What is Gaslighting?

'A form of manipulation and psychological control in which victims are “deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves'

• Feeling as though they can’t do anything right, no matter how hard they try
• Constantly doubting their own recollections of events
• Feeling as though they are losing your grip on reality
• No longer trusting their instincts
• Lying or making excuses for the person gaslighting them
• Increased guilt or shame, as though everything’s their fault
• Loss of self-esteem, confidence, and independence
• Heightened anxiety and paranoia
• Disconnection from their former sense of self identity
• Knowing that something doesn’t feel right, while not being able to pinpoint what it is.

‘The mother accuses the father of ‘gaslighting’, a form of mental manipulation which the father explained to me is a reference to the 1950’s film “Gaslight” in which a husband creates a number of small incidents which combine to drive his wife to insanity.’

This allegation was not proved in this particular case.

‘During his submissions [barrister] referred to coercive control and other techniques of psychological coercion, such as ‘gaslighting’. He submitted that the husband could have used such techniques to manipulate the wife into believing that she had agency when, in reality, she was under his control. However, whilst those submissions are interesting, they do not reflect the wife’s case. She does not allege that he used any such techniques to manipulate her.’

‘The mother’s case was presented on the basis that she had been subjected to a decade of aggression, verbal abuse, criticism, gaslighting, and then an episode of physical abuse in May 2019. Over the years it was said that the mother had had to seek treatment for PTSD and an anxiety disorder because of the father’s behaviour’.

‘Ms J’s case illustrates a further dilemma. Her mind has become so overborne by F’s behaviour that her own autonomous decision making has become compromised. Mr [barrister] has advanced his client’s case sensitively but with complete fidelity to his instructions. In his written submissions he has referred to “gaslighting”. I have heard no evidence about this, and I am not familiar with the term, but in so far as it coins an expression for behaviour which leads a person to question their own thoughts and perceptions and yield to those of others, it accurately reflects Ms J’s situation. At present she remains resistant to those who wish to help her and adamant that she requires no help. She is surrounded by people who care for her, not least her sons who worry about her. I hope that she may find a bridge back to her family and to those parts of her former life which meant so much to her. [my emphasis]’

‘Of the mother’s acknowledged psychological frailties in the early days of their relationship, the judge recorded as a fact that the respondent mother had been emotionally dependant upon the appellant. There had been episodes when she had self-harmed and provoked in the appellant accusations that others might perceive her as “psychotic and strange” as a result of her self-harming. The judge described that behaviour as a form of “gaslighting”. She contextualised the respondent’s accepted failure to make any complaint prior to the formal application for contact as resulting from the control which he exercised over her.’

‘I am satisfied on the evidence that the father did indeed repeatedly allege that the mother suffered from bipolar disorder; I further and significantly find that there was no clear medical evidence that she did suffer such a condition. Although there was a provisional diagnosis at one time (though unclear on what basis), the mother’s GP explicitly reported that he did not consider that she had a bipolar disorder. On the evidence which I have seen, it seems to me likely that the mother did suffer from depression, anxiety, and mood swings; her mood was affected by excessive drinking and/or very occasional drug-taking and/or by the inconsistency of the father’s relationship with her. In this state, at times she threatened to self-harm. I find that the father made this purported diagnosis in an attempt to characterise her to third parties as mentally unstable and/or unreliable; I find that it was immensely disparaging and undermining of the mother, damaging to the mother’s self-confidence and self-esteem, and caused her to doubt her own mental health (“he made me believe that I was mentally unwell … He convinced me that I had bipolar when I was never diagnosed with it… He made me out to be mentally ill”). [barrister] ‘s use of the term gaslighting in the hearing to describe this conduct was in my judgment apposite; the father’s conduct represented a form of insidious abuse designed to cause the mother to question her own mental well-being, indeed her sanity. The assertion to the mother and others were ostensibly given greater credibility by the fact that at the time the father was a mental health nurse; he may be thought (and doubtless wanted to be thought) to have drawn on specialist expertise or experience to make his diagnosis/assertion.’