Psychiatric Gaslighting: The Surveillance of Mental Illness during Pregnancy
Abstract
Abstract Women living with mental health symptoms face the dilemma of continuing psychotropic medication when pregnant or breastfeeding. Based on two years of observations in a mental health clinic focusing on reproductive health, we examine how patients living with mental health conditions exert reproductive agency during meetings with psychiatrists; how these clinicians respond to this engagement; and the consequences of this advocacy for medical decision-making. We find that psychiatrists psychologize patient advocacy by interpreting it as a manifestation of untreated mental pathology. This psychologization moves beyond imposing a professional vision on the interaction and beyond a paternalistic communication style to psychiatric gaslighting: patient engagement is invalidated and subverted under psychiatric professional vision to double-down on psychotropic medication. Psychiatric gaslighting is a sociological and institutional phenomenon; operating through cultural scripts about how both gender and mental illness shape credibility, incentive structures in medical practice, lingering epistemic problems in psychiatry, and psychiatry’s struggle for professional legitimacy. Within an unequal power relationship between health professionals aiming to safeguard their authority and a stigmatized population, patients are disempowered by psychiatric concepts that link mental health to good mothering. We conclude that the biomedical management of vulnerable populations serves professional interests.
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Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-000-3636314 |