From institutional manipulation to intimate abuse, here’s how the construct evolved
STUDY: Klein W et al, Clinical Psychology Review 2026;126:102742
STUDY TYPE: Scoping review
FUNDING: Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada; Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture
Background
Gaslighting was Merriam-Webster’s 2022 word of the year. The word comes from the 1944 film pictured above, and its clinical roots go back to the late 1960s. This review draws on 108 sources to show how its meaning has evolved.
The History
In the film, an abusive husband tries to convince his wife that she is losing her mind by denying her reality as he secretly flickers the gas lamps. Likewise, the earliest use of the term in psychology (1969–1979) referred to people who try to convince clinicians that their relatives are mentally ill, aiming for false hospitalization, perhaps to deny their rights and stake financial claims.
In the 1980’s, the focus shifted inward, with a psychodynamic eye. Calef and Weinshel’s influential 1981 paper focused on the relationship between victim and abuser, showing how gaslighting causes confusion and self-doubt in the target. Dorpat later elaborated a full psychoanalytic model, identifying projective identification as a core mechanism and noting that gaslighters are often unaware of their own behavior.
Robin Stern’s 2008 book, The Gaslight Effect, brought the phenomenon into popular awareness. From 2016 onward, interest exploded, partly driven by Trump’s campaign and other high-profile political applications of the term. It expanded into philosophy, sociology, medicine, and the workplace.
Gaslighting Today
- Gaslighting involves convincing a target they are “epistemically incompetent,” unable to trust their own perceptions of reality.
- Consequences include self-doubt, confusion, depression, anxiety, loss of agency, and in severe cases, psychosis-like symptoms.
The research is sparse, and tells us:
- Around 25% of dating teens report experiencing gaslighting
- When a romantic partner delivers misinformation, it distorts memory and reduces confidence in one’s own recall (from one experimental study)
- Gaslighting often starts with love-bombing, followed by social isolation and progressive erosion of self-trust, according to interviews with survivors.
- Social support and self-compassion are protective.
- Recovery is associated with re-establishing social connection and “re-embodying” practices such as mindfulness and journaling.
Medical gaslighting — clinicians dismissing patients’ symptoms, particularly in women and marginalized groups — is the fastest-growing area of research. Workplace gaslighting by supervisors is also documented, and here supportive colleagues are essential protection.
Practice Implications
- Watch for patients who share intuitions as questions rather than statements, who defer to you excessively on minor decisions, or who resist trusting their own read on situations they can clearly describe. These may be behavioral residues of gaslighting victimization, not just low self-esteem.
- Also watch for inadvertent gaslighting in your own practice. Clinicians can reproduce the dynamic through overconfident interpretation, dismissing patient concerns, or gender-biases.
Learn More
- Gaslighting in the Wolf of Wall Street and the Epstein scandal in our Carlat Podcast
- Navigating Narcissistic Personality Disorder in our podcast interview with Mark Ruffalo, MSW, DPsa and Frank Yeomans, MD, PhD
— Chris Aiken, MD
Director, Psych Partners
Editor in Chief, Carlat Psychiatry Report
