Gaslighting: What Is It?

[Phoebe]

Definition question - what do you think "gaslighting" is? Maybe it differs in specialized contexts, I don't know, but how would you characterize it?
I think of Gaslighting proper as the effort to drive a person nutty by giving them so much contradictory information about what is real that they no longer trust their own ability to discern what is true or real. In addition, this is done to harm the person, and not by accident or out of ignorance. It's deliberate.

In the political context, this might refer to disinformation efforts aimed at destabilizing any truth claims whatsoever, so that people no longer trust accurate information or accurate sources. Or it might involve insisting that reality is not at all what it seems, with an element of coercion in trying to get other people to accept this alternate, false reality. Like, my inauguration crowds were bigger than any other in history! Look, the hurricane path goes this way, where we have drawn it in with marker! Don't believe the actual photos of the event or the weather forecasters, and your own lying eyes - believe us, or else!

In the context of emotional abuse (Yes, I am trying to figure this out still), it might mean something like "you think I did this wrong thing, but that never happened - you're exaggerating, you're making things up, it was just a joke, or it probably didn't even occur". In other words, you are losing your mind if you think I am abusive - I am innocent and you are telling tales and over-reacting to nothing.

I would say this is gaslighting even if - or perhaps especially if - the gaslighter wants to argue that they never did anything wrong, whatsoever, and claims to genuinely believe it. The thing that makes it gaslighting is that a) the event really did happen, and b) the gaslighter ought to know that it did happen, even if they are denying it. In fact, the denial that an event really occurred is what makes it gaslighting!

But now - there is this OTHER layer on top, and I want to know what this is:
For example, suppose you say, "you embarrassed me in front of my friends when you did X". (I pick this example because during quarantine, there is no getting to see any friends, so it is utterly hypothetical and made-up.) The other person then says, "I did not do X at all, you're wrong, and even if I did, it didn't/wouldn't/shouldn't embarrass your friends, and what's more, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO DID X and in doing so, YOU embarrassed ME in front of MY friends. Now I shall punish you, or at least insist I am justified in doing so until you back off and stop complaining about me."
Is this merely lying, or is this specifically "gaslighting" deception? What is this higher level of gaslighting, where one doesn't simply dispute the truth about reality in order to disorient and confuse another person, but in fact all the tables are turned? YOU, the former plaintiff, are now the defendant, and probably deserve punishment for your wrongs.

This is what Trump does - maybe on an hourly basis, maybe on a constant basis - so I think of this as the projection-fantasy of a psychopathic narcissist. Not only does this person try to twist what is real to make you doubt yourself, but she or he will insist that anything you complain about is in fact caused BY YOU, and whatever you think the other person is guilty of, YOU are even more guilty of it yourself!

Anyway, I want to know if there is a specific name for this other than "gaslighting" and if so, what we call this. Also, I HATE IT.

[FlameBlade]

Gaslight terminology came from a movie, Gaslight which has a plot of a guy driving a woman crazy by intentionally adjusting gaslight.

[bralbovsky]

My definition is pretty broad, as far as that goes: using deception and revisionist history to control, unbalance or manipulate a partner.
Contests about who remembers better, or corrections, expansions, hyperbole, invented episodes, are all brought to bear #1 to make the person doubt her/himself, #2 to turn blame and credit around, and generally #3 to control the narrative and thereby control the person. It's a narcissism spectrum technique. Errors: not setting boundaries (it's ok to get to agree to disagree), trying to remember the untruth they told to someone else as a way of supporting them ("If I'll lie for you, then I'll lie to you")(also this makes you complicit in the lie, and heaven forbid you get any details wrong), internalizing the struggle, staying in the relationship.