Gaslighting explained: How you are psychologically manipulated

There's a play from the 1930s and a film from the 1940s starring Ingrid Bergman in which an unscrupulous fortune hunter systematically makes his wealthy wife doubt her own sanity. He secretly dims the gaslight. She notices the flickering. He says: You're imagining it. And because she trusts him, because he's the person closest to her, because he's the one her brain has categorized as a "trustworthy source"—she begins to distrust herself instead of him.

Gaslighting. A term that has only really gained traction in German-speaking countries in the last few years. A concept that, in its individual form, is disturbing enough – and in its collective, media-driven, and political form has become so commonplace that we hardly notice it anymore. Which is an irony that speaks for itself.

Psychiatrist Rafael Bonelli distills the principle to its epistemological core: truth is the correspondence between thought and reality. Thinking begins with perception. Gaslighting sabotages precisely this first step—it attacks perception itself before the mind even begins to function. The result is not a lie that can be refuted. It is an induced thought disorder that leads the affected person to doubt their own perception before they even begin to examine what they have heard.

The mechanism works through trust. That's the key, and it's frighteningly simple. For energy-saving reasons, our brains distinguish between four categories of sources: trustworthy, uncertain, uninteresting, and unwanted. Only the uncertain source is critically examined. The trustworthy one is internalized directly, without the detour of critical thinking. So, whoever has gained trust—the husband, the government, the daily newspaper, science in capital letters—can then inject almost any content into the victim's brain without that content being subjected to critical scrutiny.

Bonelli's case study: Karina, a migrant from Russia, married with two children. Her husband brings a female colleague home – Monika, recently divorced, aggressively flirtatious, with long hugs in front of Karina and constant messages. Karina's gut tells her something's up. Her husband replies: You're overreacting, that's just how she is. When Karina finally intervenes, Monika tells her that jealousy is medieval. The husband tells her it's toxic for the relationship. And Karina – reflective, trusting, and willing to be self-critical – actually wonders if perhaps she is the problem.

This is gaslighting in its classic form: victim-blaming combined with feigned outrage as a tactic. The feigned outrage is no accident—it's a deliberate method. Outrage prevents critical thinking. Those who are ashamed withdraw. Those who apologize stop analyzing. The perpetrator's shock at the victim's "old-fashioned behavior" serves solely to put the victim on the defensive before they can defend their own perception. This works in the bedroom. It works just as well on television.

Bonelli hints at it, without fully elaborating – the collective, media-driven dimension of gaslight. It was indeed the warmest month in living memory, even if you froze for a whole month. The measures were proportionate, even if the opposite was immediately apparent. The vaccine is safe and effective, even if your body is telling you otherwise. You're imagining it. There's something wrong with you. You're backward. Toxic. A conspiracy theorist.

The mechanism is identical. Only the scale is different. Instead of a single, self-serving individual, there's a system behind it, comprised of institutions, media outlets, and scientific authorities—all pre-sorted into the category of "trusted source" before the actual manipulation begins. Anyone who reads the same newspaper daily, listens to the same experts, and consumes the same news broadcasts eventually internalizes their reality—not because the arguments are convincing, but because the brain has stopped critically examining them.

The cure, according to Bonelli, lies in deep thinking. The conscious decision to reclassify supposedly trustworthy sources as "uncertain" and treat them accordingly. A third party confirms: No, you're seeing things correctly. The light really is flickering…

Gaslighting explained: How you are psychologically manipulated