreliable—but it has come to encompass a wide range of personal, social and political influences.

Usage took another growth spurt around 2020, and in 2022, “gaslighting” was named Merriam-Webster’s word of the year. Some now wonder whether the term’s proliferation dilutes the meaning needed to satisfy what Leslie Jamison calls “a widespread hunger for naming a particular kind of harm.” [1]

To prevent this useful term from losing its meaning due to widespread use, renowned psychologists and philosophers are trying to establish definitions. However, some proposed definitions distort and limit the concept.

For example, it is argued that a key dynamic of gaslighting is that victims collaborate with the gaslighter as they lose confidence in their own experiences and beliefs. Gaslighting is not psychological violence, it is argued, but a “voluntary surrender of one's own narrative to another person,” and the “victim” should be asked what benefits they will gain from engaging with their tormentor. [2]

Failed educational efforts

Victims of gaslighting turn on themselves, internalizing the voice that says, “You can't trust what you think you know,” but framing this as collusion runs the risk of meta-gaslighting by telling victims that they are “really benefiting from” what is tormenting them. A clear counterexample is any child-parent relationship in which a child is primed to trust a parent's view by the nature of the relationship itself.

In other cases, a victim may be more or less successful in defending themselves against gaslighting, but is still harmed because the story the gaslighter tells others about the victim invalidates and undermines the victim's testimony. The question “Why do I continue to engage with my gaslighter?” is especially appropriate when the victim has recognized the dynamic and is considering whether to question or end the relationship.

Another definition sees intent as a key feature of gaslighting. The perpetrator, it is argued, must know what he is doing and the beliefs he wants to instill in his victim must be false. [3] But is the gaslighter really trying to convince the victim that the lie is actually true?

There are many, many different ways to describe an event, and many different ways to explain the consequences. We can't always explain the gaslighter's “It's your fault” accusation as true or false. The goal – and the violence – comes from the gaslighter's insistence on controlling the narrative and ignoring the victim's, and this can be accomplished without blatant falsehoods.

A parent, peer, partner, or politician may emphasize one aspect of a situation or event and ignore others: “You don't understand what's happening. You're too young/selfish/insecure/stupid/limited.” This may be true or partially true, because everyone can't grasp all the details of what's happening: Is someone my parents disapprove of a good friend, or is he being taken advantage of or misled? Is my behavior responsible for my partner's anger? Am I imagining my partner's betrayal? Will the opposing candidate, if elected, really ruin the economy? The gaslighter undermines confidence without actually lying.

Core Functions of Gaslighting

We can ignore the victim's “collusion” and the gaslighter's intentional untruths as central elements of a definition of gaslighting. However, two core characteristics remain.

The first is the exploitation of the victim's fallibility and their normal, healthy admission that it is possible to be wrong. Gaslighters turn this into global self-doubt – a state in which the victim stops trusting their own experience and memory. The second core trait is to build up the gaslighter as an expert narrator: “My story is true and yours is not.”

With these core characteristics in place, broader meanings of gaslighting can be refined by considering different contexts: parent and child, peer or friend circles, and romantic partners. In less intimate contexts, then, there are the permissive statements and predictions of a politician; the ignoring of a person's story because of their gender, race, ethnicity, or wealth; and what is now called institutional gaslighting.

In any context, the two main characteristics of gaslighting are present (exploiting personal fallibility and assuming narrative control), but other characteristics associated with gaslighting (obvious falsehoods, intent, and victim collision) are more likely to be present in some contexts than others. In my next post, I'll look at the different characteristics of gaslighting in these different contexts.