“The Gaslighting Trifecta: Epistemic Harms to Mothers of Children with Severe Mental Illness”

Paper Presentation by Tammy Nyden

2022 Annual Conference of the North American Society Social Philosophy, Neumann University, Aston, PA

July 15, 2022

Abstract:

This paper examines how structural gaslighting manifests in institutional, interpersonal, and internalized gaslighting to individualize as maternal failure what are in fact institutional failures of health systems, insurance companies and state agencies to make appropriate health care and and educational supports available for children with severe mental illness. The conceptual work fueling this gaslighting is begetter stigma, a particularly harmful amalgam of mother-blame and courtesy stigma.