During a Los Angeles radio show about retrotalk, a caller told me that someone had recently told him, ‘’Don’t gaslight me.’’ The host, Patt Morrison – more of a movie buff than me – said that this alludes to the 1944 film Gaslight in which a man played by Charles Boyer tries to drive his wife (played by Ingrid Bergman) insane by making the gaslight in their house go up and down, and then telling her she’s seeing things. “Gaslighting’’ someone, therefore, means trying to drive them crazy. It turns out that it’s used by some therapists as shorthand for psychologically abusive behavior.
