Gaslighting is a cruel and treacherous mental manipulation technique.

There is violence that is not made of expressed anger, on the contrary, it is insidious, made of hostile silences alternating with pungent words. It is an ancient form of abuse, perpetrated in a particular way between the "safe" domestic walls, which leaves deep psychological wounds.

What is Gaslighting: a mental manipulation technique.

The term derives from a 1938 theatrical work Gas light (Gas lamps, initially known as Angel Street in the United States), and from Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptations "Rebecca - the first wife" of 1940 and "Anguish" Italian film of the 1944. The plot is about a husband who tries to drive his wife to madness by manipulating small elements of the environment, and insisting that the wife is wrong or remembers badly when she notices these changes. The title originates from the husband's sneaky fading of gas lamps, which the wife carefully notes but which the husband insists is only the fruit of her imagination.

Hence, the term gaslighting is used to define a cruel manipulative behavior carried out by one person to make the other doubt himself and his judgments of reality until he feels confused, wrong.

The Gaslighter

Gaslighter, he is defined as the one who carries out this mental manipulation, undermining all the certainty and safety of the partner, acting as a real brainwashing, which puts the victim in a position to think that he deserves that punishment and is guilty for to have been wrong.

This type of psychological violence is insidious, subtle, sometimes justified by the victim itself. It is a free and persistent violence, administered in daily doses, and has the ability to "cancel" the judgment and autonomy of the person being targeted.

Research shows that in the vast majority of cases the victim and the gaslighter are almost always close partners or relatives.

In many cases, the gaslighting behavior is adopted by the abusive spouse to punish or remove the other when living conflicting marital relationships, personal dissatisfactions and extramarital relationships.

Gaslighting is a form of violence that also arises within relationships previously built on love. Then, it happens that a frustration to which you are not able to adequately react, undermines the security and trust that the manipulator puts in itself and everything collapses: love is replaced by free malice and harassment.

Examples of badness:

• "You are fat! (lean, ugly, etc. ..) "
• "Sorry, my wife is a moron!"
• “You are always wrong! You don't make it right! "
• "But how can you not remember! You told me that! "
• "You never told me! You must have guessed it! "
• "Your friends are insignificant, just like you!"
• "If I leave you, you will be alone for life!"
• "You are nobody!"

Therefore messages of devaluation, injunctions that hurt emotionally and the soul, even more if pronounced in the presence of other people as if it were a public humiliation. The gaslighter knows how to hurt, and enjoys the effects of his behavior.

Gaslighting: the manipulators

There are three categories of manipulators:

• The charming: He is probably the most insidious, subjecting his victim to a continuous Scottish shower. It alternates hostile silences and tremendous prods with moments of love and flattery. One can only imagine the atmosphere of disorientation that pervades the victim.
• The good boy: Who seems to have only the good of the victim at heart but in reality he is an egoist disguised as an altruistic person. He is always careful to put his own needs, his personal advantage over that of the victim, even if he manages to give an opposite impression.
• The intimidator: It is the opposite of previous manipulators and certainly the most direct. He doesn't worry about hiding behind false facades. He openly reprimands the victim, sarcastic jokes about her, explicitly attacks him.

The purpose of the gaslighting behavior, common to the three categories of manipulators, is to reduce the victim to a total level of physical and psychological dependence, canceling his capacity for autonomy and responsibility. The victim will find himself imprisoned by this behavior and, slowly, his resistances will fade until he disappears completely, becoming an unwitting accomplice of his tormentor.

The phases of the manipulation of Gaslighting

In this sinking into the abyss, the victim will go through three successive phases:

• The first phase will be characterized by a distortion of communication. The persecuted will no longer be able to understand the persecutor. The "dialogues" will be characterized by hostile silences, alternating with destabilizing peaks. The victim will thus be disoriented, confused in the fog.
• The second phase will be characterized by an attempted defense. The victim will try to convince his abuser that what he says is not true; will try to establish a dialogue, obstinate, with the hope that this will help change the behavior of the gaslighter. The victim will feel as if invested with a basic task: his listening and dialogue skills will make the abuser change.
• The third stage is the descent into depression. The victim will be convinced that what the abuser says about him is true, resigns, becomes insecure and extremely vulnerable and dependent. In this phase, relational perversion reaches its peak: violence becomes chronic and the victim is convinced of the reason and also of the goodness of the manipulator who, often, is also idealized.
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Clinical and popular references on gaslighting

Psychologist Martha Stout (2005) argues that sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics. Sociopaths consistently transgress social laws and conventions, and exploit others, but they are also typically credible liars who consistently deny any wrongdoing. Thus, some sociopath victims may doubt their perception.

Jacobson and Gottman (1998) report that some violent husbands may use gaslighting on their wives, even firmly denying that they have ever committed any act of violence.

Psychologists Gass and Nichols (1988) use the term gaslighting to describe a dynamic observed between spouses in some cases of adultery. Male therapists can contribute to the discomfort of female patients by misinterpreting their behaviors. Her husband's gaslighting behaviors provide a recipe for the so-called psychological breakdown for some women and suicide in some of the worst situations.

Members of the Manson family in crimes committed in the late 1960s entered homes without stealing anything, but moved furniture to upset the residents.