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Wednesday 18 January 2017

The Dynamics of Gaslighting


Following on from my previous post on Gaslighting and Psychological Abuse, I thought it would be useful to highlight other gaslighting techniques that an abusive partner might use:

Withholding: the abusive partner deliberately pretends not to understand what their victim is saying, or refuses to listen to them. For example:

“You’re not making yourself clear. I don’t understand what you are saying”

“I don’t want to hear this again,”

“You’re trying to confuse me.”


Countering: the abusive partner questions the victim’s memory of events, especially when the victim presents an accurate recollection. For example:

“You’re wrong, you never remember things correctly.”

“You got that completely wrong. What actually happened was…”


Blocking/Diverting: the abusive partner changes the subject and/or questions the victim’s thoughts. For example:

“No. You’re wrong. No need to repeat yourself. Now, we promised that we would go for dinner with…”

“Is that another crazy idea you got from [friend/family member/work colleague]?”

“You’re imagining things.”


Trivialising: the abusive partner deliberately makes the victim’s feelings and/or needs seem unimportant. For example:

“Why are you getting angry over a trivial little thing like that?”

“Man up! You’re far too sensitive”

“You should act like an adult, not like a little child”


Forgetting/Denial: the abusive partner pretends to have forgotten the actual details of an event or denies out right promises and/or assurances made to the victim. For example:

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“I never said that at all. You always invent things”

“You’re just making things up”
  
 
A common form of emotional abuse is “I love you, but…” This is an insidious form of disguised criticism and, when you think about it, is also an implied threat. What it means is “I love you now, but if you don’t stop this or that, my love will be taken away from you.” It's a statement designed to strip away the victim’s sense of self and self-esteem. Unfortunately, the word “love” is a powerful weapon in the abuser’s arsenal as it becomes a word that effectively controls their victim. All the victim wants is love. The abuser knows this and uses it to control by offering the love they crave, with a concomitant threat to take it away. This can also come in the form of actions such as being nice, offering compliments, giving gifts etc. All designed to throw the victim into confusion whilst being an insidious way of seemingly erasing all their previous bad treatment. It is very rare for abusive relationships not to have these frequently intense moments of feeling good, accompanied by overly sincere apologies or other seemingly earnest attempts to make up for bad behaviour. The victim tenaciously clings to hope when these moments occur, hoping and believing that this means things have changed. The abuser knows this and therefore uses it to devastating effect.

Remember: the UK now has a new offence of emotional abuse and controlling behaviour that has been introduced by the government, and is now enshrined in law.

Peter Mabbutt FBSCH

www.lcch.co.uk 

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