What is Controlling and Coercive Behaviour? Coercive Control

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

What is coercive control and how might if you or someone you care about is in a coercive control relationship, what things might you notice which might give you an early indication that something is not quite right Here I am joined by my guest today, Chrissy Roberts, as we explore all of this and beyond. I hope you find this so useful. Welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Now, one of the beautiful things about this podcast is that we can cover really important topics that are useful for both people working in mental health, but also the general population too. And this is one of those episodes where whatever you are watching this for, you can absolutely benefit and learn. Even I have had some really helpful join the dots moments during the episode today. So I hope you will have the same. I would love to know what yours are. Please do connect with me on socials. Please do like, subscribe, comment during the episode if you are watching on YouTube. I'll look forward to catching up with you on the other side of this. Hi, I just want to welcome along our guest for today, Chrissy. Hi Chrissy.

Chrissie Roberts (: 01:26

Hello. Nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:29

Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you for reaching out to me on LinkedIn. It was initially to discuss how powerful and resonant you'd found the episode with Alexandra when I was talking about complex PTSD and related OCD. And that has resonated with you because it's kind of a conversation that's really important but also because of your own lived experience of coercive control.

Chrissie Roberts (: 01:56

Yeah, definitely. And I think it was really refreshing to see the conversation being had around complex PTSD.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:03

Yeah, thank you for your kind comments about that episode. So you are a research assistant for a university, but you're not researching this area currently, but understandably when we have had lived experience of something, it can become something we become passionate about supporting others in, but also raising awareness so that people feel less isolated and more knowledgeable about the signs and what's normal. And I have some lived experience of grief that I've woven into my work as well and I really people to feel less alone in that because it can be awful if you feel like something is just happening to you. And is that the case for you, Chrissy, that you're really wanting to open up the narrative around coercive control?

Chrissie Roberts (: 02:47

Yeah, definitely. And I think that this particular type of domestic abuse, it was only criminalised almost 10, not even 10 years ago now. So it's really something that as a society we've not quite got our heads around, don't. One of the most dangerous things about it is it's something that builds off over time. It's very much a pattern of behaviour and as a victim it's very difficult to recognise that that's happening to you. So I think by raising awareness, it's just kind of having these conversations so that maybe listeners can reflect and maybe think about their own thoughts and feelings and about a relationship they might be in because it's just these questions that you have to be confronted with about the situation.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 03:26

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the beautiful things about making this in a psychology podcast is that people might be listening or watching because they're thinking, well this might help me therapeutically, but it might also help them now, but it might help them to be alert and aware early on if actually a relationship they even entered now becomes coercive because their kind of radar is that much more tuned in. So I think we've got a really powerful platform here. But before we go too much further, could you try and define for our audience what coercive control is?

Chrissie Roberts (: 04:03

So coercive control is a crime since 2015. It was introduced under section 76 of the Serious Crimes Act, and it is defined by repeated and continued behaviour that is coercive or controlling towards a person who you're personally connected with. The sort of behaviours we're talking about, wide ranging, often very subtle behaviours that ultimately aim to control the way a person thinks, the way a person behaves, the way a person sees themself. Often it will make the person isolated, so make them lose contact with their friends or family. Often it will make them have quite a negative view of themselves and it affects and one of the biggest things is usually affects and sense of self-worth and they become very much codependent and very attached to the abuser and that makes it really difficult to then escape the situation. One of the aspects that makes it a crime is that the perpetrator ought to know that their behaviour will have a serious effect on the victim and that's a really tricky thing.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:06

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'm right in saying that almost can be that trying to reinforce the couples as being a team, a complete team, well we don't need anyone else, so don't need to see your mom or we don't need to see your friends because we are enough as we are. So you might not almost realise that they're being edged out and the bubble of just the two of you is being prioritised until years down the line maybe when you suddenly realise it's just very insular.

Chrissie Roberts (: 05:34

Yeah, definitely. I think your partner tends to have strong negative opinions about your friends or your family, so very subtle comments about the intentions of your friends or family and kind of planting those seeds of doubt in your head about who's on your side and who isn't. And the narrative is often very much that part of your partner is the only person you can trust and then built up over time. Often over a matter of years, people in this sort of situation will find themselves with no one other than abuser slash partner.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 06:03

Yeah, absolutely. So it's really undermining yourself, your own confidence and starting paranoia really for how trustworthy other people or their advice might be. I think it's important that we state that this is a gender neutral crime. This can happen with male to female, female to female, male to male, whatever. It's like this can affect anybody of any background of any culture, of any faith. I think many people might have this in their minds as a male to female crime. And many years ago now, coronation Street had a storyline where Gail Plat and her family were being really controlled by Gail's new partner, Richard Hillman, which did not end up well for the family. I have to say. I think it ended up worse for Richard from memory, I think he ended up driving his car into some water, but that's not the case is that this can happen to

Chrissie Roberts (: 06:57

Anybody. Yeah, definitely. It can be in any relationship too. It's not just a romantic relationship, it's just any relationship where you're kind of personally connected to each other. I think what's really important as well is that often power dynamics come into play quite a lot. So I think particularly young people, people with existing vulnerabilities, so maybe who come from who have difficult family backgrounds or who maybe who are struggling with their mental health, if you've got people that have those sort of existing vulnerabilities, I think are particularly vulnerable to coercive control because you can be in a position where you're sort of almost looking for guidance. So someone that comes along and wants to take over and especially under the guise of looking after you can be really attractive. There are lots of people that end up in these sort of situations because they entered the relationship in quite a vulnerable state which was taken advantage of.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 07:46

Gosh, that is such an important situation actually, that this doesn't just need to be within an intimate relationship, a sexual relationship. This can be a colleague, this can be a friend. And there's definite overlap between what you just said there about the vulnerability. I dunno if you've done the prevent training for kind of an anti radicalization, but it's finding the person or the people who are most vulnerable to then be able to exploit. And I also am thinking if people are listening or watching this perhaps working in a CAM service, so children and young people, sometimes people can be so very controlled by one of their peers, which can really affect their mental health as well, and I think it's kind of helpful to kind of think that could be reframed as a coercive relationship actually.

Chrissie Roberts (: 08:32

Yeah, definitely. I think that where the onus is often placed on intimate relationships because of the level of contact that you tend to have with that person and how sort of all encompassing it can be, but it can often cases it would be in between parents and children, adult children and their parents or anyone that's living together or in close quarters in particular. It's just something that we need to be more aware of. Definitely

Dr Marianne Trent (: 08:56

We do. And actually I sometimes you have a realisation you're like, oh yeah, of course that makes sense, but I've only just had it now that potentially you could go down criminal prosecution routes for coercive control from a parent. This doesn't need to just be an intimate relationship and I think that is my first take home point from this episode actually, Chrissy.

Chrissie Roberts (: 09:18

Yeah, no, definitely. I think the key thing about it's that it's sort of a pattern of behaviour and that the effects on the victim serious, so the victim might be isolated as we said from the friends and family might be suffering with their mental health, with their physical health because coercive controlling behaviour can also be around medical, controlling someone's access to medical, to healthcare, controlling someone's access to medications that they need in a reproductive control, so stopping someone from taking the pill. There's all sorts of ways that this sort of behaviour can manifest itself. This is the tricky thing about it is that it's often a constellation of different tactics that are used in order to keep someone under control. Absolutely.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 10:03

Do we have a sense of why? I want to steer clear of personality diagnoses here, but what do we think that person would get from that?

Chrissie Roberts (: 10:13

I think it obviously completely depends on the person and the situation, but things often play out in life in the way we relate to each other. It probably comes from a place of deep insecurity and of maybe that having quite unhealthy scripts of what relationships are, who knows what someone who perpetuates this behaviour experience when they were a child. So many things that could be going on behind this. And I think as well that the people who perpetrate this sort of behaviour are also people we need to be thinking about supporting to stop it, to start to break the cycle of it. I think it's quite common as well for people to be in multiple relationships like this, so one person will leave and then they will move on to the next relationship and kind of fall into the same pattern. It's got to be quite a miserable and unhappy way to relate to people. Ideally as psychologists we would see, we will be able to work with people who were perpetrators as well as just victims.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 11:08

Yeah, absolutely. It's not just that we want to help the victim here, we want to open up some insights, some reflection, some acknowledgement that this is not okay, this isn't an okay way to treat people.

Chrissie Roberts (: 11:25

Definitely. And I think the perspective of the abuser is probably quite an anxiety riddled existence, really worrying constantly about what another person is doing, one other person's thinking how another person's behaving, who they're speaking to. So I think there must be room for people who are perpetuating their sort behaviour to want to change the way that they're behaving in relationships.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 11:47

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the very tricky thing about all relationships really is that they are multiple parts, so that can make it extra tricky when you're looking at potentially dissolving a coercive relationship because of course a partner might also at times be very loving or if it's an intimate partner it might be very sexually gratifying for you or if it's a friend or even if it's a partner, might be really fun to go out on day trips with and to do things with together. And so it's not just that simple thing of recognising the coercive element and ending that relationship very involved and it, it's all interwoven, isn't it?

Chrissie Roberts (: 12:30

Yeah, that's a really good point because often something that stops victims from being able to see what's happening is that there becomes kind of a cycle of reward and punishment. So when you behave in a way that the abuser doesn't like, they might kind of really not talk to you or they might be quite emotionally abusive, call you names make you feel bad about yourself, but the rest of the time while you're behaving in ways that they approve of that will often be rewarded by affection. I think what's often quite a misunderstood term, but love bombing, so sort of really over the top displays of affection and of love for someone being really overwhelmed by maybe even being bought gifts. So it's almost like the victim becomes trained to behave in certain ways and that can be really subtle ways, the way that they dress, the way that they speak, even lots of really subtle aspects of who they are over time just sort of become

Dr Marianne Trent (: 13:24

Moulded. Absolutely. And in this modern age of ours, if someone buys us something that we like, we might put that on social media and so we might text our friends or WhatsApp them and so for all intents and purposes, your friends and your family might see them as being a really good generous partner. Oh, you've bought them a trip to New York. Wow, you've been out to that Michelin starred restaurant. Oh, I've never been there. That's fans fancy. I'd love to do that. What an amazing boyfriend, what an amazing girlfriend. And it can be tricky to open up that narrative as well. Actually that's

Chrissie Roberts (: 14:01

Maybe another side to the story too, and this is part of the walls that are put up around you in terms of, and often an abuser might literally say, well, and bring these things up to you when you've done something that they don't like so well, I bought you this or Well, I'm a wonderful husband because I did this and I did that. And it's very much kind of used as evidence that you are the one that's in the wrong all the time and that their behaviour is actually fine. They must love you because look at all these wonderful things that they've done. It also really cleverly creates this sort of outwards facade for everyone in your life and on social media, people that will look from the outside and think, oh, he's what a wonderful relationship. They look so happy sort of thing. So when you begin to question, when you begin to notice that maybe there is coercive control happening, it can be really, really difficult to speak to anyone about it, to open up to even a really close friend or a parent or it can be really difficult to have those conversations because you'll often be met with, oh, but I thought that they did this for you or I thought you seemed really happy sort of thing.

(: 15:13

So it's offered, it's all these things that go on very much behind closed doors between two people that is just really difficult to try and wrap your head around when you're trying to get out of that situation.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 15:26

And I think as a therapist, as a friend, as a daughter, as a sister, as a mommy, dunno why that one came last. I guess it's allowing people to speak their truth and not necessarily thinking that you need to rationalise that for them or thought balance. We're not doing CBT here if someone says, oh, I'm not feeling that happy in that relationship, we shouldn't be saying, but you've got that trip to Paris booked. It's our job therapeutically and personally if it's a personal relationship to really tune in to really hear and to give space and oxygen to this conversation.

Chrissie Roberts (: 16:07

So I think it is really important to, as you said, focus on how someone feels. If you are the person in the situation thinking, how do I feel? Do I feel happy with this person? Do they make me feel scared? Do I feel comfortable around this person? Am I worrying about what I say all the time? Am I treading on eggshells? Do I feel tense and I'm putting on a show all the time because I'm worried about what this person might do if I show who I really am. That's a really key thing if you're to have a conversation with someone who might be in this sort of relationship is to focus entirely on their feelings and not necessarily even towards their partner, but towards them to think a big sign is for people to think that the problems in their relationship are entirely their fault and to almost sort of hero worship their partner and sort of think, oh, well no, he's wonderful, he's done this, he's done this and he is looked after me and stuff and I just can't, is this feeling or this sense that someone feels like everything's their fault all the time?

(: 17:05

That's just one of the biggest red flags because this sort of behaviour over time has that effect on someone. You just sort of become a sponge for all of the blame, all of the shame that's going round, you just absorb. So yeah, definitely focusing on feelings rather than any sort of specific behaviour that you can pinpoint is really important. Yeah, that's such

Dr Marianne Trent (: 17:28

A useful kind of thing to watch out for actually. Yeah, we're not looking at tangible bubbles here. We are looking at actually the things that have happened that have made you feel something uncomfortable or painful or fearful or just unease that sense of not being able to be yourself. I think it's really important we just take a moment to really slow everything down here and just have it be vocalised that everybody deserves to be in a relationship or in a friendship that feels reciprocal, fun, warm, compassionate, nonjudgmental, not threatening, not scary. Those are not outlandish things to want for your intimate relationships or for your personal or colleague relationships are they?

Chrissie Roberts (: 18:19

No, exactly. Exactly. And I think that sometimes when you've been in this sort of relationship, you feel very much like the person that you're with is more than you deserve, and that is something that people that perpetuate this sort of behaviour will really clinging to this sense of that you're really lucky to have me and no one else would fuck with you, and all of that sort of stuff, which really becomes massively internalised and takes many years often for victims to undo that sense of being undeserving of these really, really basic relational needs. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 18:57

We're all deserving of love and regardless of what's come before and regardless of our upbringing, it's safe for us to have functional relationships and they can absolutely leave ripples of trauma down our own lives and intergenerationally as well when that hasn't happened. But could we think about what a really common term is in the media currently, which is gaslighting and that seems to be everywhere at the moment. What's that all about?

Chrissie Roberts (: 19:27

Yeah, definitely. I think it's because it's become so popularised, lots of psychology terms have been, often people think it just means basically disagreeing with someone. So you say something and then someone has a different view and they're very passionate in that view and try to convince you that you are wrong and then they think people will think that's gaslighting. It's much more complex than that really. It's kind of making someone doubt their reality basically. So the most obvious example is you say the sky is blue and then someone says to you, no, it's not, it's orange and they'll keep going at you and going at you until you kind of see yourself starting to doubt or can I see properly, can I sort of thing doubting, literally doubting your reality and what you perceive. So I think examples of that in a relationship would be your partner says something really unkind to you and then will instantly deny it and sort of say what you're talking about, you've made that up.

(: 20:32

Gas lighting often kind of makes people struggle a lot with their mental health because it makes you doubt your reality. You start feeling like you're going mad, you start mistrusting everything. So you start thinking, did that happen? Was that real? Did they do that? So it can be really hard to just have a sense of narrative of what's happening in your life. A good sign that's happening to you is if you start feeling the need to, which is something that I've experienced, is start feeling the need to record things. So feeling the need to write things down all the time, feeling the need to journal or make voice recordings of conversations, even setting up CCTV and stuff just because you need proof and you need something to cling to. Even if you don't use that to then confront the person and say, no, look, this is what happened very much for my own sanity, for me to be able to think, to start to have an idea of no, that did happen, that they did say that or they did do that. A really dangerous tactic really because of those effects it has on your mental health and on your ability to trust your own thoughts and feelings about a situation.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:47

Absolutely. That's exactly what I was thinking, that almost those recordings or those notes you're making are to learn to trust yourself again because you've become so undermined. And I know some examples might involve finding that your pill packet or some other medication that you're taking, the foil blister is empty and thinking, oh, I sure I haven't taken that. And then the partner might say, yeah, yeah, you took it standing by the window this morning. I saw you had a conversation whilst you were doing it. And then you might think, okay, I was just distracted, but I don't remember feeling that pill in my mouth. But yeah, okay, I must have happened. Or you suddenly find the window is open or the door is open and you felt sure that you shut that earlier and then they kind of would say, well, you've left the door open. It can't be me I wasn't in. And that's not necessarily the case. This could be, this could be somebody trying to undermine your confidence in yourself.

Chrissie Roberts (: 22:41

Yeah, again, it just feeds into this sort of narrative of you can't be trusted, no one can be trusted. I'm the one that knows best. I'm the one that has your best interests at heart. It that sort of power really that it over someone's life.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 22:55

Yeah. And I know that you working as a researcher might be a big fan of an outcome measure. Are there outcome measures that screen for coercive control?

Chrissie Roberts (: 23:06

I'm not sure really. I think it would be something, I know that it's in terms of legally, it's something that's really, really notoriously difficult for the police to investigate and to build up evidence of because it's often so subtle. It's often these really tiny drops in the ocean almost that build up over time into something quite big that has a massive effect on someone. But now I think that there's certain behaviours that are real red flags that there's no reason why someone can reasonably be doing that. So for example, tracking your car or taking your wages. So financial control, there's certain things that kind of smoking more of a smoking goal type thing, but those things are often crimes of themselves. So things like threats to kill, things like that, it's often a crime of itself. And the real day-to-day damage, the insidious damage of coercive control is in all of those very small interactions and those small but constant things that someone will do to undermine your sense of self and your sense of who you are, your sense of who you can trust. So I'm not aware of any real tests for it, and I think that this is part of the issue with it in terms of recognising coercive control and then the step further in terms of prosecuting it.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 24:38

Yeah, okay. So it's really, it's hard to define and maybe some further research on this would be really useful possible doctoral project for somebody looking at potentially putting together an outcome measure for this because that would then open up the conversation, wouldn't it really, without having to dig around too deep because this is not necessarily something that someone would necessarily come to a service wanting to explore. It might be that they're struggling with X, Y, and Z, and then this is actually what's potentially perpetuating the problem, but they wouldn't necessarily be seeking support for that. So for example, a partner might have allowed them to go and sort out their postnatal depression or their OCD, but what we know that potentially underlying that might be the coercive control issue.

Chrissie Roberts (: 25:29

Yeah, definitely. I think it's quite common as well for a perpetrator to really lean into that mental health aspect and the vulnerability of the victim because that then allows them to take up that space and to take up that space as the saviour and the hero and the carer, and also because of the stigma around people with mental health issues, I think it also allows them to have that card to play of, oh, well, they're mentally ill or to undermine their ability to think for themselves again.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 26:03

Absolutely. And I think with what we were saying about the almost radicalization that people are being picked on because vulnerable, this is really potentially helpful conversations to be having at a secondary school education level so that people are beginning to make informed choices about what healthy relationships look like and to make them more immunised or future really so that they're not years down the line. We don't want them being groomed and exploited and only realising so many years later that this wasn't okay, this shouldn't have happened. This wasn't normal no matter what you were told at the time.

Chrissie Roberts (: 26:43

That's definitely my view of things and why I do the work that I do with my lived experience. I think ultimately I wouldn't want my daughter to find herself in the sort of situations I've been in. And I think that the key, as you said is education and awareness and making sure that our children grow up really able to understand and reflect on their own feelings and emotions and have those hers and be able to have safe adults where they can kind of unpick how they felt in a situation. I think a lot of the issue with coercive control is that you'll have many years of feeling very uncomfortable and very unsafe and very unhappy if you don't trust your thoughts and feelings to begin with because you've not had that solid base of being taught that as a child or it's not been something that's been nurtured in you. You're kind of set up to fail from the start really. So I think it's really important that just this sort of emotional education is really important,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 27:40

And again, it really strengthens the narrative of trying to have a nonjudgmental stance. So perhaps a parent might have made it very clear they don't want their child engaging in sexual activity until they're 25 or married or whatever, and somebody has been in a sexual relationship. It's kind of not about that. It's about the fact that actually this has all gone horribly wrong and I happen to be having sex as well, and it's extricating the feelings of anger or disappointment and actually again, really trying to tune in to the distress the person is bringing you. This is not okay. No, exactly. Thank you so much for your time and for really helping our audience to be illuminated in this really important area. If people want to connect with you, where's the best place that they could do that?

Chrissie Roberts (: 28:28

LinkedIn and Twitter.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 28:30

I really want to thank you and I hope that you are being well supported both at work and personally, and that you can go on and have really happy, healthy, fruitful relationships with everyone around you. Thank you, Maria.

Chrissie Roberts (: 28:45

Thanks for having me

Dr Marianne Trent (: 28:45

Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you so much. What a fabulous guest Chrissy was. Thank you so much for your time. Chrissy. What has this evoked or resonated for you? Drop me a comment below. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please do rate and review. Please do come along to the Aspiring Psychologist community with Dr. Marianne Trent, which is on Facebook, which is the free and exclusive home of Marianne's Motivation and Mindset sessions. I hope this has really helped you to understand a bit more about what Coercive Control is and how you might be able to notice the patterns in yourself or someone that you care about. Thank you so much for your time. If you have found today's episode helpful, I think you'll also really like the one I did with Alexandra looking at Understanding Complex Trauma and OCD.

Jingle Guy (: 29:35

If you with this podcast.