I never said that. You're making things up again.

Are you sure? You tend to have a bad memory.

You are such a crazy girlfriend. 

You're really a psycho. 

Are you a victim of emotional abuse? If your partner tells you the above sentences quite frequently, you need to be wary. 

Psychologists use the term 'gaslighting' to refer to a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else to question their own reality, memory or perceptions. It's always a serious problem. 

Robin Stern, associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of The Gaslight Effect listed some warning signs. Take a look now and if any part of the list resonates with you, you may be involved in a gaslighting relationship.

The term 'gaslighting' actually comes from a 1938 play, Gas Light (which was turned into a more widely known movie in 1944, Gaslight), where a husband manipulates his wife to make her think she's actually losing her sense of reality so he can commit her to a mental institution and steal her inheritance.

There are numerous gaslighting techniques which can make gaslighting more difficult to identify. Here are some examples to help you see through the fog. 

'Withholding' is one gaslighting technique where the abuser feigns a lack of understanding, refuses to listen and declines to share his emotions. 

'I'm not listening to that crap again tonight.'

'You're just trying to confuse me.'

Another gaslighting technique is 'countering', where an abuser will vehemently call into question a victim's memory in spite of the victim having remembered things correctly.

'Think about when you didn't remember things correctly last time.'

'You thought that last time and you were wrong.'

It is then that the abuser will start to question the experiences, thoughts, and opinions more globally through statements said in anger like:

'You see everything in the most negative way.'

'Well you obviously never believed in me then.'

'You have an overactive imagination.'

'Blocking' and 'diverting' are gaslighting techniques whereby the abuser again changes the conversation from the subject matter to questioning the victim's thoughts and controlling the conversation. Examples of this include:

'I'm not going through that again.'

'Where did you get a crazy idea like that?'

'Quit bitching.'

'You're hurting me on purpose.'

'Trivializing' is another way of gaslighting. It involves making the victim believe his or her thoughts or needs aren't important, such as:

'You're going to let something like that come between us?'

Abusive 'forgetting' and 'denial' can also be forms of gaslighting. In this technique, the abuser pretends to forget things that have really occurred; the abuser may also deny things like promises that have been made that are important to the victim. 

'What are you talking about?'

'I don't have to take this.'

'You're making that up.'

What to do if you are a victim?