Despite increasing state pressure, successive federal governments have failed to implement national coercive control legislation. Police and emergency services need to be retrained and educated about what coercive control is to support victims in meaningful ways.
What is coercive control and how does a narcissist use this to their own advantage?
Coercive control is a pattern of domination that includes tactics to isolate, degrade, exploit and control a person, as well as to frighten them or hurt them physically.
Not only is this control a pattern of domination, it is difficult to determine or describe to an outsider if a victim does come to the realisation they are being abused. In many cases victims don’t understand coercive control as a form of abuse, especially if the abuser conditions the recipient of abuse to believe the fault lies with them and never with the perpetrator.
At the beginning of a relationship, the narcissist will use coercive control because it is by its nature more covert than overt and so, not as easily seen as abusive behaviour. This type of control is used to gradually condition a victim, to undermine a victim’s ability to discern non-abusive from abusive behaviours. The victim begins to accept this “lesser” abuse and control because they lose their ability to detect this behaviour as their conditioning allows for greater control by the narcissist.
Once the abuser feels confident and secure in their control, their real personality emerges, and the abuse is ever increasing in all forms, be it physical sexual or emotional and psychological. Covert control is insidious and soul destroying, often undetectable and perhaps not so obviously abuse, but it is abuse nonetheless and may have a deeper more negative impact.
The longer a victim is in a relationship with the perpetrator, the greater the loss of autonomy, the ability to self-reflect and experience a true perspective regarding what is really happening between the abused and the abuser. Instead, the victim sees their partner’s behaviour through the perpetrator’s eyes. As time goes by, coercive control can be used so frequently that the victim doesn’t even notice anymore; it becomes normalised as a victim is told frequently “you’re not trying hard enough, it’s your fault, if you weren’t such a nagger… “
The coercive dynamic in abusive relationships is where abusers cast themselves as victims to deflect responsibility and gain control. As Jess Hill, investigative journalist and the author of See What You Made Me Do, writes at Women’s Agenda, “Perpetrators create a total undermining of a person’s instinct and psychological integrity, making survivors feel at their core that you are worthless, and you cannot survive on your own. There is no better way to get people to do or be what you want than coercive control.”
Examples of coercive control and what it can do to a victim
“It’s all in your head.”
“I didn’t know I was in an abusive relationship because he didn’t hit me.”
Isolation so that outsiders can’t see the control happening in the relationship.
Social isolation from the victim’s friends and family, monitoring a person’s communications or verbal abuse.
Self-esteem is shattered.
Typically, the abusive partner justifies their drinking by blaming the victim. Typical justifications include: “I’ve been working really hard and needed time off, you’re such a ball and chain and a boring conversationalist, why would I want to spend time with you?” (My ex’s exact words to me.)
He/she will say, “I’m the important one; you need to fit around me.”
According to South Australian Shadow Minister for Women, Michelle Lensick, women have been taught that intimate partners “were overbearing because they loved you”.
The abuser tries to make you feel guilty if you don’t have sex with them.
“Perpetrators create co-dependency, leaving survivors feeling fundamentally weakened and sometimes incapable of surviving on their own.” ~ Jess Hill.
Why didn’t you leave?
As one victim says, “It was that unawareness.”
Jess Hill says survivors often don’t realise they have any options. “It changes the minds of people subjected to coercive control because you feel you have been invaded by someone.”
When you say you’re leaving them, you become their target.
If children are part of the relationship, the abuser will threaten tell the court “you are lying about everything”’ or “you can’t prove a thing so everyone will believe me when I say you’re crazy, abusive and a bad mother and I’ll get the children”. (Again, the words of my ex).
Dr Christine Marie Cocchiola, coercive control expert, trainer and consultant for clinicians, attorneys and advocates, says, “If, after leaving, the victim and children are placed into the court system, a child who has been living with a coercive controller, when asked to testify, is not always able to give clarity.
“Instead, the child will say what is needed to survive, on the record. And many will. They will lie to stay safe.
“They will echo the abuser’s words to avoid punishment or emotional withdrawal.
They will say what they believe the judge wants to hear because they know in many cases of residency and access cases, who they’re going home with.
“Coercive controllers condition their children long before they ever reach the courthouse. They plant language. They weaponise therapy. They script loyalty tests that the child must pass in order to stay emotionally – or physically – safe.
“By the time that child sits behind closed doors with a judge, the message is clear – you say the wrong thing, and someone will pay.
“And when the system takes the child’s words at face value, it deepens the child’s trauma. It validates the control. It silences the child’s internal truth.
“Testimony under coercive control isn’t a path to truth. It’s another tool in the abuser’s arsenal.
“Professionals must learn to recognise the difference between what is said and what is safe to say. Only then can courts act in the child’s best interests.”
In conclusion, despite increasing state pressure, successive federal governments have failed to implement national coercive control legislation. Police and emergency services need to be retrained and educated about what coercive control is to support victims in meaningful ways.
Deborah Thomson moved to Tasmania with her daughter in 2010, and now lives with her partner of nine years and a parrot. She moved to escape domestic violence and, inspired by her new partner, wrote her first book, Whose Life Is It Anyway? Recognising and Surviving Domestic Violence, to help others recognise abuse (and in particular coercive control), in the home, and to increase their motivation to leave earlier. After publishing her first book, she became a trained advocate through Engender Equality, a non-government Tasmanian organisation working with people and communities impacted by family violence. Deborah Thomson advocates for survivors of family violence, speaking at domestic violence events across Tasmania, through media channels and podcasts. She recently completed a second book, detailing lived experience with domestic violence by her then husband, spanning 17 years from 1985 to 2003. This book is now used in Tasmania as an information resource for family violence counsellors and students on practicals.