What is Coercive Control?
Coercive control is an act or a pattern of acts such as assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation that abusers use to harm, punish or frighten their partners.
Some examples of coercive control include:
- Isolation from family and friends
- Taking control over aspects of everyday life, which can include controlling where their partner goes, who they can see, what they can wear and when they can sleep
- Denying their partner from receiving supports including medical care
- Controlling all finances
- Making threats or intimidating their partner
Key Takeaways about Coercive Control
- Abusers use tactics like isolation, financial control, and monitoring to control all aspects of their partner’s like
- Strategies of coercive control include love-bombing, gaslighting, and using degrading comments to create confusion, which causes a survivor to rely on their abuser for validation
- Coercive control may start out with non-physical forms of abuse, but often times, abusers will escalate to physical violence
Sources:
- Women’s Aid. (n.d.). Coercive control.
- Kippert, A. (2024). 10 ways to spot deceptive coercive control. DomesticShelters.org.
