Gaslighting: Help Clients Escape and Rebuild from a Narcissist's Emotional Abuse

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Program Information

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Stephanie Sarkis, PhD, NCC, DCMHS, LMHC Related seminars and products

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Dr. Stephanie Sarkis is a renowned therapist and leading expert on gaslighting and ADHD. With over two decades of experience as a clinician, author, and speaker, Dr. Sarkis has become a trusted voice in the fight against gaslighting and related forms of psychological manipulation. Her groundbreaking book, Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People – and Break Free, has become a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the devastating impact of gaslighting and how to heal from its effects. Dr. Sarkis is a frequent contributor to major media outlets including CNN, The Washington Post and Forbes. Dr. Sarkis a licensed mental health counselor, national certified counselor, AMHCA Diplomate and clinical specialist in child and adolescent counseling, and a Florida Supreme Court-certified family and circuit mediator. Her latest book Healing from Toxic Relationships is available now. Visit her website at www.stephaniesarkis.com

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Stephanie Moulton Sarkis maintains a private practice. She serves as a contributor to Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today and is an advisory panel member for Evergreen Certifications. Dr. Sarkis is a facilitator for Collaborative Divorce. She receives royalties as a published author. She receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Stephanie Moulton Sarkis is a professional expert for Understood.org, part of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. She is a member of the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, American Mental Health Counselors Association, Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder, and the National Board for Certified Counselors.

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Objectives

1. Utilize solution focused, cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to address victims of emotional abuse.
2. Differentiate between abusive behaviors defined as “gaslighting”, poor communication, and other forms of emotional abuse.
3. Evaluate the effectiveness of evidence based practices to address emotional abuse.
4. Determine whether a client is experiencing complicated grief as a result of leaving their abuser using techniques from attachment and complicated grief therapy.
5. Utilize clinical strategies from a trauma-informed perspective to identify vulnerabilities and trauma that abusers prey upon.
6. Educate clients to identify potential abusive behavior in future relationships.

Outline

• Potential for domestic homicide is higher
• Lifetime attachment issues for children witnessing the abuse
• Parental alienation
• Chronic loss of self-esteem; higher suicide rates
• Unpacking profile of perpetrator

• Vicious cycle of the trauma bond
• Manipulating through fear, obligation & guilt
• Reverse victim and offender
• Healthy boundaries met with punishing behavior
• Punishing with stonewalling
• Intermittent positive reinforcement (breadcrumbing)
• Jekyll and Hyde personality

• Advanced cognitive restructuring for common distortions held by gaslighting victims
• Activity scheduling to help victims of gaslighting reconnect with routines and stability

• Confront uncomfortable feelings
• Decrease dissociative episodes through mindfulness
• Help clients become more aware of physical and emotional manifestations of trauma through mindfulness exercises
• Use values clarification exercises to help clients find direction and motivation

• Identify intergenerational trauma and patterns
• Create genograms of a client’s family to reveal patterns of behavior and relationships

• Uncover existing boundaries and strengths
• "Magic question" to establish goals and create hope for your client
• 1 to 10 scale to track progress and note exceptions

• Distress tolerance skills
• Encourage journaling to process emotions and review progress
• Engage in role-play to practice coping skills and assert boundaries in potentially stressful situations

• Focus on client’s "felt experience" by paying attention to what the body is feeling
• Help clients put words and descriptions to their physical experiences

• Safety, choice, collaboration, and empowerment
• Provide clients with a clear consent form detailing your processes and their rights in therapy
• Techniques to enhance the collaborative focus of trauma-informed therapy

• Gaslighting parent – "golden child" & "scapegoat"
• Insecure attachment - narcissist
• Permission to detach, reduce, or cease communication
• Sticking to healthy boundaries
• Reverse relationship patterns
• Case study: Cassie, 60-year-old female, family-of-origin engages in gaslighting

• Rediscover and reestablish healthy boundaries
• Protect children and pets
• Establish financial security
• Define what makes a healthy relationship
• Cope with going no-contact or low-contact
• Common issues when coparenting with a gaslighter and solutions

• Strategies for co-parenting with gaslighter
• Legal protections for clients/children
• Formation of healthy boundaries
• Case study: Jamie, 45-years-old, co-parenting with a narcissist
• Case study: 35-years-old, co-parenting with gaslighting ex-partner

• Triangulation of therapist
• Being swayed by gaslighter’s charisma
• Frustration over client returning to relationship
• Pushing own agenda of client independence
• Vicarious traumatization
• Vicarious trauma or trauma from actions of gaslighter/narcissist
• Burnout
• Risks and limitations

Target Audience

• Counsellors
• Social workers
• Psychologists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Physicians
• Addiction Counsellors
• Mental health professionals who specialize in women’s issues, work in domestic violence shelters, work with LGBTQIA+ clients
• Therapists that work in private practice, group settings, inpatient, and at schools

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