As we enter the AI era, light is beginning to shine on psychological structures that have long been difficult to see, such as gaslighting, DARVO, impression management, and the demonization of NPD. I want to think about an age in which we look at the essence through correct knowledge and reason, rather than through emotional labeling or rule by atmosphere.
Entering the AI Era, Human Understanding Is Accelerating
Since entering the AI era, I feel that humanity’s overall understanding has been accelerating all at once.
Problems that could not be seen before.
Problems that could not be put into words easily.
Problems that even the victims themselves could not explain, not knowing what was happening to them.
Light is beginning to shine little by little on such things.
This is not just my own impression.
In fact, psychological issues that used to be dismissed as “paranoia,” “overthinking,” or “being too sensitive” are now being treated as research subjects, conceptualized, and shared with society.
Take gaslighting, for example.
Gaslighting Is Not “Paranoia” but Is Being Studied as Psychological Abuse
Not long ago, people who complained about gaslighting may have been misunderstood by the general public as being “highly paranoid.”
But now, gaslighting is being studied as a form of psychologically manipulative abuse.
Associate ProfessorPaige L. Sweetof the Department of Sociology at the University of Michiganpublished a paper in 2019 in the journal American Sociological Review titled “The Sociology of Gaslighting”
, where she discusses gaslighting as psychological abuse that makes victims feel that “there is something wrong with me,” shaking their sense of reality. Sweet studies gender, knowledge, violence, health, and medicalized categories, and the University of Michigan profile page also explains that she researches gender-based violence and how victims are treated within support systems.
In other words, what used to be dismissed as “just your imagination” is now being structured and explained by researchers.
That is a very major change.
DARVO Is Also Being Studied | A Structure That Reverses the Roles of Victim and OffenderLikewise,DARVO
is important too.
DARVO stands for
Deny
Attack
Reverse Victim and Offender
That is the structure.This concept comes from the research of psychologistJennifer J. Freydand has since been examined experimentally bySarah J. Harsey
and Freyd.In Harsey and Freyd’s 2020 paper “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO): What Is the Influence on Perceived Perpetrator and Victim Credibility?”
the impact of DARVO on people’s perceptions was examined. The study showed that participants exposed to DARVO tended to see the victim as more responsible and more abusive, and the perpetrator as less responsible and less abusive.
This is very close to what I have been saying.
In other words, it is a structure where someone corners the other person, provokes a reaction, and then cuts out only that reaction to say, “See? The offender was the one at fault after all.”
This is not just a subjective impression; it is a psychological and social issue that is being studied.
International Attention Is Also Beginning to Focus on the Demonization of NPDAnd the same is true of NPD, that is,Narcissistic Personality Disorder
.
NPD has long been spoken of too often as if it were simply “the villain,” “the offender,” “a dangerous person,” or “someone who manipulates others.”
Of course, people with traits of NPD can hurt others in interpersonal relationships.
I am not denying that.
If there is actual harmful behavior, then that behavior should be addressed based on concrete facts.
But that does not mean we can casually conclude that,
“NPD means bad”
“Someone with narcissism is an offender”
“A narcissist has something wrong with their humanity”
.In 2025, a paper byEllen F. FinchandEmily J. Mellentitled “Labeled, Criticized, Looked Down On”: Characterizing the Stigma of Narcissistic Personality Disorder” was published in the journal Personality and Mental Health
. The paper argues that NPD is strongly stigmatized and that this stigma needs to be understood at the individual, interpersonal, and structural levels.In addition, a review article published on January 31, 2026 in the Pakistani medical journal Pakistan BioMedical Journal titled “Insights into Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A Narrative Review with Cultural and Biological Insights from Pakistan” also addresses NPD from cultural, diagnostic, biological, and stigma-related perspectives. The authors areMisbah Syed, Zainab Shahzad, Cheryl Rajis, Umaima Fazal Lodhi, and Shumaila Zulqar. The corresponding author,Shumaila Zulqar, is affiliated with the Kinnaird College for Women University, Department of Biotechnology
in Lahore, Pakistan.
This review discusses NPD in terms of culture, diagnosis, biological background, and stigma, and argues that cultural norms and prejudice against mental illness can obstruct diagnosis and access to treatment.
In other words, the tendency to demonize NPD unilaterally is also beginning to be reconsidered internationally.
AI Is Beginning to Give Humans the Ability to See the Essence
Since entering the AI era, I feel that this trend has accelerated all at once.
That is because AI has the power to calmly organize structures that humans have overlooked through emotion, atmosphere, and assumptions, bringing us closer to the essence.
Of course, AI is not always correct.
In fact, AI makes mistakes too.
In a 2025 campaign, UNESCO warned that AI can generate misinformation that sounds convincing, and that in the AI era, the ability to think critically about information—media and information literacy—is more important than ever. UNESCO pointed out that AI-generated disinformation can affect public opinion, political judgment, and trust in journalism.
So we must not blindly trust AI.
But if used properly, AI can compensate for distortions in human perception, organize complex problems, and make invisible structures visible.
AI is not something that thinks in place of humans.
It is a guideline that helps humans think more deeply.
AI and Digital Literacy Are Beginning to Change an Age in Which People Are Swayed by Information
What matters in the AI era is not just AI itself.
The literacy of the people using AI is also important.A 2025 study published in Frontiers in Education titled “Impact of digital media literacy on attitude toward generative AI acceptance in higher education”
examined the relationship between digital media literacy and acceptance of generative AI among 451 undergraduate students at Kazan Federal University in Russia. The study showed that digital media literacy—such as access to information, technological understanding, critical understanding, and content creation—is related to how generative AI is perceived.
This is important.
In the AI era, we need not only to receive information, but also to compare it, verify it, structure it, and detect lies and impression management.
And AI can become a tool that supports that work.
In the past, people with loud voices, people who created the atmosphere, people skilled at impression management, and people who gathered allies to simulate a majority could more easily dominate a situation.
But now it is different.
Many people, with the help of AI, are able to ask:
“Is this really true?”
“Is there evidence for this claim?”
“What is this person substituting for what?”
“Is this structure DARVO?”
“Is this gaslighting?”
“Are they trying to lower someone’s value by labeling them?”
This is a very interesting change in the times.
An Age in Which Labeling, Impression Management, and Defamation Become Harder to Get Away With
I myself have also experienced impression management and defamation in the past and filed a lawsuit.
In short, there were people who tried to unfairly lower my value.
Why try to lower someone’s value?
Because the person has value.
If there were no value, there would be no need to lower it.
They do not want the other person’s words to be believed.
They want to weaken the other person’s ability to speak.
They want to make the other person look bad.
For those purposes, rumors, impersonation, and impression manipulation are sometimes carried out.
In my case as well, through disclosure requests and the litigation process, something like organized manipulation came to light.
On message boards, people would post as if we had written it, making comments designed to create a bad impression.
They would impersonate others.
They would spread rumors.
And through that, they would try to make people around them think, “This person can’t be trusted.”
I think these methods used to work more easily a while ago.
That is because many people are swayed by the atmosphere.
If everyone around them says it, it starts to feel true.
When a bad rumor spreads, people think, “Maybe there’s something to it.”
Before checking the facts, they judge by impression.
I was hurt by that at the time too.
Among the people around me, there were also some who were swept up in that false atmosphere and changed how they treated me.
I even became distrustful of people because of it.
But now, I have already moved past that.
And I feel that the times are beginning to change now.
Because in the AI era, impression management and labeling are becoming harder to get away with than before.
“Controlling through atmosphere” Becomes an Outdated Method in the AI Era
In Japan especially, there is a culture of reading the air.
Look right, look left, and go along with those around you.
Even if the long thing is wrong, people get swept along with it.
Even if the atmosphere is stagnant, people still read that atmosphere.
But in the AI era, I think these methods will gradually become harder to get away with.
Because more and more people will begin to look at structure instead of atmosphere.
Instead of “everyone says so,” they will ask,
“What is the evidence?”
“Who said what?”
“Does that claim make logical sense?”
“Is there projection here?”
“Is there a reversal of positions?”
“Who is the real victim?”
“Who is trying to lower whose value?”
More people will start thinking this way.
To create the atmosphere, manipulate impressions, and lead people around.
Those immature methods will become more and more outdated from here on out.
The AI Era Is an Era in Which the Essence of Psychological Manipulation Is Exposed
Until now, many psychological problems were hidden beneath the surface.
Gaslighting.
DARVO.
Projection.
Structures that make someone seem like the offender by pretending to be the victim.
Structures that provoke a reaction and then make only that reaction the problem.
Labeling.
Impression management.
Defamation.
Rumors.
Impersonation.
Demonization of NPD.
These are hard for people who only look at the surface to understand.
That is why they have worked for so long.
But in the AI era, the ability to organize information, compare structures, and verbalize psychological patterns is placed in many people’s hands.
Problems that used to require an expert to sort through can now be thought about by ordinary people together with AI.
That is revolutionary.
Of course, using AI does not make everyone correct.
There will still be people who use AI to strengthen lies.
There will also be people who use AI for their own convenience.
Even so, overall, I think the ability to see the essence will spread.
Because humans will no longer simply be swept away by the atmosphere.
Research on the Demonization of NPD Will Continue to Advance
I think research on the demonization of NPD will also continue to advance.
Rather than viewing people labeled with NPD one-sidedly as “offenders,” we need to look at
how they were hurt.
how they were psychologically cornered.
what relationships provoked their reactions.
how their positions were reversed.
how they were framed as “the offender after all.”
Researchers will continue to take a scalpel to these issues as well.
In fact, studies on the relationship between AI and personality disorder diagnosis are already emerging. In a 2025 arXiv paper titled “Patterns vs. Patients: Evaluating LLMs against Mental Health Professionals on Personality Disorder Diagnosis through First-Person Narratives” byKarolina Drożdż, Kacper Dudzic, Anna Sterna, and Marcin Moskalewicz, LLMs and mental health professionals were compared using first-person autobiographical descriptions of BPD and NPD. The study showed that while LLMs can interpret complex first-person clinical data, they also tend to underdiagnose NPD and raise concerns about reliability and bias.
This is not a story about AI being omnipotent.
Rather, AI too has bias.
But at the same time, AI can also become a tool that makes human oversights visible.
We have to see both sides.
That is why NPD research in the AI era is important.
Rather than simply demonizing NPD, we need to examine the unspoken harm, hurt, shame, trauma, misrecognition, and structure of reaction provocation experienced by people labeled with NPD.
What Is Truly Needed Is Not Emotional Condemnation, but the Ability to See Structure
What is needed in the years ahead is not emotional condemnation.
What is needed is the ability to see structure.
Before quickly deciding who is at fault,
look at what actually happened.
look at what information manipulation was involved.
look at who was trying to damage whose credibility.
look at who used the victim role to frame the other person as the offender.
Do not confuse the voice of a person who truly suffered harm with the voice of someone who pretends to be a victim in order to attack others.
That is important.
The suffering of those who were truly harmed must not be denied.
The responsibility of those who actually committed harmful acts must not be minimized either.
But at the same time, we must not overlook the people who frame others as offenders through lies and distortion.
There can be deep lies intertwined with this issue.
And the troublesome thing is that the side telling the lies calls the other side a liar.
Without seeing through this structure, taking the false victim’s claims at face value and siding with them can become a form of secondary harm that further corners the real victim.
The AI Era Is Moving Toward an Age of Judgment Based on Reason, Not Labeling
I do not think the AI era is simply an era of technological innovation.
It is an era in which humans understand more deeply the psychological and social structures they have not been able to see through until now.
An era in which what was hidden comes into the light.
An era in which we look at structure and essence rather than atmosphere and majority opinion.
An era in which we judge with correct knowledge and reason, not with emotional labeling.
Of course, everyone will not suddenly become wise.
Even in the AI era, there is still misinformation.
There is still impression management.
There will also be lies that use AI.
That is why critical thinking is necessary.
The ability to examine evidence is necessary.
The ability to compare information is necessary.
And the ability to step back from one’s own emotions and assumptions to calmly observe structure is necessary.
Even so, I feel hope in this era.
The immature methods that used to work are gradually becoming harder to get away with.
Labeling, impression management, control through atmosphere, false-victim framing, DARVO, gaslighting.
These things are gradually being exposed.
This is a very interesting era.
Summary | The AI Era Is an Era in Which the Essence Comes Into the Light
With the arrival of the AI era, light is beginning to shine on problems that were previously hard to see.
Gaslighting is being studied as psychologically manipulative abuse.
DARVO is being studied as a structure that reverses the roles of victim and offender.
The demonization of NPD is beginning to be reconsidered internationally as a stigma problem that interferes with diagnosis and treatment.
The relationship between AI and personality disorder diagnosis has also already become a research subject.
This is a change of era.
The essence that could not be seen before is gradually becoming visible.
The suffering that could not be put into words before is gradually becoming verbalized.
The voices of people who were crushed by atmosphere and impressions are beginning to have a chance to be understood structurally.
AI is not omnipotent.
AI makes mistakes too.
But if used properly, AI becomes a powerful guideline that helps humans see the essence.
From here on, this will be an age not of labeling and impression management, but of judgment based on evidence and reason.
An age that looks at structure, not atmosphere.
An age that looks at essence, not majority opinion.
And in that flow, I think long-misunderstood themes such as the demonization of NPD will continue to come into the light.
References / Related Links
1. Gaslighting Research
English title: The Sociology of Gaslighting
Japanese title: Sociology of Gaslighting
Author: Paige L. Sweet
Title: Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan
Journal: American Sociological Review, 2019
URL：https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122419874843
2. Paige L. Sweet Researcher Profile
Japanese title: Paige L. Sweet Profile
Affiliation: University of Michigan, Department of Sociology
Title: Associate Professor
URL：https://lsa.umich.edu/soc/people/faculty/psweet.html
3. DARVO Research
English title: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO): What Is the Influence on Perceived Perpetrator and Victim Credibility?
Japanese title: How Does Denial, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO) Affect Perceptions of Perpetrator and Victim Credibility?
Authors: Sarah J. Harsey, Jennifer J. Freyd
Journal: Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 2020
URL：https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10926771.2020.1774695
PDF：https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/articles/hf2020.pdf
4. NPD Stigma Research
English title: “Labeled, Criticized, Looked Down On”: Characterizing the Stigma of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Japanese title: “Labeled, Criticized, Looked Down On”: Characterizing the Stigma of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Authors: Ellen F. Finch, Emily J. Mellen
Journal: Personality and Mental Health, 2025
URL：https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pmh.70015
PubMed：https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40107324/
5. Pakistani Review Article on NPD
English title: Insights into Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A Narrative Review with Cultural and Biological Insights from Pakistan
Japanese title: Insights into Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A Narrative Review with Cultural and Biological Insights from Pakistan
Authors: Misbah Syed, Zainab Shahzad, Cheryl Rajis, Umaima Fazal Lodhi, Shumaila Zulqar
Corresponding author: Shumaila Zulqar
Affiliation: Kinnaird College for Women University, Department of Biotechnology, Lahore, Pakistan
Journal: Pakistan BioMedical Journal, 2026
URL：https://www.pakistanbmj.com/journal/index.php/pbmj/article/download/1321/967/6348
6. AI and Media / Information Literacy
English title: AI can make mistakes: Why media literacy matters more than ever
Japanese title: AI can make mistakes: Why media literacy matters more than ever
Publisher: UNESCO
URL：https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/ai-can-make-mistakes-why-media-literacy-matters-more-ever
7. Digital Media Literacy and Generative AI Acceptance
English title: Impact of digital media literacy on attitude toward generative AI acceptance in higher education
Japanese title: Impact of digital media literacy on attitude toward generative AI acceptance in higher education
Journal: Frontiers in Education, 2025
URL：https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1563148/full
8. Research on AI and Personality Disorder Diagnosis
English title: Patterns vs. Patients: Evaluating LLMs against Mental Health Professionals on Personality Disorder Diagnosis through First-Person Narratives
Japanese title: Patterns vs. Patients: Evaluating LLMs against Mental Health Professionals on Personality Disorder Diagnosis through First-Person Narratives
Authors: Karolina Drożdż, Kacper Dudzic, Anna Sterna, Marcin Moskalewicz
Published on: arXiv, 2025
URL：https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20298
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