Medical gaslighting: conceptual and theoretical foundations, 2026, Noble

[bobbler]

Looking at the phenomenon through a Foucaultion lens is absolutely appropriate.
Gaslighting (as per the film) refers to the behaviour in a romantic relationship, so it follows that the behaviours in a different context need to be labelled (workplace gaslighting, medical gaslighting, familial gaslighting etc). It’s been in the cultural consciousness for a few years now and I think it’s a brilliant term to describe the tension between the medic and the patient- easily understood.
To go full Wittgenstein it may not need be that “harm” is an objective or driver of the medic’s behaviour.
By definition, denying a patients lived experience and reality must cause some kind of harm. It follows that by diverting medical assistance away may by itself result in harm due to lack of treatment. But to convince/deny or by other means gaslight a patient about their health/illness is to go a stage further and cause confusion, ongoing or future confusion or doubt and make the patient powerless in gaining help for their issue, as well as not treating them.
This certainly can cause the patient harm but may not be the motivation of the medic doing the gaslighting, which can in fact be caused by structural or institutional conditions which we often see like…Sir Simon NHS Board Wessley, BACME etc.
We could definitely go further and chuck in some reference to Gramsci and explore the hegemony.

I think there is a point to be made that a lot of the explicit focus of clinics and bps has been incitement of those who might love us , employ us or support us to be convinced that ‘abuse is help’ by telling them we should be humiliated and left to get worse because any acknowledgment would encourage us.

So ironically there is something to be said for the unusual thing about bps is they very deliberately went a stage further than anyone in the past ever has and sought to destroy relationships and to isolate and alienate people for being ill. I note that as the reason they give because it’s what made it evil - someone could even have been coerced to choose to do things that harm them just to keep their family or partner and still the bps warrant us that when that obedience made them more ill they were to be further disowned and abused and blamed.

So I think it’s tricky as it is something bigger than gaslighting in the sense most can be left to imagine it as they couldn’t possibly consider on their own the extent to which it incited all parts of a support network they knew (as literature focused clearly mental health was very much linked to having a strong support network) would break people and then all parts a human needed to survive like employers and services bound to support those vulnerable to cast them out.

So even where the individual was able to know up from down or were gaslighted the effect was imposed just the same. But they had enough coerced pwme in early days to fill their PPI maybe from it via this and the coercion and threats .

I think gaslighting sadly is only one part of the mix all done brutally and at the same time as a constant new environment to live under and create hopelessness. Goodness knows what they were up to even if before they’d done the experiment they believed somewhat it was obviously dangerous and extreme.

That GP s or other parts of the system are also forced and conned into gaslighting that people have a choice of it helps some and so on is again a slightly different down chain term.

I’m different from many on here in that I think if we had the right person doing it then mapping quite how structured and systemic and how it operated on different actors and meant each place a normal person could turn or ‘at least have x when y was made bad’ actually painted and brought alive so that no reader can read it and pretend those consequences would not be extremely detrimental and deliberately hard to ever claw a life from for anyone targeted. And I think that bit is key because I think many know we don’t have it great but have no clue of how every option has been closed down to not just refuse us but play us and waste our energy whilst doing so in order to make it look like the cause-effect is weaker because these foot-on-necks are deliberately strung out so we just look like losers who take years trying to complete an assessment other illnesses might have done in months. And that list could go on.

Along either way how carefully cultivated it feels to avoid one person and make it a system like the shooting gallery principle even though most there are encouraged to think we ‘just couldn’t get it together’ anyway and ease any uneasiness they might have had about their own part and compliance etc.

 

[MrMagoo]

I think there is a point to be made that a lot of the explicit focus of clinics and bps has been incitement of those who might love us , employ us or support us to be convinced that ‘abuse is help’ by telling them we should be humiliated and left to get worse because any acknowledgment would encourage us.

So ironically there is something to be said for the unusual thing about bps is they very deliberately went a stage further than anyone in the past ever has and sought to destroy relationships and to isolate and alienate people for being ill. I note that as the reason they give because it’s what made it evil - someone could even have been coerced to choose to do things that harm them just to keep their family or partner and still the bps warrant us that when that obedience made them more ill they were to be further disowned and abused and blamed.

So I think it’s tricky as it is something bigger than gaslighting in the sense most can be left to imagine it as they couldn’t possibly consider on their own the extent to which it incited all parts of a support network they knew (as literature focused clearly mental health was very much linked to having a strong support network) would break people and then all parts a human needed to survive like employers and services bound to support those vulnerable to cast them out.

So even where the individual was able to know up from down or were gaslighted the effect was imposed just the same. But they had enough coerced pwme in early days to fill their PPI maybe from it via this and the coercion and threats .

I think gaslighting sadly is only one part of the mix all done brutally and at the same time as a constant new environment to live under and create hopelessness. Goodness knows what they were up to even if before they’d done the experiment they believed somewhat it was obviously dangerous and extreme.

That GP s or other parts of the system are also forced and conned into gaslighting that people have a choice of it helps some and so on is again a slightly different down chain term.

I’m different from many on here in that I think if we had the right person doing it then mapping quite how structured and systemic and how it operated on different actors and meant each place a normal person could turn or ‘at least have x when y was made bad’ actually painted and brought alive so that no reader can read it and pretend those consequences would not be extremely detrimental and deliberately hard to ever claw a life from for anyone targeted. And I think that bit is key because I think many know we don’t have it great but have no clue of how every option has been closed down to not just refuse us but play us and waste our energy whilst doing so in order to make it look like the cause-effect is weaker because these foot-on-necks are deliberately strung out so we just look like losers who take years trying to complete an assessment other illnesses might have done in months. And that list could go on.

Along either way how carefully cultivated it feels to avoid one person and make it a system like the shooting gallery principle even though most there are encouraged to think we ‘just couldn’t get it together’ anyway and ease any uneasiness they might have had about their own part and compliance etc.

We could call it institutional systemic abuse, but that would really lead to extensive discussions of our word choice.
The main point being to DARVO and reframe it as us being baddies, ensuring the conversation we’re trying to have is never had.