""As stated in Wikipedia,
"Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment."
In an important article on the Becoming International website, which is aimed at leadership and development for women, Alison Maitland calls this out and offers some practical help for those affected by this pernicious practice.
I penned a relatively short comment in response to Alison's LinkedIn post on this, but the site's 'word counters' intervened and prevented my posting it in the form that I had intended. So I scrapped the comment and decided to post my response on the blog. So here it is...
An excellent article, Alison.
It is vitally important to call out such unacceptable behaviour. And to offer practical advice to those whose life is adversely affected by it, in the way that you have done here.
A crucial point that you make is that this “... isn’t something you do to yourself. It happens between people. It is relational (and can also be institutional)”.
This is fundamental. Since organization emerges in the ongoing process of everyday, conversational interaction, wherever gaslighting occurs, this process is being played out by one or more of the participants in wholly self-serving ways. As such, besides being socially unjust, it is also organizationally dysfunctional. Importantly too, as you go on to say, this will be heavily conditioned by the power relations that exist between those involved and further distort these going forwards.
The capacity for such socially unjust and organizationally dysfunctional behaviour to become institutionalized over time arises naturally from this self-organizing patterning of interaction . And so, besides the excellent guidance and advice that you have offered to people on the receiving end of specific incidents of gaslighting, those who are formally in charge in a particular setting also have a responsibility to act.
In particular, it Is incumbent on them to pay attention to the ways in which interactions are being played out; and, where necessary, to take action aimed at shifting the patterns towards ones that are both socially just and organizationally beneficial.
Thanks, again, Alison for highlighting this important issue.
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