Combat Gaslighting with Social Engineering

GBI has developed methods for leveraging opponents that will do or spend anything to avoid the transparency of a lawsuit. Our methods compel all parties to place a priority upon resolving your issues.

Guilty people "Gaslight" to avoid taking resposibility for thier actions

Disrupt Gaslighting

What is Gaslighting?

The term "gaslighting" has been used colloquially since the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's perception of reality and has been used to describe such behaviour in psychoanalytic literature since the 1970s. The term originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in the 1938 stage play Gaslight.

In the story, the husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes.

Gaslighting is a common technique used to draw out and complicate the resolution of an issue, whether the relationship is interpersonal such as a family member or professional when parties are acting to steal or decieve for financial or market gain.

Glen Bass Investigations specializes in Corporate, Residential and Vehicle TSCM Bug Sweeps.

People who "Gaslight" often employ surveillance, hidden microphones and tracking chips to maintain control by way of continual monitoring

Privacy is a part of our lives that we hold dear. When our privacy is threatened it can be personally hurtful and potentially devastating to our business and social relationships.

Once we suspect that our privacy has been violated in a nefarious way, finding comfort or peace of mind can be difficult if not impossible.

Glen Bass Investigations will work with you to secure your environment

Click here to learn more about Bug Sweeps

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952-200-5755

Why use Gaslighting?

Gaslighting attempts to destabilize the opponent and delegitimize the opponent's beliefs by using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying. These techniques are intended to confound their victims by blatantly violating societies established rules of conduct.

A form of psychological manipulation, "Gaslighting" seeks to sow the seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, or sanity.

One would think that using gaslighting would be reserved for only the most devious of people, but this is not the case, gaslighting is a simple way to use attrition to force a party to give up in their effort to resolve or assess responsibility for an issue.

So, when society says lying is wrong, gaslighters will blatantly lie and make you spend your money proving them wrong, and when you do prove them wrong, they respond with "What, can't take a joke? People are way too sensitive".

Gaslighting is a technique used to confuse and delay the resolution of issues, ultimately leading to higher costs, frustrations and energy expense in finding a path to the resolution of an issue.

Gaslighting is an "All-In" strategy and takes many forms
new methods are developed all the time

Despite which form each method may take, each are intended to incrementally wear a target down so that ultimately the target is under control or out of the way

Please review the tactics below, if you are facing opposition that is employing these methods, you are able fight back

 
Attrition

Attrition
Gradually weakening something and destroying it


Gaslighting is an insidious practice, its goals are accomplished incrementally and over time

In a legal engagement it can start as a trickle or will arrive as a deluge depending upon how big the lies must be. Either way, after it starts, the intensity invariably ramps up. As a tactic, gaslighting relies upon attrition or "Death by a thousand cuts" and is an all-encompassing feature of gaslighting because the goal is to wear down and exhaust its targets.

Blatant Lies

Blatant lies
Lies are the air that gaslighting breaths...


They are telling you a lie with a straight face. You know it's an outright lie. Everyone knows it's a lie yet, they will not budge and continue to insist that their statements are true. In intellectual property cases, a corporation will steal a programmer's code and declare that they had never met the man even though that programmer is presently logged into his own code on their system.

They're setting a precedent, programming their victims with unknown expectations and intentionally destabilizing a person's ability to differentiate between what is and what is not true.

Denial

Denial
This single tactic can delay progress by years


Many have observed that for human toddlers "denial" is arguably the first method discovered to avoid responsibility. Mom knows what's up, the child has committed to the lie and whatever'll happen is of no real consequence.

When denial has become a refined artform and is practiced in legal engagements, denial becomes very expensive. This simple tactic, when applied completely and without relent will make a person question their own judgement, memory, confidence and testimony.

Emotional Triggers

Emotional triggers
Perhaps the sleaziest of gaslighter techniques


The methodology is intended to elicit an emotional or reflexive response by attacking that which the victim holds most dear, such as criticizing a victim's parenting skills or children. A gaslighter may suggest that one never should have had children, or they will criticize their victims for a difficult familial situation, heck they'll probably share that if it weren't for all of the bad traits of their victim, they'd be a great person.

Gaslighters use the emotional responses of their targets to justify their claims of your instability or craziness.

Obfuscation

Obfuscation
Gaslighters answer direct questions with obfuscation


When people do not have the whole picture of events, and they are being deceived and manipulated with only limited access to the truth contained in circumstances, it obfuscates their ability to make informed, clear and well thought out decisions.

redirection

Redirection
Changing the subject to evade responsibility


Redirection is a digression from the actual topic to a different issue altogether. Gaslighters don't want to be held accountable for anything, so they will reroute discussions to benefit them. This type of diversion has no limits, it is applied to achieve both short term results and long term strategies.

"Equivocation" is regularly applied in this tactic to redirect responsibility for their behavior back onto their victims: "Why are you attacking me for this, when you do that?"

Duplicitous Conduct

Duplicitous Conduct
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action

Hamlets words could be no truer...

A person or entity that gaslights exhibit disconnects between what they say and do. It is an imperative that when navigating an interaction with a gaslighter that one tracks what they are doing rather than what they are saying.

Words to a gaslighter mean little; it is just talk. Pay attention to what they are doing.

Positive Reinforcement

Positive Reinforcement
Why does such a smart person keep making such reckless decisions?


Throughout the "long con" that is gaslighting, a gaslighter throws out positive reinforcement amid their stream of degrading remarks and conduct.

A gaslighter will go out of their way to praise their victims when that person has done something that directly benefits the gaslighter.

The offender is intentionally destabilizing a victim's reality and more prone to question their own reality.

Everyone else is lying

Everyone else is lying
Insisting that everyone else is lying, makes you question your reality


It is a manipulation technique; this notion is intended to compel a person to turn to the gaslighting offender for the "correct" information, which isn't correct information at all.

Your claims are crazy

Your claims are crazy
Dismiss an accuser as crazy and nobody will believe them


The gaslighter knows if they suggest that your sanity is in question, people will not believe you when you tell them of this "abusive and out of control" gaslighter. It's a master technique.

Confusion

Promotion of Confusion
Confuse the issue to destabilize opposition


Confusion is a necessary condition for gaslighters. People like having a sense of stability, normality and predictability

A gaslighters goal is to uproot a victim's stability by compelling their target to constantly question everything. This technique provides the opportunity for a gaslighter to attain an assumption of authority from which they can guide the path of the relationship.

Projection

Projection
Blames the accuser of the same crime


This common technique for redirection and creating confusion finds a gaslighter accusing their victim of the very act for which they are being accused.

For example, a cheater will accuse their partner of infidelity. When practiced regularly the victim spends more time defending itself and is further distracted from the offender's own behavior.

Isolation

Isolation
Alignment of forces against you


Gaslighters will use people whom they know are easily manipulated and will back them no-matter-what, to align supportive commentary against your position.

They use this technique to further diminish your position and create the illusion that people lining up to support this person, whether they are or not doesn't matter, perception is reality. The goal is to make the victim feel isolated.

This is exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.

Every case is unique

Most people do not consider a response to gaslighting until they are knee deep in it and then it may be too late to develop an effective response.

The GBI team constantly considers these tactics and are ready to assist you in developing an effective offensive strategy.

GBI continually develops solutions for combatting the use of gaslighting between disputing parties, our tactics fight these methods in real time. Contact GBI today to schedule a free case review.

Socially Engineer a "Gaslit" legal strategy with a “White Hat” result

Gaslighting is used to delay action and increase costs in the hopes that the accusing party will run out of money.

Establishing control over the timeline and dictating the venue works to your advantage.

How do Social Engineering techniques change the equation?

“White Hat Social Engineers” are operatives who design tactics to control the behavior and perceptions of people that use gaslighting, by gaining their confidence and manipulating their inner biases.

If you are being affected by Gaslighting, we may be able to assist you.

Disrupt gaslighting with tactical unpredictability

Glen Bass Investigations (GBI) provides "Socially Engineered Solutions" for clients facing manipulative gaslighting tactics. When crimes like Intellectual Property Theft, Identity Theft and Computer crimes are committed; Law Enforcement, the courts and many attorneys are useless to stop it, collect remedy and never, is it a timely resolution.

These are crimes occurring in real time, however, there is little systemic means by which to stop the theft outside of drawn out civil litigation which usually allows the offender time to accomplish their goals.

Time to inures to the benefit of the thief and to get away with the crime, their only need is to hire an attorney who specializes in bogging down legal process with gaslighting.