Clearing the Fog: Recognizing Understanding and Protecting Against Gaslighting
Live Event

Clearing the Fog: Recognizing Understanding and Protecting Against Gaslighting

Sat, Sep 21st, 2024
11:00am – 2:15pm US Eastern Time
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About the Event

Gaslighting is a form of verbal and emotional abuse that is endemic in our society. It can be subtle and hard to spot but causes lasting damage to their self-esteem, self-confidence, and ability to communicate assertively. Clients who suffer from emotional abuse such as gaslighting may be more vulnerable to continued abuse in many settings, including personal relationships, family relationships, and the workplace. By learning to see and call out gaslighting in the moment, professionals can support their clients in building resiliency, reducing their vulnerability to ongoing abuse, and helping clients develop healthier relationships.

Workshop Outline: Definition and Examples of Gaslighting

  • Definition and goals of gaslighting in relationships
  • Origins of the term (The play Gas Light and subsequent films) and modern examples of gaslighting in books, movies, social media, advertising
  • Examples of who may be victimized by gaslighting
  • Examples of common gaslighting phrases and scenarios

Dangers and Damages of Gaslighting

  • Statistics regarding repeated cycles of abuse, codependency
  • Damage to victims’ self-esteem and self-confidence
  • Effects on the sense of self-efficacy
  • Gaslighting on macro level - communities, society, social institutions

Specifics: Gaslighting in Relationships

  • Romantic/intimate relationships
  • Friendships
  • Family relationships
    • Family of origin
    • In-laws
    • Divorce and custody issues
  • Work

Gaslighting in Society

  • How gaslighting shows up on a larger scale: social media and advertising
  • Gaslighting within some religious sectors
  • Social effects: Medical gaslighting, retraumatizing victims of sexual assault
  • Minority gaslighting (denying traumatic experiences associated with bias, prejudice, and power structures)
    • Racial gaslighting (denying systemic racism, whataboutism, blaming victims of racial profiling or police brutality, etc)
    • Sexual minority gaslighting (LGBTQ+)
    • Gender and sexism (misogyny, patriarchal values, shaming men for expressing emotions)
  • News, media, and public figures

Signs and Side Effects of Gaslighting

  • How this shows up for our clients
  • Loss of self-confidence
  • Emotional disturbance
  • Increased vulnerability to emotional abuse
  • Decreased autonomy
  • Increased risk of codependency
  • Retraumatizing survivors of abuse and trauma

Healing the Damage

  • Developing insight and self-awareness
    • Helping clients recognize gaslighting in their lives
    • Helping clients understand how early relationship blueprints can prime them to be targets of gaslighting
    • Helping clients recognize their role in a toxic cycle
  • Self-forgiveness and compassion
    • Healing from shame at being victimized or making poor choices
    • Interrupting self-criticism and instituting more positive self-talk
    • Rebuilding trust in oneself
    • Accepting their perspective may always be different than the gaslighter’s and that doesn’t mean they are wrong
    • Tuning into the body to validate their experience
  • Developing assertiveness
    • Disrupting messages that “no” is mean or unloving
    • Distinguishing between assertiveness, aggression, passive aggression
    • Learning to express needs clearly, directly, and openly
  • Setting healthier boundaries
    • Distancing from emotionally unhealthy relationships
    • Coping with guilt, anxiety, or shame over setting boundaries
    • Prioritizing their health over others’ happiness
    • Setting realistic expectations: boundaries don’t guarantee better treatment, they give you permission to stop tolerating poor treatment
  • Seeking out and building more positive relationships
    • Identifying traits of healthy relationships
    • Identifying barriers to those relationships, such as the belief that you are undeserving, not good enough, unwanted, etc, and healing those wounds
    • IFS, radical acceptance, EMDR, some CBT, DBT, narrative therapy, somatic experiencing - all ways to explore underlying schemas and unravel problematic beliefs
    • Being more picky about where to expend time and emotional energy

Live Event
This live online event will be held as a Zoom Webinar. Attendees will have the option to interact through features such as the Chat and Q&A, but cameras and microphones will not be enabled.

Live Event Instructor

Amy Marlow-MaCoy

Amy Marlow-MaCoy

Amy Marlow-MaCoy, MEd, LPC is the author of The Clinician’s Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists: Pulling Back the Curtain on Manipulation, Gaslighting, and Emotional Abuse in Narcissistic Families (2023). She is also the author of the Amazon best-selling book The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook: Healing from Emotional Abuse (Callisto Media, 2020). Amy is an internationally known expert on gaslighting and narcissistic abuse, providing training and continuing education credits for clinicians as well as consultation and mentoring for clinicians wishing to deepen and grow their strengths in working with survivors of narcissistic abuse. Amy runs a private practice treating complex and developmental trauma in adults raised in narcissistic, emotionally immature, and toxic families of origin. Amy has advanced training in multiple trauma treatment models, including IFS, EMDR, and brainspotting.

Target Audience

This live interactive webinar is intended for behavioral health professionals, including Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, MFT's and Addiction Professionals.

Learning Objectives

After taking this activity, you should be able to:

  1. 1 Recognize subtle and overt signs of gaslighting.
  2. 2 Explain how gaslighting affects their clients.
  3. 3 Support clients in recognizing, building insight, and coming to terms with the effects of gaslighting.

Abramson, K. (2014). Turning up the lights on gaslighting. Philosophical Perspectives, 28, 1–30.

Ahern, K. (2019). Institutional betrayal and gaslighting: Why whistle-blowers are so traumatized. Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, vol 32(1), 59-65. DOI: 10.1097/JPN.0000000000000306

Beerbohm, E. & Davis, R. (2018). Gaslighting citizens. Beerbohm Harvard Files. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/beerbohm/files/eb_rd_gaslighting_citizens_apsa_2018_v1_1_0.pdf.

Eddy, C.M. Self-serving social strategies: A systematic review of social cognition in narcissism. Curr Psychol 42, 4362–4380 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01661-3

Einarsen, S., Helgen, H., Zapf, D. & Cooper, C. (2003). Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: International Perspectives in Research and Practice. 2003, Taylor & Francis.

Graves, C., & Samp, J. (2021). The power to gaslight. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(11), 3378-3386.

Graves, C., & Spencer, L. (2021). Rethinking the Rhetorical Epistemics of Gaslighting. Communication Theory, 32(1), 48-67.

Heston, T. & Ameil, J. (2020). Sustaining systemic racism through psychological gaslighting: Denials of racial profiling and justification of carding by police utilizing local news media. Race and Justice 2020, vol 10(4), 424-455. https://doi.org/10.1177/2153368718760969

Hightower, E. (2017). An exploratory study of personality factors related to psychological abuse and gaslighting. https://search.proquest.com/openview/0c6d2066bc1732bdd632be2194fad496/1?cbl=18750&diss=y&pq-origsite=gscholar

Hong, P. and Lishner, D. (2016). General invalidation and trauma-specific invalidation as predictors of personality and subclinical psychopathology. Personality and Individual Differences vol 89, 211-216. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.10.016

Klein, W., Li, S., & Wood, S. (2023). A qualitative analysis of gaslighting in romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 30(4), 1316-1340.

Knapp, R. (2019-2020) Gaslighting as a tactic of prosecution. Albany Law Review vol 83, 313-337. http://www.albanylawreview.org/Articles/Vol83_1/0313-Rives-Knapp-Gaslighting-as-a-Tactic-of-Prosecution.pdf

Leedom, L., Andersen, D., Glynn, M.A. & Barone, M. (2019). Counseling intimate partner abuse survivors: Effective and ineffective interventions. Journal of Counseling & Development vol 97, 364-375.

March, E., Kay, C., Dinić, B., Wagstaff, D., Grabovac, B., & Jonason, P. (2023). “It’s All in Your Head”: Personality Traits and Gaslighting Tactics in Intimate Relationships. Journal of Family Violence, OnlineFirst, 1-10.

Sarkis, S. (2018). Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People – And Break Free. Hatchette Books.

Schuchert, M. (1998) The relationship between verbal abuse of medical students and their confidence in their clinical abilities. Journal of American Medicine vol 73(8), 907-909.

Sweet, P. (2019). The sociology of gaslighting. American Sociological Review, vol 84(5), 851-875. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12046

Thomas, S. (2016). Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse. MAST Publishing House.

Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books Ltd.

Westphal, M., Leahy, R., Pala, A.N., & Wupperman, P. (2016). Self-compassion and emotional invalidation mediate the effects of parental indifference on psychopathology. Psychiatry Research vol 242, 186-191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2016.05.040

Woody, A. (2023). Racial Gaslighting in a Politically Progressive City. Sociological Inquiry, EarlyView.

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Event Agenda

Agenda times are listed in US Eastern Time. That is 3 hours later than US Pacific Time. The event starts at 8:00am US Pacific Time.

11:00-11:05 am – Introduction
11:05-11:30 am –History, Definition and Examples of Gaslighting
        -Origins of the term and modern examples of gaslighting
        -Intentions and goals of gaslighting in relationships
11:30-12:00 pm- Dangers and Damages of Gaslighting
        -Who can be victimized
        -Examples of common scenarios
        -Gaslighting on micro (interpersonal) and macro (societal) levels
12:00-12:30 pm- How Gaslighting Harms Victims
        -Statistics regarding repeated cycles of abuse, codependency
        -Damage to victims’ self-esteem and self-confidence
        -Effects on sense of self-efficacy
12:30-12:45 pm – Break
12:45-1:15 pm – Gaslighting in Specific Relationships
        -Family of origin
        -Romantic/Intimate relationships
        -Workplace relationships and friendships
1:15-1:45 pm – Recognizing the Signs of Gaslighting
-Loss of self-confidence
-Emotional disturbance
-Increased vulnerability to emotional abuse
-Decreased autonomy
-Increased risk of codependency
-Retraumatizing survivors of abuse and trauma
1:45-2:05 pm –  Healing the Damage
        -Developing insight and self-awareness
        -Self-forgiveness and self-compassion
        -Rebuilding trust in the self
        -Assertive communication and boundary setting
        -Recognizing signs of healthy relationships
        -Being able to say no
2:05-2:15 pm – Q&A

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