Gaslighting is a term and a concept which is all over the news these days and, having written a gaslighting thriller, I thought I should find out a little more about the word, its background and why gaslighting is suddenly appearing everywhere.

I didn’t know anything about gaslighting when I wrote Best Eaten Cold and I still haven’t seen the 1944 film, Gaslight, which most people reference as the origin of the term. I wrote the book because I wanted to explore the ways in which technology could be used as an instrument of vengeance or punishment. The fact that it turned out to be a classic example of gaslighting was simply how the plot and characters evolved.

The original film was based on a 1938 play and starred Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. The core theme is his use of a range of manipulative techniques to drive her to question her sanity and her perception of reality. One of the methods Boyer uses is to cause the gas lighting to dim and flare erratically and then claim Bergman’s character is imagining it.

Having slipped into relative obscurity, Oxford Dictionaries shortlisted gaslighting as one of the most popular words of the year for 2018 and that popularity seems to be growing. Many sources believe that this resurgence stemmed from the way that Donald Trump cast doubt on the credibility of the women who had accused him of assault – a steady drip-drip-drip of slurs, implications and accusations of mental weakness which destroyed their credibility and sowed seeds of doubt. He is also being accused of gaslighting his entire country through a combination of fake news and accusations of media bias.

The concept of gaslighting was also taken up by the #MeToo movement and tied in to a wider combination of physical and mental abuse and it has now stretched even further to describe jealous sniping between Love Island contestants.

It is a shame when a word and an idea become so diluted and confused. Gaslighting, in various degrees, exists all around us and can be immensely destructive, but it shouldn’t be used as a catch-all term for bad or disgraceful behaviour.

I think the definition given by Barbara Ellen in the Guardian is about right:

Gaslighting is about systemically dissolving another person’s sense of self, until they’re questioning their every move and instinct. It’s a pernicious process whereupon reality is distorted, inducing a state of psychological near-paralysis in the disoriented, anxious victim. 

Books and films which explore these ideas often have a particular resonance for their audience. There is a sense of recognition and familiarity. I suspect that, almost all of us have observed gaslighting and we’ve probably also all experienced it to an extent.