We're Living in the Gaslit Era | Jennifer Fraser | Ep.456

My guest has a PhD from the University of Toronto. She taught at the university level, then at two prep schools for years. In 2017 she walked away from education after the system covered up the abuse of one of her students. She turned whistleblower, went public, and started digging into the brain science of what had happened. That work became two books, The Bullied Brain and The Gaslit Brain, and a long-running column for Psychology Today. Jennifer Fraser studies abuse cultures for a living.

We get into gaslighting and what it actually does to your brain. She lays out the dark tetrad — narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism — and the mask these people wear so well it fools the experts. How they read you, isolate you, and make you doubt your own memory.

We cover the lie that abuse is the price of greatness. Coaches who don't want to win — they want to hurt the kids. Why refusing a bad order is the real test of leadership. And the part that matters most: the brain is wired to repair.

The Gaslit Brain

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Timestamps:

[00:00:00] Intro and catching up

[00:02:51] Canada politics and public narratives

[00:08:12] Truth, regulation, and misinformation

[00:11:08] Mental illness and social media harms

[00:15:38] Writing The Gaslit Brain

[00:18:16] Her son’s rare condition

[00:23:31] Abuse does not create greatness

[00:27:13] The dark tetrad explained

[00:31:44] Why manipulators fool people

[00:39:27] Abuse culture in sports and schools

[00:49:34] Gaslighting, self-belief, and personal examples

[00:57:57] Witnesses, evidence, and abuse culture

[01:06:17] Machiavellianism, narcissism, and false narratives

[01:12:03] Grooming, school abuse, and missed signals

[01:17:28] Team reality and believing is seeing

[01:24:12] Media manipulation and finding truth

[01:33:51] Information overload and source averaging

[01:40:17] Attention and obedience experiments

[01:47:24] Phones, predators, and online harm

[01:53:37] Left brain, right brain, and empathy

[02:05:03] Cruelty, greatness, and veterans

[02:12:47] Competitive suffering and gaslit-world survival

[02:21:26] Leadership, authorship, and accountability

[02:24:26] Future book ideas

[02:30:30] Home clutter, gaslighting jokes, and ownership

[02:37:51] Drownproof discussion and book reflections

[02:42:04] Where to find the book