Gaslighted by a T examples needed

On Monday I had a session with my therapist and it was the worst session I've ever had. Reading this thread I am now realizing that what she was doing was perhaps gaslighting (it's hard to translate in my language so it may be why I hadn't thought of it until now). To everything I said, every question I asked, she said "it's your interpretation" which means this is all in my head, this is not reality and I'm making it all up. It was INSANE. I felt like I was going crazy. The whole thing breaks my heart. How can she become like this?

Thanks for all the help! Yes, I do feel I am being gaslighted. No, wait -- I AM being gaslighted, I'm just not sure to what degree. It pretty much started in the beginning of October. There have been obvious instances of her gaslighting me, and I believe this to be one of several: http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...m-i-wrong.html . As for my inquiry about subtle gaslight's, I was just wondering about the little, not so obvious things, because there are a lot of little things being done that are adding into this larger, suspicious picture. Could be gaslighting, could be some other reason for the changes.

Nothing makes sense anymore. I do question everything t does of late and it is making me unbelievably crazy. There is more giving, and more taking away. This whole thing has become a total mind f--k. Maybe it's all just me. Maybe I've regressed beyond to where I started with being hyper vigilant. Or maybe I'm waking up to reality.

An important takeaway from my abusive therapy was my dawning need to own my own perceptions. That means that the therapist's credentials, status and air of authority didn't prevent him from being a bully and liar. He was behaving and falsifying in to protect his interest and at my expense. Preserving my sanity summarized to his truth vs. mine, and I needed to remind myself repeatedly of the reality. He had no insight, he was vain and I know myself far better than he did. This challenge has persisted for decades.

This is a really triggering topic for me, but then again, I'm drawn to triggery stuff.

AllHeart-I think any therapist, such as yours, who crosses the line probably has emotional problems. I'm sorry this is happening.

I think the term gaslighting is overused. This is only my opinion-it's not a matter of perception, such as feelings; it's the other person attempting to change, or usually negate, reality.

I've never had a therapist gaslight me, although my therapist has said I was experiencing transference when I thought I was experiencing reality (he did x or y). But I've had a few life experiences with gaslighting, especially from my mother but also adult life, and in analyzing the patterns, i noticed it usually takes 2 forms:

-a person who lies to themself (defense mechanisms); people who do this truly don't know they are doing this. I've known compulsive liars over the years, and it stems from narcissim. People with this problem try to twist reality to confirm to their world view (ie, "I am always good"). It's done to protect themselves. So, instead of conforming to reality, they gaslight in an attempt to change reality to fulfill their view of themself or the environment; even those around them. It's a matter of unconscious control.

-the 2nd is those who deliberately do this to evade responsibility for anything, those who blame others for everything. Everything is caused outside themselves; they externalize their issues rather than internalize them. Abusive people do this. This is when it is dangerous. Not that the former isn't harmful, but this has a destructive nature.

While i think both come from narcissim, I think your therapist could be the former. When people do this for so many years, they don't even realize they are doing it. And they become good at it; it takes a while to see through it. Because some people with a very fragile sense of self may inadvertently lie to others to maintain their persona of who they see themselves to be. This comes with rationalizing behavior. So instead of her acknowledging the truth--for example, she did something wrong--she will rationalize it as something you did, or something she did to fit with her positive view of herself. To accomplish that, she has to lie. But she's not just lying to you--she lies to herself in her attempts to make reality 'match' her thinking.

So in the former, it's to change the environment in a way where it conforms to their view of it (rather than align their view with reality as it should be). People do this all the time (ie a person that is paranoid may see everyone in the world is dangerous; or a narcissstic therapist may see herself as being a therapist to help people because she has to see herself as selfless, when in reality, she is self-serving).

The second way is done is to purposely harm someone; to knowingly evade responsibility or to sadistically harm someone in a power trip. In either case, it is not ok. It causes so much psychological damage.

I am glad you are seeing through things. I was in a long term relationship with someone who gaslighted me but didn't know it. I didn't think of it that way before, as I didn't realize what was going on (trusted him, thought he was a completely different person) but it turned out to be traumatic to me.

It can really be traumatizing to anyone. I really think that she is emotionally damaged, and it will seep out to you. Little by little, then one day you might one day be jolted by it. Please be careful.

I find gaslighting fairly common out in the world. Any of us who have worked with an "empty suit," a grandstander or mild-to-severe abuser likely has experienced this to some degree. It overlaps our decision that someone is full of --manure.

However I assume some of us attribute qualities to therapists--professionalism, trustworthiness, altruism, judgment, training--that make the therapist's argument, even against us, more difficult to assess and abandon. I essentially sacrificed myself to maintain my god-like image of my therapist. Separating was like cult deprogramming.

I think much of the gaslighting I experienced in therapy comes down to therapists not wanting to acknowledge the harmful effects of their work.

Along those lines:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair

I've never been gaslighted by a therapist, but I've experienced it in real life several times and it isn't pleasant. All those situations were in work situations.

Over the years, I've checked out a series of different Ts in an attempt to find one I wanted to work with, and in the search, I decided not to work with a few after determining that they were dealing "badly" with their own issues and were in no position to help anyone else. I'm pretty sure that if I had continued to meet with those individuals, I would have been subjected to their "gaslighting" behaviors relatively quickly.

The sad thing is that the therapeutic relationship is ripe for this kind of abuse. Give a person an in depth education in psychological theories,l terms and reasoning, add the tools to "judge" a person's behavior on the basis of intensely personal information about their history (family of origin) and the client's dreams, wishes, desires and fantasies and bingo, you've got the ability to gaslight him/her. That's why it is so sad that so many people with their own psychological issues are turned free on the unsuspecting naïve public. If the profession policed itself better, and I'm not just talking about licensing, but intense ongoing supervision and intense ongoing training for the lifetime of one's professional career, things might be slightly less dangerous. But I'm realistic enough to know that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

I think the yardstick is how we'd like to respond to the behavior if it weren't coming from a therapist. At worst, my co-therapists' conducted weekly attacks to invalidate my perceptions about them and apparently employ everything they knew about me to humiliate me, all because I wanted to terminate. I would have gotten away from anyone else much more quickly.

As Skies suggests, yes, my t is mentally unbalanced. That became apparent early on in the therapy relationship. Over the course of two years, I became aware of how deep her mental imbalance runs. So this recent gaslighting **** is upsetting but not surprising.

I had a session with t today. She was very mentally balanced today and I was able to get some things out in the open with her. Long story short, we both want our relationships to work out and so we will keep talking about what is going on for the both of us. I felt really good leaving her office today. Hope has been restored. It is not blind hope and logic still remains as I know anything can happen.

I had never heard of the term ''gaslighting''. Reading about it, I think I've been gaslighted by every T at least once. And some did it many times, those where the bad T's.