Medical gaslighting refers to a situation where a patient’s symptoms, concerns, or experiences are dismissed, downplayed, or invalidated by healthcare professionals, leading the patient to doubt their own perception of their health issues.
Gaslighting is a type of psychological manipulation that often occurs between a person of authority and someone who relies on their expertise. In medicine, that means a healthcare provider and a patient.
In the context of healthcare, medical gaslighting can result in misdiagnoses, delays in treatment, emotional distress, and even life-threatening situations.
Medical gaslighting involves a power imbalance, a gap in authority and expertise between two people. Patients depend on their provider’s guidance for diagnosis, treatment, and overall health.
Dismissal has real costs. A patient’s emotional well-being, trust in the medical system, and access to appropriate care can all suffer.
Signs of medical gaslighting
Signs of medical gaslighting can vary, but they generally involve dismissive or invalidating behaviors or language from healthcare providers that make patients doubt their own experiences and concerns.
Here are some common signs of medical gaslighting to look out for:
- Minimizing or downplaying your symptoms (e.g., suggesting that your symptoms are not as serious as you believe)
- Attributing your symptoms to stress, anxiety, or other mental health issues
- Implying you are overly concerned about your health (e.g., being a hypochondriac)
- Dismissing your medical history, existing conditions, or previous diagnoses
- Rushing through appointments and not taking the time to thoroughly discuss your concerns
- Refusing additional tests or denying diagnostic procedures
- Blaming your symptoms on your lifestyle, habits, or choices
- Dismissing your input about your own body and medical history
- Denying there is something wrong without conducting a proper assessment
- Questioning your memory or perceptions (e.g., “Are you sure that is how you feel?” or “Are you sure you are not overthinking it?”)
- Giving inconsistent or conflicting explanations for your symptoms
- Dismissing your concerns due to your gender, race, age, or other demographic factors
Example of medical gaslighting
Medical gaslighting takes many forms. The pattern is the same: a provider dismisses, downplays, or invalidates a patient’s concerns.
A common example of medical gaslighting is when women are told that their symptoms are due to premenstrual syndrome (PMS).
Women’s symptoms may not stem from their menstrual cycle alone. They can point to conditions such as endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and thyroid disorders.
When these symptoms are dismissed as “just PMS,” it undermines women’s experiences and can cause significant harm.
Common Forms and Consequences
Weight is another common target. Some providers attribute all of a person’s health problems to their weight or suggest that losing weight is the solution to everything.
This oversimplifies potentially complex health issues and may lead to delayed or inadequate care.
Some concerns may genuinely be linked to PMS or weight. The problem arises when professionals dismiss or invalidate a patient’s concerns without a thorough and respectful evaluation.
Effective healthcare involves a partnership between patients and providers, where patients are heard, respected, and treated as active participants in their own health journey.
Long COVID is a recent example. A 2022 qualitative study of people living with it highlighted concerns about medical gaslighting. Long COVID refers to a range of symptoms that persist for weeks or months after the acute phase of a COVID-19 infection has resolved.
Long-term symptoms include brain fog, fatigue, and shortness of breath.
Before Long COVID was recognized as an official condition, individuals with Long COVID reported facing challenges in getting their symptoms recognized and taken seriously by healthcare providers.
Many of these patients reported feeling unheard and unsupported, and that their ongoing symptoms were downplayed or disregarded.
Au et al. (2022) found that patients “blame the experts who hold gatekeeping power over their medical care for producing a distorted version of [their] reality.”
This example shows what is at stake. Healthcare professionals need more awareness, education, and empathy to support people living with the lingering effects of the virus.
Symptoms of Medical Gaslighting
As with other forms of gaslighting, the symptoms of medical gaslighting can be recognized through patients’ interactions with their healthcare providers. How you feel when you leave an appointment can help you tell whether you are experiencing medical gaslighting.
If you leave an appointment feeling confused, disappointed, disrespected, invalidated, or unheard, you were likely gaslit. Medical gaslighting can also have more severe, longer-term consequences, including:
- Emotional distress, anxiety, or depression
- Loss of confidence in your ability to accurately describe your symptoms or advocate for your health needs
- Doubting your own perceptions and experiences
- Feeling frustrated towards and resentful of the medical system
- Avoiding all future medical care
- Erosion of trust in healthcare providers
Medical gaslighting can negatively impact patients’ self-esteem as they start to believe that their health concerns are not valid or worthy of attention.
Repeated dismissal deepens that self-doubt.
What are the consequences of medical gaslighting?
Medical gaslighting can have profoundly negative consequences for patients, affecting their physical health, emotional well-being, and trust in the healthcare system.
Here are some of the consequences associated with medical gaslighting in more detail:
Emotional Distress
Being invalidated or dismissed by healthcare providers can cause significant emotional distress for patients.
They may feel unheard, frustrated, anxious, or even depressed due to the lack of support and validation.
Patients may also doubt their own judgment.
They might even question their ability to accurately assess their symptoms and advocate for their own needs.
Misdiagnosis
If a provider downplays a patient’s concerns or attributes all of their symptoms to one convenient cause, the patient might receive an incorrect diagnosis.
The wrong label can send treatment in the wrong direction while the real cause goes unaddressed.
As a result, they may not receive the medical interventions or treatments they need, leading to physical harm and complications.
Delayed Diagnosis
When healthcare providers dismiss or downplay patients’ symptoms, it can lead to delayed diagnosis and treatment of underlying medical conditions.
This delay can worsen outcomes and cause severe complications, even life-threatening ones.
It also erodes trust in providers and the medical system.
Lost trust may discourage patients from seeking care again, which can worsen their health and raise future healthcare costs.
How to respond to medical gaslighting
Recognizing medical gaslighting can empower you to take action. Whether you decide to seek a second opinion, advocate for yourself, or find a healthcare provider who prioritizes your concerns, responding to medical gaslighting requires assertiveness, self-advocacy, and proactivity.
If you feel that your concerns are not being addressed or if you’re being dismissed, trust your instincts. You are the only one who knows your body and your experiences.
Be sure to clearly express your concerns and the symptoms you’re experiencing to your provider.
Advocating for Yourself
If you suspect your doctor is gaslighting you, speak up. Stand up for your health needs. You have the right to be an active participant in your healthcare decisions.
These steps can help:
- Speak Up: Share your experience with your provider or their superiors if you feel dismissed.
- Ask Questions: Ask about your symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment options, and request specific tests if you believe they are necessary.
- Get a Second Opinion: If one provider’s response or treatment plan leaves you unsatisfied, consult a different provider who is more attentive to your concerns.
- Document Everything: Record your symptoms, conversations with providers, and any tests or treatments you receive. These records help if you seek a second opinion.
- Bring Support: A friend or family member can help ensure your concerns are heard and act as a witness to what is said.
Your health matters. You have the right to respectful, compassionate, and effective care. If you are not satisfied, look for another doctor who will listen attentively and respect your concerns.
Who is most at risk of medical gaslighting?
Anyone, regardless of their identity or background, can experience medical gaslighting. However, certain groups of individuals may be more at risk due to societal biases, stereotypes, and disparities in healthcare.
Gaslighting is rooted in social inequalities and executed in relationships with power imbalances.
Groups more vulnerable to medical gaslighting include women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, adolescents, and the elderly, as well as those with disabilities or mental health conditions.
The Role of Bias and Disparities
Sun et al. (2022) examined doctors’ notes. Black patients were more likely than White patients to have negative descriptors in their records.
These patients were commonly labeled as “challenging,” “difficult,” or “resistant,” raising concerns about racial biases and transmission of stigma in their medical records.
Trawalter et al. (2012) studied how people judge others’ pain.
They found that people assume Black individuals feel less pain than White individuals, including nurses and nursing students. The bias traced back to perceived status, not race itself.
Hoffman et al. (2016) tested whether this kind of implicit bias reaches medicine. A substantial number of White laypeople, medical students, and residents endorsed false beliefs about biological differences between Black and White people. One example is that Black people have thicker skin.
Those who held more of these beliefs rated a Black patient’s pain as lower than a White patient’s with identical symptoms. They also made less accurate treatment recommendations for Black patients.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women.
Ana Langer, director of the Women and Health Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explained in a 2019 feature: “Basically, Black women are undervalued.
They are not monitored as carefully as White women are. When they do present with symptoms, they are often dismissed.”
Langer frames the gap as cumulative. It reflects many small differences in how closely providers follow up on a patient’s symptoms, not one single cause.
Historically, women have been more likely to have their health concerns dismissed or attributed to emotional factors.
Medical professionals often write them off as “hormonal,” “irrational,” or “emotional.” They may dismiss symptoms as anxiety-related or attention-seeking.
In one study, Maserejian et al. (2009) showed 128 physicians videos of patients with identical coronary heart disease (CHD) symptoms. Among middle-aged patients, 31.3% of women received a mental health condition as the most certain diagnosis, compared with 15.6% of men.
Chen et al. (2008) followed 981 emergency department patients with acute abdominal pain. Men and women reported similar pain. Yet women were less likely to receive any analgesic (60% vs. 67%) and waited a median of 65 minutes, compared with 49 for men.
Samulowitz et al. (2018) reviewed 77 studies and also identified gender bias in pain treatment.
These studies differ in strength. Vignette experiments and self-selected surveys show that a bias exists, but they cannot show how often it shapes real appointments.
Studies of actual records and emergency care, such as Sun et al. (2022) and Chen et al. (2008), measure real behavior. Their findings point the same way.
It is critical to be aware of the potential for these biases and disparities, advocate for your health needs, and seek out healthcare providers who take all concerns seriously.
Medical Gaslighting vs. Diagnostic Overshadowing and Epistemic Injustice
Medical gaslighting describes a pattern: a patient’s concerns are dismissed without proper evaluation, and the patient starts to doubt their own perceptions. It does not require bad intent. A provider can dismiss someone without meaning to deceive them, which is closer to unintentional gaslighting.
Two older, more precise concepts cover the same ground.
Diagnostic Overshadowing and the Yentl Syndrome
Reiss, Levitan, and Szyszko (1982) coined the term diagnostic overshadowing. It describes a bias in which an existing label hides a new problem. In their studies, psychologists were less likely to see emotional disturbance in the same behavior when the patient was described as having an intellectual disability.
The idea is narrower than medical gaslighting.
It names one mental shortcut, not a general pattern of dismissiveness. Yet the two overlap. A new physical symptom blamed on a patient’s existing anxiety or obesity fits either term.
Healy (1991) described a related pattern in cardiology, which she called the Yentl syndrome.
Women’s heart symptoms were recognized less often than men’s. Healy also criticized heart research for relying largely on male participants.
Her editorial predates the term medical gaslighting by three decades and covers one specialty. It still anticipated the same pattern: symptom interpretation shifting with the patient’s gender, independent of the symptoms themselves.
Epistemic Injustice and System-Level Causes
Epistemic injustice is a philosophical concept from Fricker (2007), meaning a wrong done to someone in their capacity as a knower. Carel and Kidd (2014) applied it to healthcare and described two forms.
- Testimonial Injustice: A patient’s account is given less credibility because of a stereotype, such as being seen as anxious, attention-seeking, or unreliable.
- Hermeneutical Injustice: A patient’s experience is hard to communicate because the shared concepts for it, such as a name or diagnosis, do not yet exist.
Long COVID shows the second form clearly. Before it had an accepted name, patients met disbelief and a genuine communication gap (Au et al., 2022).
The distinction matters because the remedies differ. Bias training targets testimonial injustice, while research and diagnostic criteria target hermeneutical injustice.
Carel and Kidd (2014) argue that healthcare systems can produce these injustices whatever any individual clinician intends. Time-limited appointments and the authority built into the clinician role are two examples.
That changes how rushed appointments look. They may reflect appointment-length policy and caseload as much as individual bad manners. Self-advocacy helps within a single appointment, but it cannot fix these system-level causes on its own.
Can you prevent medical gaslighting?
While you can’t control the actions of others, there are steps you can take to minimize the risk of experiencing medical gaslighting.
Here are some strategies to consider:
- Choose Providers Wisely: Research and select providers known for their patient-centered approach, open communication, and willingness to listen.
- Trust Your Instincts: During your first visit, pay close attention to how you feel and how you’re treated. If a provider dismisses your concerns or something doesn’t feel right, trust your gut and consider finding a different provider.
- Bring an Advocate: If you are concerned about being dismissed, bring a trusted friend or family member to your appointments. They can advocate on your behalf and serve as a witness.
- Prepare a List: Before appointments, create a detailed list of your symptoms, concerns, and questions. This ensures all issues are addressed during the limited appointment time.
- Communicate Assertively: Clearly communicate your symptoms. Be confident and assertive, and insist on thorough evaluations if necessary. Remember, the provider has the qualifications, but you are the expert on your own experiences.
- Keep Detailed Records: Maintain records of your appointments, symptoms, and all interactions with your healthcare provider. This documentation is crucial for seeking second opinions or filing complaints.
- Report Severe Harm: If you encounter severe medical gaslighting that leads to harm, consider reporting the incident to relevant medical organizations or regulatory bodies.
Key Takeaways
- Definition: Medical gaslighting is when a provider dismisses a patient’s symptoms, leaving them doubting their own perception. It does not require bad intent.
- Warning Signs: Minimizing symptoms, blaming stress or lifestyle, rushing appointments, and refusing tests are common signs. Leaving an appointment feeling unheard is another.
- Consequences: Dismissal can cause emotional distress, misdiagnosis, and delayed diagnosis. Lost trust can make people avoid care altogether.
- Higher Risk: Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and others face more dismissal. Research links this to bias in how pain and symptoms are judged.
- Taking Action: Keep records, bring a companion, ask for tests, and seek a second opinion. Self-advocacy helps, but it cannot fix system-level causes such as short appointments.
Sources
Au, L., Capotescu, C., Eyal, G. & Finestone, G. (2022). Long covid and medical gaslighting: Dismissal, delayed diagnosis, and deferred treatment. SSM – Qualitative Research in Health, 2, Article 100167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100167
Carel, H., & Kidd, I. J. (2014). Epistemic injustice in healthcare: A philosophical analysis. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 17(4), 529–540. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-014-9560-2
Chen, E.H., Shofer, F.S., Dean, A.J., Hollander, J.E., Baxt, W.G., Robey, J.L., Sease, K.L. & Mills, A.M (2008). Gender disparity in analgesic treatment of emergency department patients with acute abdominal pain. Academic Emergency Medicine, 15(5), 414–418. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1553-2712.2008.00100.x
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Lopez-Leon, S., Wegman-Ostrosky, T., Perelman, C., Sepulveda, R., Rebolledo, P.A., Cuapio, A. & Villapol, S. (2021). More than 50 long-term effects of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Scientific Reports, 11 (1).
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