Gaslighting

Notes

Claim

Gaslighting is the opposite of validating someone's feelings or mental state.

Explanation

We belittle them and their experience, and even worse try to convince them that they are seeing the world wrong. We attack, whether intentionally or not, their Self esteem. We try to forecfully replace their narrative with others.

Gaslighting can even be a form of We justify our conclusions after acting, not before. We try to convince others that what they're experiencing is within reason as a Coping trades short-term relief for long-term cost mechanism for their issues. Similarly it can be a type of Manifesting imposes beliefs onto reality rather than accepting it, that we believe (either consciously or not) that by repeating a certain narrative, it will become true.

Why it Matters

Examples

For instance, we often comfort children that way, saying "there's nothing to cry about" in hopes that they will adopt this perspective.

Supporters

Opposers

Perhaps gaslighting is more common with those who lack Empathy means understanding and acting on another's perspective, they are unable to see the world through the eyes of another, or perhaps they don't even acknowledge that the world can be perceived differently for different people, so they believe (mistakenly) that their Subjective perception filters how we see external reality is the "one and true reality".

Open Questions

Perhaps gaslighting is a sign for the difference between general knowledge and Some knowledge requires direct experience to fully understand. While we know that something can be scary or hurtful, until it happens to us, until we are experiencing it first hand we will have hard time to really understand those who are going through it, and we will try to reduce their experience to nothing.

Visual

Overview

🔼Topic:: Active Listening and Empathy ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::