Medical Gaslighting and its Harm. By Rachel Lee (UCLA)
Session Objectives:
At the completion of this session, learners will be able to
Understand medical gaslighting and the variety of forms it takes (both direct and indirect);
Understand structural inequalities caused by more than racism and sexism but to think about ableism and how it intersects with other identity categories;
Imagine alternative options of providing care using disability justice as the point of departure rather than the point of arrival;
Encourage individual reflection on medical gaslighting in medicine.
Preparation Time:
Facilitator Preparation:
Suggested Prep Time: 120 minutes
General Overview:
Review the three full interviews from the archive of Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness (online) in full and jot down notes. Print out interview snippets for classroom exercise. Read and review “Medical Gaslighting” (2024). Facilitators will need to prepare prompts. If a small group of participants is anticipated (10 or fewer), facilitators could consider giving all participants the same prompt. If a larger group is expected, facilitators could select a few prompts, to craft a unique prompt for each participant. If it is in-person, the prompts should be written on slips of paper and handed out at random to participants; if virtual, prompts can be disseminated to individual participants via email or the chat function of their meeting platforms.
Sample prompts include:
“How would you define medical gaslighting and what forms can it take?”
“Think about how comfortable you are addressing and identifying medical gaslighting.”
“Think about what your role in dismantling medical gaslighting may be.”
“Reflect on a standard intake, what does it include and exclude?”
Three interviews from the archive of Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness (Online): Ray Humphrey, Peggy Munson, and Isabel Williams
Ng, Isaac Ks, Sarah Zl Tham, Gaurav Deep Singh, Christopher Thong, and Desmond B. Teo. “Medical Gaslighting: A New Colloquialism.” The American Journal of Medicine 137, no. 10 (October 2024): 920–22.
Participant Preparation:
Suggested Prep Time: N/A
Participant Pre-Reading & Materials (OPTIONAL):
Unrest Documentary Film (With Captions and Multilingual Subtitles)
“Opening Up” (zine by Tight Lipped) breaks the stigma, shame, and silence around vulvovaginal and pelvic pain conditions. The zine includes art, poetry, and prose compiled from more than fifty contributors who submitted their stories about living with vulvar burning, rawness, itching, and pain; pain with penetration, or UTI-like symptoms without an infection present.
David Putrino, Rehabilitation and Human Performance, Mount Sinai, NYC, on how his team came to take long Covid seriously (has a section on doing harm to patients by not believing them in the past) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXGLtbYcjUQ