Mindfulness and the Cultural Significance of Gaslighting

If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. -Samuel Adams, revolutionary (27 Sep 1722-1803)

Grifter. Con artist. Trickster. Shark. Gaslighter. “Is there a word for ‘fucking with your sense of reality and undermining your sanity by saying something is not happening when it absolutely is?’” Nora Samaran.

DEFINITION & BACKGROUND

The term gaslight has been bandied about in the press a fair amount lately. The talking heads on the news broadcasts offer definitions that are at once both varying and unhelpfully indefinite.  “Gaslighting is psychological manipulation with the aim of getting the victim to doubt their memory or sanity,” says the Oxford English Dictionary. At its most malicious, gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse where the abuser manipulates situations repeatedly to trick the victim into distrusting his or her own memory, perceptions and sanity, to destroy the victim’s sense of reality.  Why? The need for power and control fueled by a sense of insecurity. The term was introduced into colloquial vernacular in the 1960s and psychoanalytic literature in the 1970s. Where did it arise? And why has it migrated from a psychological definition to a Twitter talking point?

It was re-introduced in Europe via Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 stage play “Gaslight” (“Angel Street” in the United States) and popularized by its 1944 George Cukor film adaptation starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotton, and introducing Angela Lansbury. 

A world-famous opera singer has just been murdered at her home in 19^th century London, but the subsequent robbery is interrupted by the victim’s orphaned fourteen-year-old niece, who is thereafter sent to Italy to train to become an opera star herself. Years later, after a two-week-long whirlwind romance, she marries a husband (Boyer) intent on moving to the long-vacant townhouse. The sleight-of-hand and manipulation that the character uses in his attempt to destabilize the wife’s sanity (causing the gaslights to flicker, etc.) to regain the stolen jewelry is the origin of the term as it is used in psychology, politics, and emotional abuse diagnoses today. 

Of course, that implies that everyone knows how gaslights worked in the 19th century.

Gaslights are a quaint throwback to an era of iceboxes and steam trains. Commercial natural gas became available to power businesses, homes, shops and streets. Series of pipes were installed in cities and towns that fundamentally changed the way we lit our lives. “One of the first pipelines to bring natural gas from a gas field to a city was completed in 1821. That pipeline brought natural gas from fields in Indiana to the city of Chicago.” says Bill Lewis in The Spruce. This method was wildly more convenient than candles, but still dangerous and notoriously unstable. When a gaslight was ignited in one portion of a home, it would lower the pressure in other fixtures, much the same way flushing a toilet will drop the water pressure in a shower. As gaslights were replaced by electricity, the term fell out of use except as a mental health diagnosis.

 

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMINOLOGY

A gaslighter suffers from a personality disorder—narcissistic or antisocial. Personality disorders are stable maladaptive patterns whose diagnoses involve at least two of four dysfunctions: cognitive, affective, interpersonal, or impulse-based. “They create an impairment in how people function in their lives and affect an estimated 10% of the population of the US,” says Elizabeth Scott.  Think of that: The US population is 329 million people. NPD could affect 32 million people. It is important to remember that these types of psychological diagnoses appear on a spectrum of behavior—from benign grandiosity to a person with a disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. It varies from person to person, but, according to Psychology Today, narcissism tends to be recognized by specific behaviors:

• Care quite a bit about their appearance and can come across as quite charming
• Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it, and will discount any evidence that doesn’t support their belief in their own superiority
• Exaggerate their own achievements and talents, even to the point of lying
• Are often preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Are highly manipulative
• Tend to project their bad behavior onto others, meaning they may accuse you of the very behavior they are conducting
• Monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior
• Aren’t opposed to taking advantage of others to get what they want
• Fail to see or value the needs and feelings of others
• Have no remorse for hurting others and rarely apologize unless it will benefit them in some way
• Insist on having the best of everything and believe that they deserve this
• Aren’t able to handle criticism and lash out if they feel slighted in any way
• Have a poor sense of self and weak ability to regulate their feelings and actions
• Secretly feel insecure

Gaslighting is a particularly effective tool of the manipulative personality. “Even if a person is practicing gaslighting behavior without being consciously aware of it, they may get a ‘payoff’ when their victim becomes more dependent on them. And then the cycle continues,” says Stephanie Sarkis in Psychology Today. “The gaslighter also gets a ‘boost’ when there are no checks and balances in place—no one holding them accountable for their behavior. For example, a cult leader may exile or kill anyone who tells others that the leader is not treating followers fairly. Subsequently, further followers may not speak out for fear of their lives. Keep in mind that dependency is one of the goals of gaslighters.”

Gaslighters aren’t out to destroy you; they’re out to make things easier for themselves.

GASLIGHTING IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

This is the traditional use of the term. Think about what it means, for a moment, that someone might consciously attempt to manipulate another’s sanity. It can be a particularly subtle and insidious way to undermine a person’s trust in their own capacities. Clearly, gaslighting is a powerful tool for both the sociopath and narcissist and there are plenty of fictional examples to prove it.  “The effects of having people we trust, people we count on to help strengthen us, undermine reality, are serious, and deeply damaging,” says Samaran.

Generally, the movies and books that employ this psychological abuse as a storytelling device portray extreme personal relationships.  There are several sites that discuss the modern use of the term and Psychology Today published a list to recognize the behavior in real-life scenarios. “A major and probably universal motive … is the victimizer’s need to regulate his/her feeling states by controlling interactions with other individuals,” says T.L. Dorpat.

RECOGNITION AND SIGNS

• Do they try to persuade you to doubt the evidence of your senses and what you are thinking and feeling?
• Do they try to convince you that what you believe is wrong, and what they believe is right?
• Do they react badly if you do not accept their version of the truth?
• Are they extremely persistent and sometimes keep the argument going long after you have asked them to please drop the issue?
• Do they attempt to bully you into admitting that they are 100 percent right, and you are completely wrong?
• Are the facts always twisted so that they are the victim, and you are always at fault?
• Do they twist and turn the truth and make such long and complicated arguments to prove their points that, after a while, you become thoroughly confused?

 

GASLIGHTING IN POLITICS AND SOCIETY

It seems the pervasive use of the word has escalated in the post-Obama era. Many had never heard it before the current administration, but the phenomenon entered our societal vernacular and social perceptions long before. It is the driving force of psychological thrillers — The Girl on the Train, The Changling, Rosemary’s Baby, Doll House, The Truman Show, Matilda, Amelie, 1984, Colossal, The Yellow Wallpaper – whose plots are based on the notion that the main characters/victims are led to mistrust themselves and question their perceptions.

Think about some of the topics of the whirlwind news cycle. “[A] campaign to undermine public trust in climate science has been described as a ‘denial machine’ organized by industrial, political and ideological interests [climate skeptics], and supported by conservative media and skeptical bloggers to manufacture uncertainty about global warming,” claims Riley Dunlap in American Behavioral Scientist.  Advertorials—advertisements subtly disguised as editorial content—regularly employ deceptive tactics. Product placement is a not-too-subtle manipulation. The mud-slinging political campaigns that manufacture disinformation created a new campaign term: “swift boating.”  Vilifying the media— #FakeNews—undermines the national conversation. DJT responded to his impeachment proceedings on his TwitterFeed, “… more breaking news Witch Hunt garbage. So bad for our Country!” The next trend has already begun: manipulating the internet conversation with deep fakes (see Nancy Pelosi being attacked here) and AI-generated media (here). “It’s a blog where every article is fabricated completely out of thin air, including the photo of the ‘journalist,’ says Mitja Trampus, PhD. “A human only provides the article title, the rest is autogenerated. What is impressive is the coherence of the generated text. It does not live up to close scrutiny, but it takes much more than a quick glance to notice that something is off …” The New York Times reported that an Oxford University study finds at least 70 countries currently engaged in disinformation campaigns.

“Far from acting alone …  gaslighters seek to employ the apathy and uncaring of others to help them …  A conception of ‘might makes right’ underlies the process whereby those who are deemed weak are left defenseless when they have the temerity to rely on the truth and on justice while the gaslighters seek to control reality by their use of lies and distortions.  Appeals to the truth are often disregarded by others as merely lunatic ravings,” claims David Shasha.

“The problem of gaslighting is now endemic to the American political processes and Americans cannot ‘vote it out of office’ in any single election simply by dispatching a particular political party. To say gaslighting was started by the Bushes, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Fox News, or any other extant person or group is not simply wrong, it also misses an important point. Gaslighting comes directly from blending modern communications, marketing, and advertising techniques with long-standing methods of propaganda. They were simply waiting to be discovered by those with sufficient ambition and psychological makeup to use them.” says Bryant Welch in State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind. “Once the genie is unleashed, no one can put him back in the bottle.”

 

 

 

STEPS TO HEALING

“In order to defeat the gaslighter,” opines Shasha, “We are forced to refuse these manipulations and risk the disdain and incredulity of others.  It means standing up for what is right in spite of what others may think, do or say.  It means not giving up or losing faith in the dignity of what we believe …” Easier said than done. By the time the manipulation is recognizable, sometimes it becomes difficult to trust your own judgment. Being uncertain about your own perception of reality is a terrifying feeling.

RECOGNITION

The first step to healing is becoming aware of emotional abuse, recognizing that you do not need to be complicit in the machinations of the gaslighter. It is not an individual moment of abuse—gaslighting is recognizable only as a toxic pattern of deception. There is a real tendency to normalize the behavior because gaslighting can seem unintentional and, like all illness, it is a spectrum—the gaslighter need not be intentionally malicious to be damaging to a victim’s psyche. A psychologist would tell a victim to terminate a toxic relationship. But what about when the tactic is used in the political arena? 

“You can’t tackle a problem until you know exactly what it is,” says Amanda Carpenter about the current Administration. “You recognize what he’s doing now. You have felt crazy, confused, fed up, flustered, and all bejiggety for a reason. It’s not you, it’s him. Truly. Now the hard part (Take a deep breath.) Accept the fact that Trump’s gaslighting cannot be stopped. Yes, that’s right. The. Gaslighting. Cannot. Be. Stopped…[E]ven if Trump is impeached…he is not going to give up his media megaphone. Doesn’t matter if he is impeached, censured, or if  he loses his 2020 re-election in a landslide; he is not going to go away… There is no way he is giving up the power and influence he has gained since becoming president.

“There is no 24/7 media anymore,” she continues. “It is now ‘the 86,400 second, 1440 minute, 24 hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week’ media. Network TV, cable TV, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, newspapers, radio, magazines, websites, blogs, and podcasts are churning out political commentary second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.”  

Turn it off.

PRACTICE MINDFULNESS

Without training in mindfulness, it is easy to become prey to the viruses around us, the virus of hate and the promulgation of propaganda. Mindfulness  prevents the practitioner from becoming a victim of someone hijacking your mind.

“Mindfulness is defined as the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us,” says Emily Desanctis. “Whereas gaslighting distorts reality, mindfulness helps you stay aware of what’s really going on. As a powerful tool to clear and protect the mind, mindfulness cultivates your attention muscle—the key to trusting yourself and your experience. When you’re fully present, a gaslighter will have a harder time distracting you from their malicious behavior, convincing you that you’re to blame, or manipulating you into believing their distorted truth.” 

Meditation is using the technique of mindfulness to train attention and awareness. To quote Ivor Hansen, meditation is a practice of “mental hygiene” to focus attention in the present. Hansen paraphrases a term coined by Dr. Dan Siegel—brain brushing (like teeth brushing)—to illustrate that mindfulness is not an added practice to change who we are, but a daily tool to remind us to cultivate our awareness of who we are in the world around us. The reason you meditate is to look inside and begin to know yourself.

“The Four Foundations of Mindfulness … are key things that we should practice being mindful of. These are: our bodies, our feelings, our minds themselves, and phenomena / the world around us. By training in mindfulness of these four foundations, we see, more and more, how all of these things really are, outside [of] our conceptual ideas of them. …[M]indfulness is training in seeing reality with more clarity and equanimity,” says Lion’s Roar.

“[M]indfulness is about cultivating,” as the Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein has written, “the quality and power of mind that is aware of what is happening, without judgment and without interference.”

DEVELOP EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

There is a difference between empathy and compassion. Empathy is the ability to feel what another is feeling. Compassion is the cognitive ability to understand another’s feelings.  The distinction is important because psychological research shows that each response lights up a different region of the brain and that focus groups practicing the two types of training had “very different emotions and attitudes toward action,” says Dr. Tara Well.

Compassion is based on a non-dual understanding that everything is part of everything else. While the gaslighter’s lack of empathic feeling is considered a maladaptive social trait, empathy—essential and exalted–can also be a trait that impoverishes a potential gaslightee.  According to Psychology Today there is evidence that compassion is a more useful emotional tool. “The art of empathy requires paying attention to another’s needs without sacrificing one’s own. It demands the mental dexterity to switch attunement from other to self. What turns empathy into a true high-wire act is that its beneficiaries find the attention deeply rewarding. That puts the onus on us to know when to extract ourselves from someone else’s shoes—and how…. Reigning in over-empathy requires emotional intelligence; its underlying skill is self-awareness.”

Compassion lets you see that the problem exists and that the dysfunction doesn’t reside within you, but in the gaslighter. “The idea that there can actually be too much empathy can be traced back to early Buddhist teachings. Instead of focusing on empathy to the point of draining ourselves emotionally, Buddhism teaches the practice of compassion, called karuna. This is the idea of sharing in suffering, having concern for another, but essentially ‘feeling for and not feeling with the other.’” says Dr. Robin Stern.

HOLISTIC INTERPRETATION

“Emotional intelligence always requires being empathic with yourself. And that paradoxically allows you to be even more present for those you love,” says Stern. “Take a cue from a temple, Sanjūsangen-dō, in Kyoto. There, a thousand boddhisattvas of compassion are guarded by 28 fierce deities. The ancients knew that empathy, compassion, and loving kindness need special protections.”

Mindfulness isn’t inherently Buddhist, but all Buddhism is practiced mindfully. “We suffer, according to Buddhism, not because there’s anything inherently wrong with us but simply because we misunderstand the nature of reality. Buddhist practice helps us come to terms with reality by cultivating our awareness of the ‘three characteristics of experience,’ also known as ‘the three marks of existence.’ These are: impermanence, suffering, and insight—words that will likely be familiar to anyone who’s read about Buddhism more than a little. Contemplating them, Thich Nhat Hanh has said, “can help liberate us from fear and suffering. Living mindfully and with concentration, we see a deeper reality and are able to witness impermanence without fear, anger, or despair.” 

This is important in dealing with gaslighting because the nature of the manipulation is the undermining of reality.

“Living life on purpose can help our responses to situations to be more in line with our deeper intentions for ourselves and the sort of society we wish to inhabit,” says Dan Nixon. “Another Conservative politician, a former cabinet minister, said to us recently that the culture within parliament, within politics, needs to change and that mindfulness could be a part of that change because it can help us to listen better. Not just to others, but to ourselves: to examine more closely what our values are and what’s most important to us … Another reason why we might view mindfulness as a foundational human capacity stems from the fact that it cultivates our ability to pay attention on purpose to our experience. Being present, whatever we’re doing, seems particularly valuable in today’s ‘age of distractions.’” As the saga of impeachment unfurls in the 21st century and each partisan side accuses the other of gaslighting and whatabout-ism leading up to the next election, we can guide the outcome and future by recognizing manipulation, living in the present, and being examples of trust to our communities.