So I want to ask Dr. Stern if you could please introduce yourself.

I'm Robin Stern, and I am someone who brought gaslight to public conversation, and I'm proud of that.

I'm a therapist, I'm an author, and I'm the co-founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and work with hundreds and thousands of people who want wellbeing to be the way they live their life, and gaslighting is the opposite.

Gaslighting destroys wellbeing, it destroys your confidence, it destroys psychological safety when it's happening in organizations or in families.

And when you're deep into a gaslighting relationship, it can be soul-destroying.

And I know, because I've had so many conversations about gaslighting, that as we're talking about it today, we, we may have moments where we say, "I just can't even believe it.

That couldn't possibly even happen." Or you may be listening and thinking, "Oh my God." But I, I do wanna communicate that it is not just outrageous and unbelievable.

Why do you think that one works so well?

My question to you is how can we identify and recognize this?

I'm gonna tell you a story first, and that story will begin to answer.

I do agree with you that sometimes it's just blatant, especially if you are attuned to what it is and somebody has been talking about gaslighting.

For example, I had a patient who was really struggling with these accusations that her boyfriend was making that she was flirting with people on the street.

He said, "You know, I really love you, and I don't want us to be fighting all the time," and she certainly didn't either 'cause she was getting the brunt of, um, abuse when they were fighting.

And he said, "I have a, a really great idea that will be helpful for us." And what was the idea? The idea, and I do talk about this quite a lot, was for her when they were walking down the street to look at the sidewalk rather than straight in front of her.

And she said, "Well, that sounds a little weird." He said, "Well, I'm, I'm gonna try it.

Wow.