⬇️ Prefer to listen instead? ⬇️
- ⚠️ 68% of reported domestic abuse cases involve psychological abuse, not physical violence.
- 🧠 Trauma bonds formed through coercive control are biologically reinforced by chemical changes in the brain.
- 💡 Coercive control depends on power imbalances that abusers often make on purpose.
- 🚫 Mislabeling abuse as “codependency” keeps victim-blaming going and hides who is responsible.
- 📉 Long-term coercive control reduces thinking skills, emotional strength, and the ability to make decisions.
When people think about unhealthy relationships, they often use the word “codependent.” But in many of these situations, it's not about two people both having problems. Instead, it's one person controlling another in an organized way. This kind of abuse isn't always easy to see. There might not be bruises or yelling. It's often just a slow taking away of a person's freedom, identity, and self-worth. This isn't codependency. It's coercive control. And if you don't understand the difference, survivors can stay trapped and misunderstood.
What Is Coercive Control?
Coercive control is a planned, non-physical type of abuse. The abuser uses emotional manipulation to take away a partner’s freedom and sense of self. Physical violence can be obvious and scary. But coercive control slowly harms its targets with constant mental tricks. These are often hidden from others, and sometimes even from the person being abused.
Sociologist Dr. Evan Stark explained coercive control in detail. It is not about single bad incidents. It's a planned way of doing things, used to dominate. The abuser sets up situations where the victim becomes more and more dependent, alone in their mind, and unable to leave. Unlike obvious abuse, coercive control is subtle, never stops, and harms in a hidden way.
Key Tactics of Coercive Control
- Watching and Checking: Checking texts, emails, social media, or even putting tracking devices on things.
- Isolation: Separating the victim from their support people, like friends, family, bosses, or doctors.
- Control of Resources: Limiting or taking away access to money, cars, ID, or where they live.
- Gaslighting: Changing what is real to make the victim unsure of their memory, how they see things, or their gut feelings.
- Telling Them What to Do: Telling them what to wear, how to speak, how to act, or when/if they can leave the house.
These ways of acting don't just happen quickly; it's a slow build-up. What starts as caring or concern slowly changes into watching and overwhelming control.
“[Coercive control is] a pattern of domination that includes tactics like isolation, surveillance, and controlling small daily actions.” — Stark, 2007
Why the Codependency Idea Doesn't Work
The word "codependency" became common through addiction recovery groups. There, it meant helping someone continue bad habits in relationships involving substance use. But its wider use to describe all unhealthy relationships has led to wrong uses, especially in situations with abuse.
The Idea of Both Having Problems
When people call survivors of coercive control "codependent," it:
- Makes Unequal Relationships Seem Equal: It suggests problems on both sides, but there is clearly an abuser and a victim.
- Suggests They Chose to Take Part: It makes it seem like the survivor's inability to leave or protest is a chosen, unhealthy need.
- Hides Who Is Responsible: It takes attention away from the abuser’s actions. Instead, it focuses on the victim’s supposed "problems."
This way of thinking harms victims. It makes them responsible for the very conditions they’ve been put through and trapped in by an organized system.
Language Changes Outcomes
When therapists, courts, or even friends see abuse as codependency, they often ask, “Why do you let this happen?” Instead, they should ask, “How can we give you back your power?” This bad way of thinking not only says the trauma isn't real but can also harm survivors again when they seek help.
The Brain's Role: How People Attach and Get Trapped
Our attachment systems are made for survival, especially when we are under great stress. Abusers use these deep mental connections unfairly to create “trauma bonds.” They change brain chemicals in a way that makes breaking free very hard.
Trauma Bonding Explained
Trauma bonding happens when abuse is broken up by kindness that comes and goes unexpectedly. This unsteady cycle fills the brain with different brain chemicals that trap a person in the relationship.
- Dopamine and Oxytocin: These are released during moments of affection or a break from abuse, making the survivor’s hope and attachment stronger.
- Cortisol and Adrenaline: These increase during worry, stress, or threats. This keeps the body in a constant state of fear.
- Neuroplasticity: The brain starts to change its connections based on ideas of fear, submission, and reward. Often, it sees safety as doing what the abuser says.
As abuse continues, the body learns that survival depends on pleasing the abuser, not getting away from them.
“Unpredictable rewards and punishments can create trauma bonds that are made stronger by the brain.” — Dutton & Painter, 1993
Emotional Manipulation as a Main Tool
Emotional manipulation is one of the most powerful and constant tools of coercive control. Economic abuse or isolation are important. But emotional manipulation is what truly wears down a person's inner sense of self.
Common Manipulation Tactics
- Shifting Blame: Making the victim feel responsible for what the abuser does ("You made me do this").
- Guilt-tripping: Using feelings or hopes to force someone ("If you loved me, you would…").
- Gaslighting: Plainly denying or changing how past events are described to cause confusion.
- Silent treatments and not showing affection: Making affection and approval dependent on obedience.
These strategies have a long-term effect. Over time, survivors start to question their own thoughts, memories, and feelings. This mental confusion traps them in a cycle of needing the same person who is hurting them.
Using Attachment Theory Unfairly
Attachment theory, from John Bowlby, explains how early relationships shape emotional growth throughout life. Coercive controllers use these patterns on purpose. They pick partners with attachment styles that are easy to take advantage of.
How Abusers Use Attachment Patterns
- Anxious Attachment: These people strongly want closeness and fear being left. Abusers take advantage of this by giving and then taking away affection in cycles. This makes the person more dependent.
- Avoidant Attachment: These partners may seem independent, but they still want connection very much. Abusers use distance and rewards to change their fear of closeness and being rejected.
At the start of coercive relationships, abusers may "love bomb." They overwhelm the victim with praise, attention, and making them seem perfect. This creates a fake close feeling. Once trust is gained, this fake front falls away. The change is so sudden and unclear that victims spend the rest of the relationship trying to get back to the “good times.” This is a false hope that never returns.
A Trick of Understanding vs Real Love
Abusers often show what looks like understanding. They copy a person's worries, beliefs, or weaknesses. But this understanding is a trick, not real. It’s a way to find weaknesses and get an advantage, not to build real understanding together.
Why Victims Can’t “Just Leave”
The question "Why didn’t they just leave?" suggests that staying is a personal weakness. But it's actually a learned reaction to being constantly trapped.
How Coercion Changes the Brain
- Problems with Brain's Control Center: Long-term stress raises cortisol levels. This harms parts like the prefrontal cortex, which controls planning and self-control.
- Trauma Freezing and People-Pleasing: Instead of running or fighting back, many people tend to freeze or try to please others. Both are ways to stay alive in scary situations.
- Learned Helplessness: Psychologist Martin Seligman noted this, and Lenore Walker used it for domestic violence. It means constant punishment that someone can't get away from teaches the victim that getting away is pointless.
Not being able to leave isn’t about weakness. It’s about a brain's way to survive when under attack.
“Periods of calm followed by abuse lead to learned helplessness.” — Walker, 1979
Unequal Power Makes Control Possible
Abusers don't work in a fair situation. Coercive control grows strong where there are dangers from power differences. These differences were either already there or made on purpose.
How Unequal Power Is Made and Used
- Economic Dependence: Controlling money to limit a partner’s ability to leave or take care of themselves.
- Social Isolation: Hurting friendships and reducing outside ideas. This makes the abuser the victim’s main way of seeing things.
- Too Much Emotional Work: Making the victim responsible for handling feelings, problems, choices, and even the effects of abuse.
These things don't happen by chance. They are planned, purposeful ways to gather all control.
Signs of Coercive Control Often Missed
Unlike what is shown in media, abusive relationships don't always have yelling, hitting, or arguments. Often, the signs are not obvious but very harmful.
Not Obvious Signs to Watch For
- Watching phone activity or location while pretending to care.
- Hiding control as "just wanting to keep you safe."
- Making the victim feel guilty for taking care of themselves or spending time away from the relationship.
- Constant blame with no one taking responsibility.
- Always hurting personal goals, social interactions, or own choices.
These behaviors, when looked at one by one, may seem unimportant. But together, they build a cage around the victim bit by bit.
“68% of reported domestic abuse cases are psychological, not physical.” — Office for National Statistics, 2023
How Long-Term Manipulation Affects the Brain and Body
The mental harm from coercive control often grows into physical pain. Survivors often report long-term health problems that are not understood or are blamed on the wrong thing.
Known Effects
- Mental: PTSD, depression, anxiety, panic disorders.
- Body-related: Stomach pain, long-term tiredness, heart racing, migraines.
- Brain-related:
- Overactive amygdala → always feeling danger
- Reduced prefrontal cortex activity → poor decision-making
- Problems with the brain's resting network → less sense of who they are and of feeling steady
Even after escape, abuse after separating is common. Abusers continue their control through legal tricks, custody fights, spreading bad rumors, and hurting their money situation.
Changing How We Talk About Victims
The main way society talks about this still questions the victim instead of the overall problem. But in medical and legal words, surviving a coercive relationship shows strength, not mental illness.
A Better Way of Thinking
Instead of asking:
- “Why did they stay?”
Ask: - “How did the abuser take away their power to leave?”
Ways of helping that understand trauma need us to move from judging to understanding. We must also move from blaming to looking at the whole system.
“We must make the legal and medical definition of coercion wider to understand permission and power to act.” — Cross & Dixon, 2020
The Overall View: Law and Mental Health Policy
To deal with coercive control well, changes to systems must happen across law, healthcare, education, and media.
Needed Changes
- Legal Acknowledgment: Widen domestic violence laws to clearly include coercive control.
- Training for Professionals: Give judges, therapists, and police training that understands trauma, about non-physical abuse.
- Big Change to School Lessons: Teach children and teens about healthy relationships, understanding emotions, and a culture where asking for permission is normal.
- Media Responsibility: Break down romantic ideas that show power over someone and control as love.
Progress needs us to admit that emotional abuse is real, can be shown, and is very harmful in its effects.
For Survivors: If this feels familiar, know that it’s not your fault. You’re not codependent, and you’re not broken. You're surviving a system of control—one that was never mutual or fair.
For Professionals & Advocates: Let’s stop falling for the false idea that both sides have problems. When we call coercive control what it is, we open the door for better care, more understanding, and real change.
Citations
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: The entrapment of women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
Dutton, D. G., & Painter, S. (1993). Emotional attachments in abusive relationships: A test of traumatic bonding theory. Violence and Victims, 8(2), 105–120.
Walker, L. E. (1979). The Battered Woman. New York: Harper and Row.
Cross, C., & Dixon, J. (2020). Expanding the operational definition of coercion: Implications for understanding consent and agency. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(23-24), NP12312–NP12340.
Office for National Statistics. (2023). Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics, England and Wales. https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/domesticabuseinenglandandwalesoverviewnovember2023
