What is "coercive control"? (Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships)

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Romani and welcome back to this series. A kind of

glossary

of terms related to

narcissistic

relationships

and narcissism. This series came from my thinking that I think a lot of people think

what

does this mean,

what

does that mean and some people haven't even heard some of these terms, so I was hoping that this series would not only create some clarity and enlightenment, but also perhaps open them up to knowledge about this field that can help them understand what their experience has been or understand others. Things you are reading or listening to today, we will address the topic of

coercive

control

, but before we continue, Moi may invite you, consider subscribing to this channel and also press the bell to receive notifications and press the word subscribe to subscribe. that will give you the opportunity to also receive notifications as more and more content appears on this topic, so let's address this topic, let's address this topic of

coercive

control

.

Coercive control has been defined by various people and various sources as a pattern or strategy of a person doing things like using acts that include threats threats intimidation manipulation stalking humiliation isolation financial abuse gaslighting and sometimes physical or sexual abuse The term coercive control was actually originally developed by Evan Stark, who has been a major proponent and developer of this model. and a key stakeholder and the implementation of coercive control laws in the UK now the patterns we observe and coercive control these patterns are designed to isolate a person and make them dependent on a partner for financial support, accommodation, food and your connection to the world coercive control results in slowly hijacking a person's life, robbing them of their independence, robbing them of their ability to act and govern every move they make, they are controlling, they are manipulative and exploitative, a person who lives or experiences coercive control Living in constant fear and with a constant threat to their lives, domestic violence agencies have called coercive control a deprivation of human rights and freedoms.

A 2014 study by Kelly and her colleagues estimated that 95% of domestic abuse survivors experience some form of coercive control, so what does this mean? it looks like coercive control it looks like a lot of things it looks like threats and intimidation and sometimes they are vague threats sometimes they are real but they are always threatening and disturbing better be careful, you never know when I will catch you, they isolate you from families, friends and workplaces and this can happen gradually initially they will do this in various ways they can insult your friends plant seeds of doubt about your trustworthiness tell you that your family is trying to sabotage your happiness and your relationship with them share lies with you talk about your friends and family and then just when the doubt hits you overwhelms, they also go out of their way and restrict your access to them and you can move on after all the mental manipulation.

Another way is to isolate a partner from a job. Initially, they will propose this to you. has benevolent I want to take care of you you deserve me to take care of you don't stay home it's okay I want you to go back to school one day you need to stay home with the kids and if the person is still working they managed to continue working while they were in this type of relationship, The person exercising coercive control may actively try to influence their work

relationships

or even make them look bad to their employer and may insist on dropping off and picking up a coworker at work so they cannot talk to coworkers develop friendships have support and therefore that can monitor your comings and goings people who exercise coercive control also monitor your time and whereabouts and unfortunately in a technological age this is easier than ever all kinds of things that are found your phone app on a phone tracking apps that can go to everything, spyware trackers in cars that you present as a generous gift people who participate in coercive control can do things like restrict normal activity, even things like shopping, doctor appointments or school events for your children or always insists on accompanying you to any of these things in coercive control it is very common to see chronic verbal abuse calling you terrible names regularly calling you useless stupid they can control access to information and services and this may involve blocking your access to electronics or placing spyware on electronics, meaning all your searches are monitored and all computers and devices in a home can be on a single network.

It is very common in this situation to stop talking and this can be by literally following you or doing it through devices or receiving paid surveillance on you or asking people who know you, family, friends, people you work with, to tell you. Provide updates, they will do things like monitor the basics of your environment, where you sleep, what time you go to sleep, and what time you wake up. are allowed to wear and these could be experienced as very restrictive dress codes that can make demands and whether or not you are allowed to wear makeup what you are allowed to eat and something that is sometimes seen in coercive control The dynamic is that they will restrict a partner from eating or force them to eat.

Another pattern you'll see is constantly calling, texting, or video calling you, trying to create access even when you don't want them to and if you ask. so as not to interrupt you and stop calling you, as they will get angry and call you again and again and then try to call other people who may be where you are, and regularly engage in humiliation, degradation and dehumanization of you. When you are alone or in front of other people, a popular coercive controller trick is that they will ask you to FaceTime them, video call them, or send them a photo, and I promise they will check the time stamp and ask you where you are now , prove to me where you are now if you try to send them an old photo, trust me they will remember what you were wearing that morning and know you weren't there. control, they will try to control your finances even if you are working and limiting access to any bank or credit card, they will make threats again, these threats can be veiled or unveiled and if they might say something like hey, if something ever happened to you, I would get away with it because I know the police and they believe me, it is threatening and scary and when you make a comment they gaslight you, they laugh and have fun with the fear they created in you by making these threatening comments saying things like I'm going to ruin your life, they create a climate of fear that is fostered by having all these kinds of arbitrary rules and they enforce them variably, but when they do, they punish the partner in the home or the children or other people in the home. home through deprivation of even basic things like food, through humiliation and through further threats in coercive control dynamics, it is also not uncommon to see sexual abuse, violence and forced sex and this could include forcing an unwanted pregnancy to being in a better position to financially control a partner and the dependent, the dependency fostered by having a child together, they will engage in constant criticism of everything you do or say, gaslighting is a very common dynamic and coercive control and In a word, coercive control is relational.

Incarceration also has an indirect effect on other people because the coercively controlling partner indirectly harms the people around you because they may also believe you, and hopefully believe you, but they may also be experiencing the same fear, the same sense of pain. and loss for not being able to do it. approach you to find you and find you to be with you when you are being coercively controlled and then they also have to deal with the irritation of this, the stalking behavior of the coercive controller and the impact on their lives - now obviously this The dynamic Of all the dynamics we have discussed is very dangerous and tragic in cases of coercive control that does not culminate in physical violence or abuse, many times law enforcement and other authorities will not record this as domestic violence and will not result in charges or any other mechanism of protection. protection, they often dismiss it because it is a relationship problem.

Now, bravely, the UK has adopted coercive control laws, which is an important first step, but sadly the rest of the world is lagging behind, and more often than not, they are women. Those who find themselves in these situations, who find themselves in these types of relationships, are often dismissed by institutions and a whole variety of law enforcement officials as dependent or have the idea that these people could leave these relationships if they wanted to because there has been there is still no violence and yet there are so many obituaries out there of women who were coercively controlled who tried to get restraining orders and went and couldn't get them because it was just psychological abuse when they finally left they were murdered but you all are hearing this and you're saying wait a minute, this sounds like a relationship with a malignant narcissist, yes, and that's how this dynamic of coercive control connects to all of this terminology we're discussing related to narcissism and

narcissistic

relationships, it's also a pattern. .

We see with psychopathic couples, but given the high level of overlap between psychopathy and many elements of narcissism, we can see this as a pattern that these types of personality styles are probably the most predominant perpetrators in this way, although I recognize that work About coercive control has traditionally focused on the pattern of behavior, let's talk about the perpetrators, let's think about what kind of person would be capable of doing something like this, it would be someone who lacks empathy, someone who has brutal rights, someone who is incredibly controlling. someone. who is motivated by power someone who cannot regulate stress or disappointment and manifests it as rage someone who is hypersensitive someone who is arrogant someone who is deeply insecure sounds familiar and when you add a little paranoia deliberate cruelty charm and charisma to be able to deceive the world there is that malignant narcissism, correct coercive control, like many of the phenomena we have been talking about, is on a spectrum, obviously, in the most extreme cases it is dangerous and even lethal, however, Even at the milder end of the spectrum, I'm not even convinced that there is any mild form of coercive control, it can become a gradual process of being increasingly controlled and because gaslighting is such a predominant dynamic in the coercive control and in narcissism, confusion and self-doubt mean that isolation and continuous psychological abuse slowly takes over a person's life and because of isolation you have no sounding boards around you or places For a reality check, you can't even log into a group and get support, and it will be chronic too.

Criticism, humiliation and degradation, locking yourself in front of other people and calling yourself worthless and that experience on a daily basis will have a terrible effect on your mental health. To me, gaslighting within a framework of coercive control feels like the most abusive form of the world's unwillingness to recognize that psychological abuse is as harmful as physical abuse means that people who experience this type of employer have very few places to turn; It is often doubted that other than domestic violence programs that are informed about this dynamic there is very little support for anyone in a narcissistic relationship, although you all know the drill people who tell them God, it can't be that bad, He's a big shot in the community, I mean, he's a chef. nice house, I mean, God, at least he always cares where you are, my guy doesn't even care where I am or that people tell you relationships are hard, it's all this gaslighting we get from the world on a regular basis which makes this So hard now that the dynamics of coercive control appear to a greater or lesser degree in almost all relationships with malignant narcissists, in some cases it may be softer, but these relationships are by definition manipulative, exploitative, threatening, confusing and isolating, the dynamics of coercive control can seem even more horrible.

When the malignant narcissist is charming, confident, charismatic and generous with other people, that way he can convince other people, then he is a great guy and that leaves you with even less chance of getting support. broken by this relationship and looking less and less like yourself, others may even come to feel bad for your abuser because he doesn't look as good and more and isn't as well built and how nice of him to stay with you, it's a mental word all over the place, but malignant narcissistic types are not the only narcissistic types who are at risk of perpetrating coercive control, although this is most likely a pattern they do that can also be observed and covert narcissistic.

Patterns of the Covert Narcissist's Tendencytowards isolation anyway means that they may try to absorb you into their isolated universe and are also prone to dynamics such as control to keep a partner close. In both covert and malignant narcissism, we also often see people holding and adopting ridiculous and dangerous views about women in relationships and nonsense about a woman should be obedient now, if you grew up in a family in which a coercive control dynamic, will have an impact on you as an adult, these impacts can range from severe anxiety to post-traumatic stress and regulatory issues such as substance abuse, it is incredibly traumatic to grow up this way and witness a parent being controlled that way and lives under the specter of Threat because coercive controllers also tend to take it out on their children now in the workplace, this dynamic may be less likely;

However, if you are in a work situation where you are vulnerable for reasons such as legal procedures, sex, for example, immigration reasons, or you are in a coercive work situation or in a new culture where you may not is as familiar with the languages, the rules or a A person, for example, who finds himself in a traffic or work traffic situation under coercive control can often, and does, present himself with all the same harms and risks , including things like contracted wages, having to pay someone back for transporting you to that situation, and not having recourse like labor laws or if it's a residential situation where you live where you work, these abuses can leave you isolated and your communications monitored by your employer and other tools you could use to get out, such as cell phones or passports that are now being taken from you.

Control is consistently part of the narcissistic relationship dynamic and tends to be an element in all of these types of relationships; However, when this control is at the level of coercive control, there is no beating around the bush, it is abuse, there is no excuse and hopefully, one day, more and more of this people in the world will recognize this as the rule of law , for now I'm not holding my breath, but talking about coercive control and not talking about narcissism misses the point and, as always, we know that these patterns don't change, especially when they are this severe, so a person in this situation is in danger, often in grave danger, and this can be psychologically, physically, and very often both, if you want to delve deeper into coercive control because it's a very complex topic.

Please consider looking at Evans Starks' book. It's called coercive control. How men trap women in their personal lives. Honestly, it all comes down to being a small summary of what happens in many relationships with malignant narcissists now. Please note that if you are experiencing abuse in the United States, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-772-9879 or For me, this dynamic of coercive control really reflects that it is not just that these Narcissistic relationships are not just about what sometimes seem like trivial concerns that accumulate over time, they are dangerous, they are dangerous for partners, they are dangerous for children, and they are dangerous for others.

People in this family sometimes the controlling dynamic of the narcissistic relationship doesn't seem like a big deal at first, in fact, many people misinterpret early control as they must be really into me, they must be really into control and human relationships should not go together so soon. when they feel that feeling of being too monitored or being, they feel it even if it feels like a compliment, it's not control, it's not healthy, this is what it can culminate into. I hope this has given you some clarity on this term coercive control that some of you may or may not have been familiar with.

Thank you again for tuning in to the description of this video. Those resources will also be highlighted if you need to go back and get those numbers or those websites. Thanks again for tuning in.