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You may not have heard of gaslighting before, but you almost certainly know someone who has been a victim of it, if you haven't been yourself.

It is a form of abuse, and it is becoming more common.

The victim can rarely tell it is happening, but it does a lot of damage.

Katie Ghose, chief executive of Women's Aid, tells Sky News what gaslighting is, and why it is so damaging.

When we think about abuse, we often visualise a partner who is angry and uses physical violence to control and intimidate the victim.

But the reality is that not all abuse is physical and leaves bruises.

Gaslighting, which is a form of psychological abuse where the perpetrator manipulates their partner, can make victims doubt themselves, their memories and judgement.

Gaslighting is an insidious form of abuse and is, by its very nature, sometimes difficult for victims to recognise.

Survivors have told me that their experience of gaslighting was similar to the "frog in boiling water" experiment.

It is said that if you drop a frog into a pan of boiling water, it will jump straight out; but if you put a frog into water and slowly turn up the heat, by the time it realises what is happening, the heat will have immobilised it and rendered it unable to escape.

The term gaslighting originates from a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton, Gas Light, in which a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind, where he makes her believe that she is "imagining" the gas light dimming in the house.

It has since become a commonly used term for manipulating a person "by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity" (Oxford English Dictionary).

Gaslighting is an insidious form of abuse and is, by its very nature, sometimes difficult for victims to recognise.

Recently, gaslighting has entered mainstream conversation as we have gained more awareness about what psychological abuse is and how someone might use it.

Following the criminalisation of coercive and controlling behaviour in December 2015, there has been a real shift in our understanding about what domestic abuse is.

From our work with survivors, we know that coercive and controlling behaviour is at the heart of domestic abuse.

It is a repeated pattern of threats and behaviour that abusers use to instil fear in the victim without any physical violence needed, and it causes long-term trauma for the survivor.

Since coercive control was criminalised, we've now acquired the language to recognise the reality of women's experience of domestic abuse, and identify gaslighting, and other forms of coercive controlling behaviour, emotional and psychological abuse, in intimate partner relationships.

Gaslighting is all about the abuser exerting control and power over the victim and it happens very subtly and slowly over time.

Some of the gaslighting techniques that abusers use include calling into question the victim's memory of an incident, trivialising a victim's thoughts or feelings, accusing the victim of lying or making things up, denying things like promises that have been made, and mocking the victim for their "misconceptions".

This can make it difficult for the victim to recognise this form of abuse and build up the confidence to escape it.

From our work with survivors, we know that abusers have even forced women to visit a therapist or GP to supposedly "address emotional or mental health issues" when in fact it reasserted the abuse and further undermined their psychological wellbeing.

This form of abuse is insidious and subtle but some of the signs of gaslighting to watch out for include: if you are second-guessing yourself all the time, feel confused, find yourself always apologising to your partner, you are having trouble making simple decisions and find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses for your partner.

If you are worried that you may be experiencing gaslighting or that your relationship, or that of a friend or family member, is controlling or unsafe, you can call the Freephone 24/7 National Domestic Violence Helpline, run by Women's Aid in partnership with Refuge, on 0808 2000 247 to get advice and support from one of our expert staff members, or you access information in The Survivors' Handbook on our website.

Every survivor must be listened to, believed and supported.