Gaslighting and Narcissism Part 1

(What follows is an extensive article on the psychological manipulation tool, called 'Gaslighting'. It is one of the most informative articles that I have found on the internet. I have had to split it up into smaller posts--please follow the order. Also, note that while this article focuses on men gaslighting women, this does not have to be the case. Narcissistic Personality Disorder has come to be split 50/50 between men and women; I myself was gaslighted for years by a woman. When it happens to you, it is devastating in many ways. Part of the healing process is understanding just what the hell was going on the whole time.)

Philosophical Perspectives, 28, Ethics, 2014
TURNING UP THE LIGHTS ON GASLIGHTING
Kate Abramson
Indiana University

You’re crazy.
Don’t be so sensitive.
Don’t be paranoid.
I was just joking!
That’s all in
you.
It doesn’t
mean anything
You’re imagining things.
You’re overreacting.
Don’t get so worked up.
That never happened.
There’s no pattern.
It wouldn’t be any different anywhere else.
You’re just acting out.
I’m worried; I think you’re not well.

The term “gaslighting” comes from the movie “Gaslight”, in which Gregory deliberately tries to make his spouse Paula lose her mind by manipulating her, her friends, and her physical environment. Gregory’s aim is to have Paula hospitalized for mental instability, so he can gain access to her jewels. We witness him engaging in one ‘crazy-making’ manipulative move after another, over a stretch of months. He takes a brooch he’s claimed to be a prized heirloom out of Paula’s purse to make her doubt her clear memory of having put it there. He places his own watch in her purse when she’s not looking, accuses her of stealing it, and then “discovers” the watch in her purse while she is in the company of friends who—unbeknownst to Paula—he’s warned that Paula is unstable. This last incident not only upsets and confuses Paula, but is constructed by Gregory to be public so as to provide her friends with apparent ‘evidence’ that she’s losing her mind.
It also thereby contributes to Paula’s increasing sense of isolation. The title of the movie is drawn from the following manipulative move. Gregory regularly searches for Paula’s jewels in the attic, and when he does so, his turning on the
lights there has the effect of dimming the gaslights elsewhere in the house. Every time this happens, Paula queries him about the gaslights diming. And each time, Gregory insists Paula is imagining things, suggesting that this too is a sign of her growing mental illness. All the while, Gregory is full of expressions of purported concern—e.g. “why don’t you rest a while”, “do you really want to go out? You know you haven’t been well”, etc.

In the 1980s, “gaslighting” became a term of art in therapeutic practice, and it’s now entered colloquial usage as well. In both contexts, “gaslighting” refers to behavior that typically differs from Gregory’s in two respects. First, those who engage in this form of emotional manipulation are often not consciously trying to drive their targets crazy. Second, they often seem not to have any clear end-in-view; they’re not, that is, trying to drive their targets ‘crazy’ for the sake of something so simply and straightforwardly understood as expensive jewels.

Yet “gaslighting” in the movie and in everyday life is nevertheless recog- nizably the same phenomenon. Very roughly, the phenomenon that’s come to be picked out with that term is a form of emotional manipulation in which the gaslighter tries (consciously or not) to induce in someone the sense that her reactions, perceptions, memories and/or beliefs are not just mistaken, but utterly without grounds—paradigmatically, so unfounded as to qualify as crazy.

Gaslighting is, even at this level, quite unlike merely dismissing someone, for dismissal simply fails to take another seriously as an interlocutor, whereas gaslighting is aimed at getting another not to take herself seriously as an interlocutor. It almost always involves multiple incidents that take place over long stretches of time; it frequently involves multiple parties playing the role of gaslighter, or cooperating with a gaslighter; it frequently involves isolating the target in various ways. And there are characteristic things gaslighters say: indeed it is remarkable how much overlap there is between phrases that Gregory uses in the movie, and the sorts of proclamations that are made by gaslighters to their targets in real life.

I want to propose an account of what’s wrong with this way of interacting with someone. To do so, we’ll need to begin with an account of the structure of interactions that fit the initial rough characterization just offered. Any such account of the structure of gaslighting interactions will involve some regimentation of the term—after all, what we have here is a colloquial and therapeutic term that is picking out a recognizable phenomenon in human interactions, and the more precision we give to what we’re talking about when we talk about the kind of ‘crazy making’ manipulation that’s at issue in gaslighting, the more we set parameters for what qualifies as central and peripheral cases thereof. My hope is to give an illuminating account of the structure of gaslighting interactions that nevertheless preserves as its core that which has made it possible for “gaslighting” to become a colloquial term identifying a recognizable phenomenon. On the other hand, given that my aim is ultimately to give an account of what’s wrong with gaslighting,only some aspects of gaslighting interactions will be pertinent here.

Questions about the psychology of gaslighters and their targets, for instance, will be relevant here only insofar as they illuminate aspects of the wrongs of gaslighting. There’s nothing necessarily sexist about gaslighting. As a matter of fact, however, gaslighting interactions are often sexist in various ways. To begin with (1) women are more frequently the targets of gaslighting than men, and men more often engage in gaslighting. (2)More importantly, gaslighting is frequently, though again, not necessarily, sexist in the following ways: (3) it frequently takes place in the context of, and in response to, a woman’s protestation against sex-ist (or otherwise discriminatory) conduct; (4) some of the forms of emotional manipulation that are employed in gaslighting frequently rely on the target’s internalization of sexist norms, (5) when gaslighting is successful—when it actually undermines the target in the ways it is designed to do—it can reinforce the very sexist norms which the target was trying to resist and/or those on which the gaslighter relies in his/her manipulation of the target, and (6) sometimes it is some subset of those very sexist norms which the gaslighter seeks to preserve through his/her gaslighting conduct. Gaslighting can be sexist in all of these ways, or none of them. And it can be sexist in some, but not all of these ways. Yet if we are to offer an apt account of the wrongs of gaslighting, we cannot ignore the fact that it is often sexist in these various ways. For this reason, among others, a concern with the ways in which gaslighting can be sexist is woven throughout the analysis which follows. I begin with a series of examples that illustrate the phenomena, and all of these examples involve sexism in some way(s). Some of these cases also involve other forms of prejudice. Much of my analysis thoughout this essay would work for those cases even if sexism weren’t also implicated in those incidents, and indeed, even if no prejudical norms were
implicated in those cases.

Here, however, I’m especially interested in the roles sexism plays in gaslighting, particularly insofar as sexism can frame gaslighting, be employed as leverage by the gaslighter, and be reinforced when gaslighting is
successful, and sexism thereby gets hidden or erased.

I think we’ll need the full breadth of our philosophical resources if we’re to adequately understand just what’s so nefarious about gaslighting. No single moral theory can fully capture the wrongs of gaslighting. Kantian resources, for instance, may be especially helpful when it comes to understanding some of the dimensions along which the gaslighter’s aims are particularly nasty, but even when it comes to the gaslighter’s aims, we’ll need to look beyond Kantian talk to fully capture the wrongs of gaslighting. And when it comes to understanding what’s wrong with the particular ways in which gaslighters manipulate their targets, and the resources on which they rely in so doing, Kantian theorizing only scratches the surface. Not everything we might have reason to regard as gaslighting will fit my account, but focusing on cases that do largely fit my analysis can illuminate a dark corner—both in the sense of not otherwise seen, and in the sense of morally dark—of everyday life.

Illustrative examples:

We need some examples to help us focus on the phenomenon at issue. Here
are a few:

1. Simone de Beauvoir:
   “Day after day, and all day long, I measured my-self against Sartre, and in our discussions I was simply not in his class. One morning in the Luxembourg Gardens, near the Medici fountain, I outlined for him the pluralist morality which I had fashioned to justify the people I liked but did not wish to resemble; he ripped it to shreds. I was attached to it, because it allowed me to take my heart as the arbiter of good and evil; I struggled with him for three hours. In the end I had to admit I was beaten; besides, I had realized, in the course of our discussion, that many of my opinions were based only on prejudice, bad faith or thoughtlessness, that my reasoning was shaky and my ideas confused. 'I’m no longer sure what I think, or even if I think at all’ , I noted, completely thrown.”

2. A junior academic woman is standing at the department’s front desk. A senior male colleague passes by and slaps her on the butt. She reports the incident to another senior colleague. The second colleague responds, “Oh, he’s just an old guy. Have some sympathy! It’s not that big a deal.” A third colleague responds, “Don’t be so sensitive.”

3. “Liz is a top-level executive ...in her late forties ... Now she seems to be on the verge of reaching her goal, in line to take over the company’s New York office. Then, at the last minute, someone else is brought in to take the job. Liz swallows her pride and offers to give him all the help she can. At first, the new boss seems charming and appreciative. But soon Liz starts to notice that she’s being left out of important decisions and not invited to major meetings. She hears rumors that clients are being told she doesn’t want to work with them anymore and has recommended that they speak to her new boss instead. [ . . . ] Finally, Liz confronts her boss, who has a plausible explanation for every incident. “Look,” he says kindly at the end of the meeting. “I think you’re being way too sensitive about all this—maybe even a little paranoid. Would you like a few days off to destress?” Liz feels completely disabled. She knows she’s being sabotaged—but why is she the only one who thinks so?”

4. An undergraduate is on a panel discussion about the values of her collegiate institution. The discussion turns to racism. Student expresses the view that this is something the community needs to continue to work on. After the panel, audience members respond, “Don’t be crazy,” “You’re being a little sensitive” and “you made the panel really uncomfortable.”

5. A gay junior academic discovers a job candidate has publicly avowed anti-gay views. After discussions with her colleagues and Chair about her concerns, she asks to meet with the candidate on a campus visit. The Chair arranges the visit the one weekend he knows the junior academic will be away. In frustration, she posts copies of the university’s non-discrimination statement on department bulletin boards before leaving. They disappear. She reposts them. The Chair appears at her office, torn statements in hand, and threatens her. Later she discovers that the Chair has signed a public petition asserting that it should not be regarded as a violation of disciplinary standards to fire academics for being gay. She expresses grave concerns to her colleagues about her job. They respond: “You‘re just acting out”; “don’t be paranoid”; “that’s crazy”.

6. A female graduate student deals with sexual harassment. Confronts her harasser. He responds by first denying any problem, then, “see, there wouldn’t be this problem if there weren’t any women in the department”, and finally, “you’re just prude.” She talks to another student. The second graduate student retorts, “he was just joking.”

7. “I moved out of one field of philosophy in grad school due to an over- whelming accumulation of small incidents . . . When I tried to describe to fellow grad students why I felt ostracized or ignored because of my gender, they would ask for examples. I would provide examples, and they would proceed through each example to ‘demonstrate’ why I had actually misinterpreted or overreacted to what was actually going on.”

8. “In my first year of grad school (this decade) I found out that some male students had discussed a ranking of female grad students’ attractiveness. I believe there was also a ranking based on “cup size”. When I expressed to one of the offenders that the behavior was inappropriate, I was badgered for being oversensitive and philosophically interrogated for what he thought were groundless restrictions on mere conversation between male friends. It was all suggested that my concern about the list was really just a matter of my insecurity about my place on it!”

As we think about these cases, it’s important to consider the variety of ways these women are dismissed—e.g. “too sensitive”, “paranoid”,“ crazy” “prude” or the peculiarly existentialist dismissal of “bad faith”. But it’s also extremely important to remember that these are mere snippets from lives of women in which this sort of interaction has become pervasive. Illustrations of gaslighting interactions are, by necessity, illustrations of particular incidents. Yet its pervasiveness, over a long time, often from multiple voices, are also all important to understanding how and why gaslighting works, and what kinds of interactions qualify as gaslighting. Even with all this said, this is one of those experiences it can be difficult to grasp. If you find that’s true for you, try this. Think about one of your worst experiences, an experience which either itself, or in its effects, went on months. Now imagine that while you were going through that, all or most of the voices around you either flatly denied that anything worth being upset about was going on, or radically minimized it, or reconceptualized the experience so that it was not so uncomfortable (for them) to live with. You protested. The protestations were greeted with “that’s crazy”, “it’s not a big deal”, “you’re overreacting”. Somehow you endured. But the very fact of your survival then became woven in to the rewriting of history, to confirm the minimizing and denials and later repression. (E.g. “Well, you survived, didn’t you?”, “It all worked out in the end” or “That was just a minor blip”.) So, at no point during it did someone (or perhaps someone, but not enough, or perhaps just not the people most dear to you) look at you and confirm the reality of horror with which you were dealing. To the contrary, they said you’re crazy for being upset, oversensitive, and any difficulty you might have is “all in you”. That’s what gaslighting is like. Suffering on account of it is not a sign of fragility, weakness, or an exceptionally damaged psyche; it’s a sign of being human. We all need interpersonal confirmation, especially in difficult situations. And when the interpersonal confirmation is refused, or deliberately thwarted, precisely in order to radically undermine someone’s sense of standing to protest bad conduct, it’s gaslighting.