institutional gaslighting

Institutional Gaslighting: When a group of respected people within an institution are posed as investigating on the victim’s behalf, but in actuality act to belittle or deny the reality of the harm committed in order to protect the institution’s reputation, the institution can cause the victim to question their own perceptions of reality, feelings, instincts, and even sanity. When an authority figure incites self-doubt in the victim, they are employing a tactic of emotional abuse referred to as “gaslighting, a term coined in reference to domestic abuse.” Perpetrators, whether they are individuals or institutions, use “gaslighting” to get what they want, typically “without ever taking responsibility for their actions or even their precipitating desires.” When an institution gaslights a victim in order to protect its own reputation, the institutional betrayal silences, invalidates, and harms recent survivors in their most vulnerable states.