Book Reviews
A collection of reviews and testimonials of The Gaslit Brain from thought leaders across industries.
“This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the profound human suffering caused by gaslighting in organizational life – suffering that is often hidden and overlooked. It powerfully illuminates these toxic dynamics and offers a thoughtful guide to restoring dignity and respect in the workplace.”
Guido Palazzo
Co-author of The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals (2025)
Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Lausanne
The Gaslit Brain is a comprehensive and deeply necessary text that weaves real-life case studies with neuroscience to reveal how gaslighting damages not just individuals, but entire institutions.
Dr. Fraser shows how the brain’s adaptability can both betray and protect us, offering actionable insights for reclaiming clarity and trust.
With the powerful reminder that “abuse often hides in plain sight because we stop noticing it,” the book invites us to reflect critically on our roles whether as bystanders, leaders, or survivors. Gaslighting, as this book makes clear, is not just a personal issue but a systemic, cultural one.
Makiko Kuramoto PhD
Founder of FUMI Consulting
Expert in organizational psychology, developmental psychology, and intercultural communication
Dr. Jennifer Fraser further develops the thesis from her book, The Bullied Brain to include the mentally destructive technique of gaslighting. This has been a poorly recognized form of brainwashing, often used by cults, but now found to be common in the workplace. Gaslighting destabilizes the person by re-wiring the brain and causing dysregulation. The victim becomes disorientated, develops foggy thinking (clouded by white noise), anxiety, depression, deteriorating performance, and even suicide.
Dr. Fraser describes its scientific basis through synaptic plasticity, but optimistically describes the potential for synaptic plasticity to restore health when gaslighting is recognized and defined by the victim, and a series of brain exercises is performed. Her book is an engaging read, intersecting neuroscience, personal narratives and case histories, as well as forensic and organizational psychology. The role of psychological abuse by specific dark personalities is increasingly recognized in the workplace, including healthcare organizations. I have witnessed this personally and observed the resulting mental and physical damage in healthcare professionals, as well as a deterioration in the quality of healthcare management through becoming complicit in its toxic propagation.
Since burnout and complex post-traumatic stress syndromes are now major reasons for the loss of healthcare personnel, it is even more important that the phenomenon of gaslighting is recognized and interventions are initiated. I highly recommend this unique book, which will become the current authority on gaslighting, and predict its important place in organizational psychology.
Stephen Mark Sagar BSc (Hons) MB BS MRCP FRCR FRCPC DABR
Professor, Department of Oncology
Associate in the Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Canada
Jennifer Fraser’s The Gaslit Brain is a commanding and compassionate wake-up call for anyone navigating the invisible but deeply damaging terrain of workplace bullying, gaslighting, and institutional betrayal. With equal parts rigorous neuroscience, lived experience, and heart-centered analysis, Fraser illuminates how these manipulations not only wound the spirit but can actually rewire the brain, undermining trust, distorting perception, and destabilizing entire organizations.
From the very first page, Fraser takes readers on a journey that is both intellectually grounded and profoundly human. The book opens with a raw truth: “It’s shocking to discover that your workplace which you believed was constructed on the bedrock of truth telling, is, in fact, more like a flimsy web of lies.” What follows is a nuanced exploration of how self-serving deception is not just morally corrosive, but biologically destructive.
Fraser weaves together personal narrative, historical context, and case studies with clarity and care. She doesn’t ask readers to take her word for it, she brings the neuroscience. From how the amygdala dulls with repeated dishonesty to the ways that gaslighting hijacks cognitive function, Fraser shows how the brain becomes a battleground when truth is under attack. “The more an individual tells self-serving lies,” she writes, “the less the brain’s amygdala sounds the alarm.” This is not metaphorical damage. It’s structural.
What sets this work apart is Fraser’s integration of science with story. Her accounts of real-world leaders, whistleblowers, and everyday professionals who were vilified by speaking up reveal not only how gaslighting unfolds, but how it endures, unless it is named and dismantled. Particularly powerful is her framing of gaslighting as “a series of elaborate falsehoods…designed to divide its victims externally and internally,” leaving them isolated and uncertain of their own truth.
Importantly, The Gaslit Brain doesn’t simply diagnose the problem. It offers a path forward. The third section of the book outlines six neuroscience-informed strategies: strengthening exteroception, interoception, neuroception, proprioception, perception, and hemispheric balance, each a tool for restoring clarity, agency, and mental health. These aren’t quick fixes. They are practices that invite readers to become what Fraser calls “dishabituation entrepreneurs,” capable of resisting normalization and recognizing subtle harm before it calcifies into crisis.
In a time when ethical erosion in institutions is becoming too common, Fraser’s work feels less like a manual and more like a moral imperative. “Knowledge is power,” she writes, “The more aware we are of how abusive brains operate and how our brains are completely thrown off our game by them, the better able we are to prevent workplace bullying and gaslighting.” This book is especially valuable for healthcare leaders, educators, human resource professionals, and anyone tasked with creating safe spaces for others. But more broadly, it speaks about our shared need for integrity, empathy, and courage, values that are quietly erased when gaslighting becomes the norm.
Read The Gaslit Brain not just to understand how gaslighting works, but to rediscover the power of truth, compassion, and conscious leadership. It’s a book that could change lives and help reclaim the health of entire institutions.
Darlene Cunha, MMHC, BSN, CSSBB, WCS Caritas Coach
Jen Fraser’s book The Gaslit Brain is a transformative offering for targets of gaslighting, researchers, human resource professionals, leaders, and those who aspire to be change agents in their lives and world. Through diverse and definitive case studies, Dr. Fraser utilizes the power of storytelling to exemplify the devastating impact of gaslighting on the body and soul, which can inflict life-threatening, invisible wounds and derail the careers of exemplary employees called to serve their professional and broader communities.
Using the framework of cognitive science, Dr. Fraser illustrates, with accessibility and clarity, the cutting-edge research documenting how gaslighting impacts the brain’s functioning. Equally important, she flips the script on the bullies’ narratives, pushing back on their characterization as prominent and powerful, offering this reality check: bullies are weak and suffering; thus, they need to be treated, not feared.
Zooming out, she paints a vivid picture of organizations that allow, by commission or omission, bullies to thrive, and the menace of institutional complicity when called out. In addition to sharing the perils of gaslighting on our personal and professional lives, she offers readers six research-backed strategies to heal the gaslit brain, empowering survivors to reclaim their story and get back to the work they are called to do.
Dorothy Courtney Suskind, Ph.D.
Author of Workplace Bullying: Finding Your Way to Big Tent Belonging
Associate Professor at Longwood University
Dr. Jennifer Fraser PhD’s The Gaslit Brain is a groundbreaking exploration into the hidden neuropsychological toll of workplace bullying and gaslighting, revealing how these insidious abuses fracture not only individual minds but entire institutions. With profound clarity and compassion, Dr. Fraser interweaves compelling personal narratives and cutting-edge neuroscience, illuminating the mechanisms by which manipulation distorts reality and erodes identity. This work transcends mere diagnosis of a pervasive problem; it is a call to action grounded in rigorous science and real-world experience. Dr. Fraser’s integration of brain plasticity research offers hope and practical pathways toward healing, resilience, and systemic change—empowering readers to reclaim clarity and truth in environments often clouded by deception.
In her meticulous and empathetic storytelling, Dr. Fraser gives voice to the silenced and exposes the complicity of institutions that enable abuse, challenging us to rethink leadership, accountability, and community. The Gaslit Brain is essential reading for anyone committed to fostering workplaces where integrity, psychological safety, and human dignity are paramount. It is a luminous beacon guiding us toward a future where truth prevails and brains, hearts, and institutions alike can thrive.
Anna Yusim, MD
Author of Fulfilled: How the Science of Spirituality Can Help You Live a Happier, More Meaningful Life, Clinical Assistant Professor, Yale Department of Psychiatry
Co-Founder, Yale Mental Health & Spirituality Center
Chief Medical Officer, Conscious Health
As an Executive Leadership consultant and host of Remarkable Leadership Lessons, I’ve seen how leaders underestimate the silent cost of disengagement. The Gaslit Brain cuts to the heart of the issue—building real psychological safety, not just checking a box. Every HR professional should read it.
As a certified neuroplastician, business coach, and HR strategist, I’ve spent decades working with leaders who struggle to retain top talent and build cultures of trust. Too often, organizations focus on metrics like turnover and engagement surveys, missing the deeper issue: psychological safety. The Gaslit Brain offers a powerful framework for understanding and addressing these blind spots. It is a must-read for HR professionals and belongs at the center of leadership training programs.”
Denise Cooper, MBA, Executive Leadership and HR Consultant
Host of the podcast Remarkable Leadership Lessons
“The Gaslit Brain reminds us that the first step in solving our endemic weaknesses is to understand them, in social and neurological terms. Dr. Fraser exposes your gaslighting-filled world. She explains how and why it is endemic in modern societies and outlines ways to prevent its harm. Consider The Gaslit Brain to be a ‘call to action’.”
The Gaslit Brain…. where do I start. I am writing with fresh emotions. Finished it this morning and had to do some processing. I read in two parts, not intentionally: the issue of gaslighting, then the second reading was the solution.
After the first reading, it brought up anger reading your story, your son’s and the case studies, if not, spilling into rage at times – Johnathon Wilson, and my story are identical. I think it was unreleased emotions; I thought I had shifted, and I’ve done a lot of work, and trauma work, but clearly more was to come out. Realising how painful the experience was. I loved the bit on the courage to feel sadness in the conclusion, that made me cry.
A huge sense of being seen – validated and brain science explaining what was going on for me during that time. It gave me answers I wish I had in 2019. During that time, my friend a military trauma expert, was handholding me through and explained about the brain, but not in the detail The Gaslit Brain shares, which would have given me more answers and how to move forward with more information about the brain science.
Having a teenager’s story woven through and the mic drop of when the author shares that he is her son is powerful – and both their stories kept my heartstrings engaged and helped me to make sense of things, and that is where I felt sadness – how much harm is being caused – in plain sight – it is normalised – it is hideous what we are doing to each other as humans.
The ending paragraph – hits the heart powerfully.
I also recognised where my brain isn’t quite where it needs to be. I felt it overheating yesterday and was exhausted and went to bed early to process, same today. I love the expansion of language, but I know I need to work on that, but blimey! This is huge what The Gaslit Brain is about to unleash on the world stage. I have two friends who suffered domestic abuse and gaslighting within their marriages and know I’ll be recommending they read this – this is so much bigger than the working world – it is huge.
The Gaslit Brain feels like THE definitive book on bullying (in schools, work and relationships) and the harm that is caused to humans, backed up by hardcore science – and once seen, it can’t be unseen. I’ve read lots of bullying books and this feels like the one that we will all keep coming back to, especially as gaslighting is such a huge part of bullying – if not goes hand in hand with it – I didn’t realise quite how much my experience was gaslighting until I read this – and that is really what hurt along with the institutional betrayal – everything the book said was so spot on for me. I think The Gaslit Brain has released some stored emotions that will take a bit more time to process, but also given me answers and new skills to reflect on, so I will be gentle with myself over the next few weeks.
It’s been a life’s work channelled into the pages of The Gaslit Brain and balanced with science and personal insight. I can see now as well that my approach to training and supporting emerging leaders and leaders of the future comes very much from that right brain, hand-holding, nurturing and oxytocin release side of me. I intuitively knew that, but now I have language to describe it.
Liza K. Collins, MA, FRSA
International Healthcare Culture Strategist
NHS Leadership Academy Executive Leadership Coach & Mentor
Leadership Coach and OD Consultant Associate for Platfform Wellbeing
Faculty Advisor for the Australian Institute of Health Executives (AIHE)
Co-Founder of Maria’s Movement
After reading The Gaslit Brain, I realized my old way of thinking about manipulation,…about what happens to your mind when you’re under fire, whether that’s in a war zone or a corporate boardroom….was missing something essential. It wasn’t just about psychology. It was about the brain itself. The battlefield was inside my skull.
I’ve patched up bodies and brains in chaos, watched men and women break and rebuild under the weight of trauma. But I never understood that gaslighting is a kind of neurological warfare. It’s not just someone messing with your head…it’s someone trying to rewrite the circuitry that tells you what’s real and what’s not.
When I was gaslit….by officers, by bosses, by so-called leaders….my amygdala, that primal threat detector, was firing on all cylinders. My training told me to trust the chain of command, but my gut screamed that something was wrong. The research you lay out is clear to me…..the more someone lies, the less their brain reacts. But for the target, the alarms never stop. You feel crazy because your brain is being pulled in two directions….trust and survival.
Combat training, it turns out, was my accidental preparation for this. Reading the environment, trusting my gut, staying alert even when exhausted….those are the same tools you call exteroception, interoception, and neuroception. But in civilian life, I had to fight the urge to adapt to toxic conditions. In war, adaptation is survival. At home, it can be surrender.
The most powerful thing I took from your work is the idea of neuroplasticity…..the brain’s ability to change, to heal, to rewire itself for clarity after trauma. Santiago Ramón y Cajal said we can be sculptors of our own brains. I see now that every time I chose to trust my senses, to question the story being forced on me, I was fighting back. Every time I refused to accept “this is just how it is,” | was rewiring myself for resistance, not compliance.
For veterans, this is survival knowledge. We’re wired to follow orders, but also to sense danger. When authority becomes the threat, our brains can short-circuit. Your six ways… strengthen your senses, trust your gut, tune your threat radar, resist normalization, seek balance, use both logic and intuition…….are the new field manual. They’re how you keep your mind your own. Incredibly grateful for your research and support.
Robert Amsler
Multi-war combat medic veteran
OpEx EHSS Strategist
The themes of The Bullied Brain are brought into even sharper focus by this new work, The Gaslit Brain.
Reading the description of a workplace built on a “web of lies” reminded me of my years in the Italian Navy. On the bridge, when the radar picture doesn’t match the view through the binoculars, protocol is to slow down and confirm the plot. This book serves as that same kind of essential correction for today’s organizations, warning leaders not to rely on one set of data when the reality feels wrong.
I was also moved by how effectively Dr. Fraser connects the neural injuries in The Bullied Brain to the moral injuries that flourish in gaslit cultures. By showing that manipulation can dull the amygdala just as chronic bullying can scar white matter, the books give leaders a clear, continuous principle: Protect the brain first, and performance will follow.
I was particularly struck by the chapter on whistleblowers. During the podcast I did on The Bullied Brain, Dr. Fraser and I spoke of courage as “holding course in following seas.” This new research clearly illustrates the physiological cost of that courage, such as ulcers, insomnia, and other health issues. It makes a strong case for why institutions must shoulder that burden instead of the truth-teller.
Part Three is the section I will be using with my clients. Your six “proven ways” align closely with the situational-awareness ladder we use for bridge teams, and that I have “imported” into coaching: external scan, internal scan, threat sense, a deliberate pause, balance, and maintaining a wider view. I recognized the challenges faced by many officers I have mentored in your case studies, and I suspect they will see themselves as well once they read the book.
Most of all, I appreciate the resolve in Dr. Fraser’s scholarship. She refuses to pathologize victims or obscure the issue. Instead, she offers leaders a clear choice: either cultivate a brain-safe climate or accept that gaslighting will erode talent. Coming from Dr. Fraser, someone who has mapped the neurological damage, that conclusion is particularly resonant.
I am proud to have had Dr. Fraser on When Leaders Talk and even prouder to see how this book will push the conversation forward. I will be sure to steer people toward it, quoting it in my upcoming leadership workshops just as I have with The Bullied Brain.
Fair winds on publication day, and know that you have an ally in DC ready to hoist the signal flags.
Stefano Calvetti
Certified Leadership Coach – Master Your Sea
Podcast host – When Leaders Talk
A 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲!
I just finished reading an advance copy of Dr. Jen Fraser, PhD‘s “𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙖𝙨𝙡𝙞𝙩 𝘽𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣” and I’m still processing how deeply it resonated.
I found comfort and scientific truth in her previous book, “𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘉𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯”. Jen and I connected through LinkedIn through my workplace advocacy work.
Jen reached out and kindly offered to share her book, “I’d be thrilled to have someone as informed and as committed to advocating for change (plus with lived experience) of workplace abuse.” I felt both honored and anxious, as I wasn’t sure I was ready to dive into the neurological damage that reflects my own corporate experiences.
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴.
I wish I’d had it during my darkest workplace moments.
Jen’s research validates what so many of us have experienced. How “telling the truth becomes the one forbidden act” in toxic organizations, why high performers become primary targets, and how institutions systematically protect perpetrators while scapegoating truth-tellers.
The neuroscience behind why we doubt our own perceptions when gaslit?
𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱-𝗯𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Her six proven protection strategies aren’t just theory. They’re tools I’m already implementing in my ongoing advocacy work.
This isn’t just another workplace book. It’s a survival guide.
For everyone who’s ever been told they’re “too sensitive” for reporting abuse or “difficult” for maintaining ethical standards. Dr. Jen Fraser provides the scientific backing to trust your instincts.
Read my full review on my Substack https://lnkd.in/ggev_ZQv
𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗼𝗿𝘀: You aren’t or weren’t crazy. Your experiences matter. And healing is possible.
Janice Mah
Strategic Advisor | Board Director | DEIJ Advocate | INTJ
In a world where lies are pedalled as reality, deception is a route to power and success is control at any cost, we need to hear and heed the words of The Gaslit Brain.
Understanding is hard but, as we are shown, taking the easy, shortcut to a simple solution can be fatal: socially, psychologically and economically.
A deep-dive into how understanding our brain, its powers and limitations, provides a map to reversing the misplaced and entrenched misnomer that power, control, position and possessions are our route to happiness and success. They are not. They are a route to misery, paranoia and destruction for the target and the perpetrator.
A ‘must read,’ not only for those interested in the subject but also for those who are in positions of power and influence within business, government and community. I would recommend some basic scientific understanding before reading as, without it, the enormity of the problem and power of the solutions presented, may be missed.
Overall review: Excellent.
Stuart Wood PhD
Neuroscientist
Author of Escaping The Void: How to Support Victims Out of Emotionally Abusive Relationships
“Gaslighting feels like walking barefoot on a dark, icy road, especially when it’s inflicted by those meant to care for us: managers, coworkers, and family. The betrayal cuts deep and can leave lasting trauma. As someone who endured two decades of gaslighting in an abusive marriage, Jennifer Fraser’s The Gaslit Brain brings painful confusion into sharp focus. She explains the neurological impact of gaslighting with clarity and compassion, helping readers make sense of behaviors that once seemed inexplicable.
This book is essential reading for anyone affected by workplace bullying. In my work with Executive Assistants around the world, Fraser’s insights validate the all-too-common experience of dealing with workplace sociopaths and sexual harassers—people who make others doubt themselves instead of the abuser. The Gaslit Brain is a powerful tool for understanding, reclaiming sanity, and beginning to heal.”
Bonnie Low-Kramen
Author of Staff Matters: People-Focused Solutions for the Ultimate New Workplace (2023)
“The Gaslit Brain reminds us that the first step in solving our endemic weaknesses is to understand them, in social and neurological terms. Dr. Fraser exposes your gaslighting-filled world. She explains how and why it is endemic in modern societies and outlines ways to prevent its harm. Consider The Gaslit Brain to be a ‘call to action’.”
Dr. Michael Merzenich, PhD
Professor Emeritus at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF)
Chief Scientific Officer at Posit Science
Founder & President of the Brain Plasticity Institute