Coercive Control Is Domestic Violence
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This past October, domestic violence month, was also a time to recognize changes to the legal definition of domestic violence. This year’s statutory progress included coercive control in intimate relationships as domestic violence. For decades, non-physical abuse in the form of psychological abuse was not recognized, to the detriment of thousands of female and male survivors. Now, in many US states, coercive control laws exist. These laws are a great start in recognizing, validating, and offering protection for coercive control in intimate relationships. However, the individual in a coercive controlling relationship is unlikely to easily see how such a law can help them. However, given the nature of coercive control, there are some useful indicators that can raise awareness of coercion taking place with an intimate partner.
Coercive Control
Coercive control targets thoughts, feelings and perception. A foremost loss is an erosion of trust in one’s own perception that makes it more difficult to step back and see what is happening to them by the person they expected to be a caring partner.
By expanding the definition of abuse to include coercive control, the states with statutes reflect the reality that coercive control is domestic violence. For example, in Massachusetts, the statute defines coercive control as:
A pattern of behavior intended to threaten, intimidate, harass, isolate, control, coerce or compel obedience of a family or household member that causes that family or household member to fear physical harm or experience a reduced sense of physical safety or autonomy, or
A single act of attempting to injure a child relative of the survivor, abusing or attempting to commit abuse to an animal connected to the survivor, or publishing or attempting to publish sexually explicit images of the survivor. A survivor must show that the single act was intended to threaten, intimidate, harass, isolate, control, or coerce the survivor to conform and causing the survivor to reasonably fear physical harm or have a loss in their sense of physical safety or autonomy, according to the Victim Rights Law Center.
Read more https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-games/202511/coercive-control-is-domestic-violence
For the individual in a coercive controlling relationship, they are experiencing some of the elements of the statutes, yet the presence of coercion gets missed by the insidious nature of coercion and the subtle emotional impact that gets in the way of recognizing the coercion.
In my experience of working with survivors of coercive control in their relationships, the majority did not see the slow coercive style of their intimate partner for a long time. It doesn’t matter their level of intelligence, education, or income. Anyone can end up with a coercive partner.
Content retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-games/202511/coercive-control-is-domestic-violence.
