A Brief Overview of Controlling Behaviors in Coercive Control Relationships
Jason Brewer
Introduction
The topic of coercive control can be quite personal for some but appears to be ignored quiet often in society and personal worldviews, explained away as a part of culture or discounted as less important than physical injury (Fontes, 2015; Stark, 2007). It is both invisible and in plain sight. Generally, when speaking of coercive control, it is mentioned in the context of interpersonal relationships, intimate partner violence, and crimes against women. While coercive control exists in different relationships and contexts, including intimate partner, workplace, and child relationships, it is often spoken of in terms of men dominating, entrapping, and controlling women in abusive relationships.
This author has compiled a brief overview of information regarding certain controlling behaviors observed in coercive control relationships. This overview is not exhaustive, and it cannot be stressed enough that more research and greater understanding is necessary regarding this topic as it relates to individual and family wellness, mental health, and social and cultural wellness of communities. This author also submits that his perspective is limited to experience and cultural norms associated with being a middle aged, White, cisgender, heterosexual, male having been raised in the southeastern United States. Regardless or exposure to different cultures and attained knowledge, the manifestations of coercive control domestically and internationally are wide and varied. The issue of coercive control is viewed differently in broader American and international cultures, as well as, in microcultures of communities, families, and interpersonal, social groups (Fontes, 2015). For this reason, it is useful to consider and challenge personal culture, experience, and broader social constructs and values regarding gender, sexual identity, roles, and social rules.
Two Influential Texts and Materials
In his work Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Everyday Life (Stark, 2007), Dr. Evan Stark approaches and provides perspective on coercive control from an academic perspective. The injustice and torture that is coercive control is grounded in long standing and evolving social beliefs and practices that subjugate women and down play the psychological abuse that is a part of domestic violence relationships. When describing the theory of coercive control, Stark referred to research, works, and analogies that compare the practice and act of coercive control to imprisonment, kidnapping, and hostage taking in the sense that the predicament involves the insidious concepts of limiting and controlling the rights, liberty, and identity of the victim. The victim of coercive control is undeserving of the degradation, harm, and abuse and has not freely chosen to be subjugated. In this seminal work, Stark sought to reframe the battering of women from the standpoint of survivors and the manipulation involved in domestic violence as, “a course of calculated, malevolent conduct deployed almost exclusively by men to dominate individual women by interweaving repeated physical abuse with three equally important tactics: intimidation, isolation, and control” (2007, p.5). Per Starks research and perspective, this is tied into the greater social and cultural issues that foster the suppression and subjugation of the rights of women.
Fontes (2015) echoes Stark’s perspective but builds on this and communicates it in a more accessible and applicable format and language in her work, Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship. Dr. Fontes acknowledges and points to the predominance of coercive control in abusive, controlling relationships in which a man is abusing and controlling his female partner through assault, intimidation, and isolation. However, relationships involving these elements are not limited to heterosexual or intimate relationship, and exist in LGBTQ communities and relationships, as well as, vocational settings and in other relationships in which a power differential is present and abused to the detriment and limitation of another person(s). The subject and observations of better informed professional and researchers are available. Much should be considered beyond the scope of this presentation. Attached to this document are a list of resources relevant for clinicians and clients. Additionally, free audio interviews that may aide in developing one’s perspective regarding coercive control are accessible online have also been listed in the attached list of resources. It should be noted and clearly understood that a way out is present for victims of coercive controlling partners, and multiple resources are present for helping these individuals. Further education and becoming knowledgeable of assessment and recognition of these factors may play an important part on a therapist’s impact on his or her community and the wellness of clients in the long term.
An Understanding of the Concept of Coercive Control
Essentially, coercive control is the practice of one partner (usually male) controlling, subjugating, and abusing the other partner (usually female) through physical violence, criticism, isolation, threats, micromanaging, manipulation, degradation, and/or limitation of potential. “Controlling another person is at the root of all abusive relationships, including those that are physically violent” (Fontes, 2015, p. 12). This problem and practice of coercive control exists in relationships that are a mix of positive and negative events, acts, and emotions that cycle and enforce the idea that the relationship is not all bad, creating confusion and ambivalence as a part of the perpetuation of the abusive relationship. Physical violence and injury are viewed as the standard and only defining factor of abuse by far too many (Fontes, 2015; Stark, 2007). Starting off as harmless and often caring, these abusive and controlling relationships involve the use of kindness and support from the abusive partner but for the purpose of limiting the victim to be under the control of the abusive partner for his purposes. It stands in contrast to a healthy relationship that involves positive and negative interactions but ultimately supports healthy balance of mutual care, respect, and autonomy. The relationship that involves coercive control is not simply one person being bossy or dominant. Coercive control involves one partner dominating the other for one-sided, selfish, and harmful purposes under the masquerade of love, care, and consideration, when the relationship is truly characterized by isolation, fear, and punishment. However, the victim can be free and break away from coercive controlling relationships. The challenge for the victim is often in the recognition and how to break away.
This concerns a spectrum of human service professionals and is something that must be addressed in personal, cultural, social, and legal contexts (Fontes, 2015; Stark, 2007). As it pertains to this overview in relation to serving the mental health needs of a community, mental health workers encounter the effects of abusive relationships in the home, seeing the results of coercive control in family systems, intimate adult partner relationships, and the behaviors and issues occurring in the lives of children, adolescents, and emerging adults. Understanding the important elements that occur as a part of coercive control will assist in identification of issues, sources of issues, and development of strategies to assist the healing, wellness, and development of individuals, families, and communities. “A controlled person cannot reach her full potential” (Fontes, 2015, p. 8). This is ethically and practically important to the mission of counselors, which is to aide in the healing process, as well as, promote the wellness, growth, and aspiration of individual to betterment of self and others (APA, 2014).
Behavioral Characteristics of a Controlling Relationship
Examining individual behaviors in a coercively controlling relationship may simply look like or point to a relationship that is less than perfect or ideal. However, in a relationship where coercive control is present, a pattern of domination is present (Fontes, 2015). When examining a relationship involving coercive control, consider the following strategies used by the controlling partner for the purpose of creating an environment of control and/or entrapment where the victim is used and abused to the benefit of the abuser. While different coercive control relationships can vary significantly, the following strategies listed by Fontes do not all need to be present but are often seen, including, “isolation, micromanaging, stalking, abusing physically and sexually, threatening, punishing, manipulating, degrading, belittling, and controlling a victim through her children” (p. 14).
Isolating In a coercive control relationship, the controlling partner feels lesser or threatened when the controlled partner’s life does not focus on or revolve around his (Stark, 2015). Cutting off access to resources of support, such as family and friend relationships, work opportunities, and/or money aides the controlling partner in becoming central to the victim’s life. The victim loses her sense of identity apart from the definition provided by the controlling partner in the relationship. Cutting off contacts with family geographically, restricting communication, or through emotional or physically abusive manipulation creates a dynamic in which the victim is more easily dominated and controlled. Often the controlling men in these relationships will drive off the support system with the goal of isolating the victim and making her more dependent on him. Sometimes this takes the form of tests of loyalty, urgent needs that interfere with the victim’s activities, control of finances, ruining reputations and relationships, controlling through technology, or using an immigrant’s status and cultural fears and isolation. Sometimes the unique culture and circumstances of military families result in isolation and situations in which cultural and social beliefs are misused to the detriment, isolation, and coercive control of family members.
Extreme isolation paired with some of these strategies may result in coercive entrapment, in which the victim simply seeks to survive, and victims may suffer deliberate weakening through starvation, purposeful sleep deprivation, restricting access to medical care, coercively forcing pregnancy, and beating or sexually assaulting the partner. An important factor to consider is that people do not often give up their rights easily and will look for opportunities to break the isolation and connect with others. This may take the form of generating conversations at the store, places of worship, the salon, or school. Sometimes looking for contacts on the internet, going to the gym, book clubs, or joining organizations and/or finding jobs are efforts to break the isolation. These are often resisted by the controlling partner but connection with others is key to wellness for the victim.
Micromanaging
Dominance is asserted through setting rules that micromanage the partner’s everyday life (Fontes, 2015). These can include restrictions on food, activities, and time away from or outside of the house. Limiting and controlling the kind of clothes being worn or forcing medications to force docility, manipulate sex drive, or adjust weight are also strategies. Having extreme rules regarding how the household is setup, cleaned, and managed, including childcare, may be factors the abuser seeks to control and insists upon. It should be noted that each demand holds the implication of “Do this or I will punish you”. Following the rules ensures a form of peace/less punishment in the victim’s world. However, these situations are often so general that contradictions in the rules are often present, leading to inevitable, unavoidable mistakes, and interpretation by the abuser determines the opportunity for punishment and abuse. The rigid rules leave the victim in a position of fear. One common rule referred to by Fontes is “sex on demand”, resulting in instances of isolated or routine rape, degradation, and torture. It should be noted that physically forced sex can be a significant danger sign of lethality for the victim. On the milder end of the spectrum, the abuser may force the victim to wear revealing clothes in public, making her uncomfortable. Along the spectrum of sexual coercion, the abuser may force painful acts or unwanted sex with other partners as a point of humiliation or later control through blackmail. At the extremes, an abusive partner may mark the victim through cutting, biting, bruising, or tattooing to prove ownership. Extreme degradation is a potential sign of increased risk and lethality, but the milder forms of humiliation still lower the quality of life for the victim.
Stalking and Monitoring
Stalking is a set of behaviors designed and directed to generate fear in a specific person (Fontes, 2015). Additionally, monitoring is not done out of a sense of real concern or care for the controlled partner, but as a form of control for the purpose of inciting fear and manipulating to the abuser’s will and satisfaction of personal needs. This can take the form of multiple contacts throughout the day, checking diaries, monitoring calls and texts, and forcing partners to chart and track their day. Staying home or compliance is done to avoid making the controlling partner angry and the threat of punishment. This can take a lot of effort on the part of the abusive partner, but some men dedicate hours per day and significant money to different forms of control. Sometimes these efforts are framed as a positive desire for the victim’s benefit, such as, “I just want you to be safe” or “Write everything down so I can help you be more efficient”. This kind of monitoring creates anxiety and fear of normal situations because of the physical and/or psychological punishment for not conforming to the abuser’s wishes. Stalking and monitoring can extend beyond the end of the relationship and be illegal in nature. Even when a victim leaves the relationship, the coercively controlling partner may still seek to exhibit power and control through stalking and monitoring.
Physical and Sexual Abuse
Violence in relationships can take many forms. It is not always physical, and coercive control relationships do not always involve bruises that can be seen or documented (Fontes, 2015). Classifying what is harmful or violent can be a gray area for some people. They are unsure if what they experienced was violence. Unhealthy rationalization takes place in the traumatized and coerced victim. Anger and substance use can fuel encounters involving physical violence. However, not every relationship that has physical violence has coercive control. Couples fighting may just be couples fighting, but in a coercive control relationship, violence and threat reinforce control. Sometimes the violence comes from the victim in her attempt to defend herself or retaliate. Physical harm can take the form of low-level violence, such as slapping, pulling, pushing, or grabbing partners on a regular basis (Fontes, 2015). Nonphysical forms of violence create stress that results in physical ailments including headaches, issues with appetite and sleep, and heart trouble. Sometimes the threat of punishment and violence are open and directed at people or things the victim cares for, such as friends, children, family, or pets. Punching walls, destroying furniture, damaging property, or throwing away medication can be forms of punishment or intimidation to make a victim stay. Threats of suicide can be coercive in nature and can be a demonstration of willingness to engage in extreme violence. Stopping treatment for substance abuse or not using psychiatric medication is a threat used to state that, “Soon I’ll be out of control and you’ll be sorry”. Guns and other weapons increase the levels of danger significantly and are often used to threaten or punish partners.
Manipulation
Manipulation is the exertion of a hidden power over a person and was referred to by Fontes (2015) as, “the way one person changes another person’s views or behavior through sneaky or deceptive means”. These can involve lying and telling partial truths regarding situations or interpersonal fraud to gain control and deprive a person of resources. Being forced to lie is a tactic used to create controlling situations. Victims will lie but for wholly different reasons of self-preservation. Withholding and silence are also weapons used by the abuser to punish the victim and create a sense of powerlessness. Withholding information about illegal activity puts the partner at risk for legal, financial, or more dire consequences. Mind games and gaslighting are practices that lead a partner to question her own sanity, perceptions, and/or memory. Gaslighting a partner leads to the partner feeling or thinking they are crazy and unable to function, thereby leaving them more vulnerable to control and manipulation. Sometimes confusion is created in the victim by the abuser publicly acting charming, loving, and caring, but in private, the abuser will be cruel. Additionally, the abuser may say things in public that are codes the victim knows are threats and these words or sayings can look or hear like expressions of love or care to outsiders. Other forms of manipulation can come through an abuser’s status in the community, knowledge of legal systems, or positions of influence. This is the use of positions of power to lead to abuse in imbalanced relationships.
Belittling and Degrading
Belittling and degrading a person involves treating him or her as an inferior (Fontes, 2015). This means treating a person as a child or not human. The concept of ownerships of an individual and superiority is used to the detriment of the victim. In this dynamic, the concept is, “I will feel powerful by making you feel powerless”. In the abuser’s mind, the victim is not worthy of respectful or humane treatment. This is not simply insulting a person or a couple trading insults. It is the systematic degradation of a person to meet the needs of the abuser, and the needs of the victim are ignored, minimized, denied, and/or distorted. Ridiculing the choices of the partner or buying an unwanted gift and then resenting or blaming that person for not wanting it are examples. “An abuser tries to convince the victim that he knows what she needs better than she does herself. The end result: she is not able to make decisions about her own life” (p. 50). Public humiliation and making the partner debase herself in public are strategies used to weaken the victim’s ability to resist, and responding to this debasement often leads to the victim putting herself at risk.
Controlling through Children
Trauma, fear, and uncertainty are often felt by the children who must experience the coercive control relationship. The coercively controlling man is a risk to the well-being of the children and can physically, emotionally, and/or psychologically assault the child directly or indirectly (Fontes, 2015). Hurting the mother in the child’s presence or forcing the mother to hurt or abuse the children are tactics involved in these relationships. Sometimes the children seek to stop the abuse they observe and this results in injury. Deprivation of resources such as food, medical care, shelter, transportation, and education can cause suffering for the child and the mother who must comply or see her child do without. Sometimes the abuser attacks the strength that children provide a mother by creating distance between the mother and the children. The children face the same manipulation as the mother. Undermining the mother as a parent and becoming the authority in the house while encouraging disrespect of the mother or imposing ideas and values related to parenting are forms of manipulation and control. Threatening the children is one way an abuser attains compliance from the victim and the children must comply to survive.
Identifying and Helping
There can be a myriad of reasons for why an abuser engages in coercive control, ranging from trauma, substance use, personality, and other forms of personal deficiency. Culture and social norms play a significant part in perpetuating coercive control and the behaviors used to ensure domination and abuse of victims (Fontes, 2015; Stark, 2007). This statement could also be applied to the examination of why women remain in these abusive relationships. However, the victim of coercive control should never be blamed, as is the habit and practice of society. Factors influencing the relationship can be numerous, and it should be remembered that in a coercive control relationship, the victim is not fully in charge of herself or the relationship and certainly not an equal partner.
It is confusing to examine a relationship, see an outwardly pleasant façade, find an internal structure built on isolation, fear, and punishment, and then wonder, “How did this happen, and why does it continue?”. This author encourages beginning with Fontes (2015) work and exploring from there. When examining a relationship, consider that not all relationship with the above behaviors involve coercive control. However, “Relationships become problematic when one person’s fulfillment is routinely sacrificed in service of the other’s” (p. 200). Recovery is possible for both the victim and the abuser. Fontes made recommendations that may be helpful and should be researched further, and she supplied assessments that may useful in helping a victim reflect, consider, and identify coercive control as an issue in her life.Additionally, consider using the following questions when helping a person in her decision-making process (Fontes, 2015):
1. What are your worst fears about staying in the relationship?
2. What are your worst fears about ending it?
3. Which are most likely?
4. What can you change so you can achieve the best outcome – whichever path you choose?
Clients experiencing coercive control may feel like they are doing something bad, but the may need to be reminded that they have the right to make decisions for themselves, about their own life, especially their own intimate relationship. As a final exercise, what controlling behaviors have you seen in the relationships of your client’s, friends, and/or family that may have been indicators of coercive control? Have you been or are you in a relationship that relies on the fulfillment of your partner at your expense? In what other contexts (non-intimate partner relationships) can coercive control be observed and the victim’s helped? What cases have you encountered where coercive control was seen and what did you learn from the experience? Please reflect, research, and grow, as well as, exercise self-care and safety in contemplation.
References
American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA code of ethics [White Paper]. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/docs/ethics/2014-aca-code-of-ethics.pdf?sfvrsn=4
Fontes, L. A. (2015). Invisible chains: Overcoming coercive control in your intimate relationship. Guilford Publications.
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in everyday life. Oxford University Press.
Online informational and helping resources:
- DASH risk checklist, an assessment designed to evaluate Domestic Abuse, Stalking, and Honor based violence; additionally the V-DASH can be downloaded and may be more friendly for use by a person seeking help - https://www.dashriskchecklist.co.uk/
- Real Crime Profile podcast is free to listen to online through your computer, phone, iPod, or any other podcast service. Please listen to episodes 67 and 68 found at https://wondery.com/shows/real-crime-profile/ for interviews with Dr. Evan Stark regarding his work and definitions of the concepts and issues involved with coercive control. The interviewer is Laura Richards, the originator of the DAS risk assessment and an active advocate in the UK for creating laws making coercive control and stalking illegal. Fascinating and informative interviews!!!
- Coercion related to Mental Health and Substance Use in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence: A Toolkit - https://www.sprc.org/sites/default/files/resource-program/NCDVTMH_IPV_ScreeningMH_SA_CoercionToolkit2018.pdf
- Coercive Control of Women: Where we are now and why we need to go further. - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-games/201704/coercive-control-women?amp
- Lambert, C. (2017). Domestic abuse: Where are all the therapists?. (Website). https://www.newharbinger.com/blog/domestic-abuse-where-are-all-therapists
