The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - What is Controlling and Coercive Behaviour? Coercive Control

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. What is coercive control and how might you know 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

Starting point is 00:01:15 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're watching this for you can absolutely benefit and learn even I have had some really helpful join the dots moments during the episode today.

Starting point is 00:02:07 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, Chrissie. Hi, Chrissie. Hello, nice to be here. Thank you for having me. 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

Starting point is 00:02:42 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. Yeah definitely and I think it was it was really refreshing to see kind of the conversation being had around complex PTSD. 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 you know 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

Starting point is 00:03:32 that I've woven into my work as well and I really want 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 Chrissie that you're really wanting to open up the narrative around coercive control? Yeah, definitely. And I think that this particular type of domestic abuse 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. I don't think that one of the most dangerous things about it is it's something that builds up over time it's very much a pattern of behavior and as a victim it's very difficult to recognize that that's happening to you so I think by raising awareness it's just kind of you know having these conversations so that maybe listeners can reflect and maybe think about you know their own

Starting point is 00:04:19 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. Yeah absolutely and 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've even entered now becomes coercive because their kind of radar is that much more tuned in. So, you know, I think we've got a really powerful platform here. But before we go too much further, could you kind of try and define for our audience what coercive control is? So coercive control is a crime since

Starting point is 00:05:08 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 themselves. 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 affects people's self-concept and one of the biggest things is usually affects people's self-esteem and sense of self-worth and they become very much codependent and very attached to the abuser and that makes it

Starting point is 00:05:56 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 behavior will have a serious effect on the victim. And that's a really tricky thing. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'm right in saying that almost can be that trying to reinforce the coupleness of being a team, you know, a complete team. Well, we don't need anyone else. So don't need to see your mum or we don't need to see your friends because, you know, we're 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. Yeah definitely I think your partner tends to have strong negative opinions about your friends or your family so very subtle comments about like the intentions of your friends

Starting point is 00:06:45 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 or partner. Yeah, absolutely. So it's really undermining yourself, your own confidence and kind of starting paranoia really for kind of 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, you know, whatever. It's like this can affect anybody of any background, of any culture,

Starting point is 00:07:31 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 Platt 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. This can happen to 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 have 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

Starting point is 00:08:28 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 kind of especially under the guise of looking after you can be really attractive there are lots of people who end up in these sort of situations because they entered the relationship in quite a vulnerable state which was taken advantage of. Gosh that is such an important consideration actually that this doesn't just need to be within an intimate relationship you know 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 don't know if you've done the prevent training for kind of anti-radicalization, but it's finding the person or the people who are most vulnerable to then be able to exploit. And I also kind of 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

Starting point is 00:09:30 be reframed as a coercive relationship actually. 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 be cases of it being between parents and children, you know, adult children and their parents, or kind of, you know, anyone that's kind of living together or in close quarters in particular. It's just something that we need to be more aware of, definitely. We do.

Starting point is 00:09:58 And actually, I kind of, you know, sometimes you have a realisation, 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. Like this doesn't need to just be an intimate relationship. And I think that is my first take home point from this episode, actually, Chrissie. Yeah, no, definitely. I think the key thing about it is that it's sort of a pattern of behavior and the effects on the victim serious. So the victim might be isolated, as we said, from their friends and family, might be suffering with their mental health, with their physical health. Because coercive controlling behavior can also be around sort of medical, controlling someone's access to medical, to health care, controlling someone's access to medical, to healthcare, controlling someone's access to

Starting point is 00:10:45 medications that they need, and 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. Do we have a sense of why? You know, I want to steer clear of kind of personality diagnoses here, but what do we think that person would get from that? 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.

Starting point is 00:11:22 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 behavior experienced 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 behavior are also people we need to be thinking about supporting to stop it to start to break the cycle of it because i think it's quite common as well for people to be in multiple relationships like this so one person will leave and then you know they will move on to the next relationship and kind of fall into the same pattern it's got to be quite a miserable

Starting point is 00:11:59 and unhappy way to relate to people you know, as psychologists, we would see we will be able to work with people who are perpetrators as well as just victims. Yeah, absolutely. It's not just that we want to help the victim here. We want to kind of open up some insights, some reflections, some acknowledgement that this is not okay. This isn't an okay way to treat people definitely and i think that perspective of the abuser is probably quite an anxiety riddled existence really you know worrying constantly about what another person is doing what another person's thinking how another person's behaving who they're speaking to so i think there must be

Starting point is 00:12:41 room for people who are perpetuating this sort of behaviour to want to change the way that they're behaving in relationships. 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 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 kind of recognizing the coercive element and ending that relationship. Like it's very involved and it's all interwoven, isn't it?

Starting point is 00:13:31 Yeah, that's a really good point, because often something that stops victims from being able to see what's happening 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 of love for someone you know being really overwhelmed by maybe being 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 like the way that they dress the way that they speak even lots of you know really subtle aspects of who they are

Starting point is 00:14:24 over time just sort of become molded absolutely and in this modern age of, you know, really subtle aspects of who they are over time just sort of become moulded. Absolutely. And in this modern age of ours, you know, 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, you know, for all intents and purposes, your friends and your family might see them as being a really good, generous partner, you know, or you've bought them a trip to, you know, New York. Wow. You know or you've bought them a trip to you know new york wow you know you've been out to that michelin starred restaurant oh i've never been there that's fancy i'd love to do that what what an amazing boyfriend what an amazing girlfriend and it can

Starting point is 00:14:55 be tricky to kind of open up that narrative as well like actually that's you know there's maybe another side to the story too and that's this is part of the kind of the walls that are put up around you in terms of and often you know an abuser might literally say well I and bring bring these things up to you when you've done something that they don't like so well I bought you this or well you know I'm a wonderful husband because I did this and I did that and it's very much just kind of used as evidence that you're the one that's in the wrong all the time and that their behavior is actually fine.

Starting point is 00:15:30 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, you know, on social media, people that you know will look from the outside and think, oh, what a wonderful relationship. You know, 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, you know, a really close friend or, you or you know a parent or it can be really

Starting point is 00:16:05 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 that you know I thought you seemed really happy sort of thing so it's often it's all these these things that go on very much behind closed doors between two people that is is just really difficult to try and wrap your head around when you're trying to get out of that situation. Yeah. And, you know, I think as a therapist, as a friend, as a daughter, as a sister, as a mummy, I don't know why that one came last, I guess it's allowing people to speak their truth and not necessarily thinking that you need to rationalize that for them or or thought balance you know we're not doing cbt here if someone says oh i'm not feeling that happy in that relationship we

Starting point is 00:16:51 shouldn't be saying but you've got that trip to paris booked you know it's we it's our job therapeutically and you know personally if it's a personal relationship to really tune in, to really hear and to give space and oxygen to this conversation. Yeah, so I think it's really important to, as you said, focus on how someone feels. If you're the person in the situation thinking, you know, 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 comfortable around this person? Am I worrying about what I say all the time? Am I treading on eggshells? Do I feel tense and kind of like I'm putting on a show all the time because I'm worried about what this person might do if I sort of show who I really am? That's

Starting point is 00:17:36 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 set them think a big sign is for people to think that the problems in their relationship are entirely their fault and to almost sort of like hero worship their partner and sort of think oh well no he's wonderful he's done this he's done this and he's you know he's looked after me and stuff and i just can't you know it's this feeling that or this sense that someone feels like everything's their fault all the time that's this just one of the biggest red flags because this sort of

Starting point is 00:18:10 behavior over time has that effect on someone they just you just sort of become a sponge for all of the blame all the shame that's going around you just sort of absorb so yeah definitely focusing on feelings rather than any sort of specific behavior that you can pinpoint is really important. Yeah, that's such a useful kind of thing to watch out for, actually. Yeah, we're not looking at tangible baubles here. We're looking at actually the things that have happened that have made you feel something uncomfortable or painful or fearful or just unease, you know, that sense of not being able to be yourself. And I think it's really important we just take a moment to really slow everything down here and just have it be vocalized that everybody deserves to be

Starting point is 00:18:58 in a relationship or in a friendship that feels reciprocal, fun, warm, compassionate, non-judgmental, not threatening, not scary. Those are not outlandish things to want for your intimate relationships or for your personal or colleague relationships, are they? No, exactly, exactly. And I think that sometimes when you've been in this sort of relationship, you feel very much like you've, you know, the person that you're with is more than you deserve. And that is something that people that perpetuate this sort of behavior will really cling to this sort of, yeah, this sense of like, you're really lucky to have me and no one else would put with you and all of that sort of stuff which really becomes massively internalized and takes many years often for victims to undo that sense of sort of being undeserving of of these these

Starting point is 00:19:52 really really basic relational needs absolutely yeah we're all deserving of love and regardless of what's come before and regardless of our upbringing, you know, 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 what's that all about yeah definitely I think people I think it's because it's become so popularized like lots of psychology terms have been often people think it just means basically disagreeing with someone so someone so so you say something and then someone has a

Starting point is 00:20:43 different view and they're very passionate in that view and try to convince you that you're wrong. And then they think, you know, 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 sort of example is you say the sky is blue and then someone says to you no it's not it's it's orange and then we'll keep you know keep going at you and going at you until you kind of see yourself starting to like to doubt you know 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 are you talking about? You've made that up. Gaslighting 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

Starting point is 00:21:46 that happen you know was that real did you know did they do that so it can be really hard to just have that have a sense of narrative of what's happening in your life a good sign that that's happening to you is if you start feeling the need to which is something that that I've experienced is starting feeling 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 um even like setting up cctv and stuff just because you need proof and you need kind of 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,

Starting point is 00:22:27 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. Absolutely that's exactly what I was thinking that almost those recordings or those

Starting point is 00:22:52 notes you're making are to learn to trust yourself again because you've become so undermined and I know kind of some examples might involve you know finding that your pill packet or some other medication that you're taking, the foil blister is empty and thinking, oh, I sure haven't taken that. And then the partner might say, yeah, you took it standing by the window this morning. You know, I saw you had a conversation whilst you were doing it. And then you might think, oh, okay, I was just distracted, but I don't remember feeling that pill in my mouth. But yeah, okay, it must have happened. Or, you know, 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,

Starting point is 00:23:30 you've left the door open. It can't be me because I wasn't in. And that's not necessarily the case. You know, this could be you being, this could be somebody trying to undermine your confidence in yourself. Yeah. Again, it just, it it feeds into this 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's that sort of that sort of power really that over someone's life. Yeah and you know 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? I'm not sure, really. I think it would be something that's, I know that it's in terms of legally, it's something that's really, really notoriously difficult for the

Starting point is 00:24:16 police to investigate and to build up evidence of because it's often so subtle. It's often, you know, these really tiny sort of drops in the ocean almost that build up over time you know into something quite big that has a massive effect on someone but no I don't I think that there's there's certain behaviors that are real red flags that kind of there's no reason why someone can reasonably be doing that so for example you know tracking your car or taking your wages, so like financial control. There's certain things that kind of smoking, more of like a smoking gun type thing, but it's quite, those things are often crimes of themselves. So things like threats to

Starting point is 00:25:00 kill, things like that, it's often a crime of of itself and the real day-to-day damage the the insidious damage of coercive control is in all of those those very small interactions and those those small you know 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 test 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. Yeah, okay.

Starting point is 00:25:40 So it's a really, it's hard to define. And yeah, 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, you know, 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

Starting point is 00:26:19 allowed them to go and sort out their postnatal depression or their OCD but what we know that potentially underlying that might be a coercive control issue. Yeah definitely I think it's quite common as well for a perpetrator to really play lean into that mental health aspect and that kind of the vulnerability of the victim because that that then allows them to take up that space and to take up that space as as the savior and the hero and the carer and also sort of because of the stigma around around people with with mental health issues i think it also allows them to have that card to play of oh well you know they're mentally ill or they're you know to undermine their ability to think for themselves again absolutely and you know i think with their ability to think for themselves again. Absolutely. And,

Starting point is 00:27:05 you know, I think with what we were saying about the almost radicalisation, you know, that people are being picked on because they're vulnerable, this is really potentially helpful conversations to be having at a secondary school education level. So the people are beginning to make informed choices about what healthy relationships look like and to kind of make them more immunized for future really so that they're not years down the line you know we don't want them being groomed and exploited and only realizing so many years later that this wasn't okay this this shouldn't have happened this wasn't normal no matter what you were told at the time that's definitely my view of things and why I do the work that I do.

Starting point is 00:27:48 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 heard and be able to have safe adults where they can kind of unpick, you know, how they felt in a situation. Because 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,

Starting point is 00:28:32 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. Yeah, and again, it really strengthens the narrative of trying to have a non-judgmental stance, you know, 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

Starting point is 00:29:02 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. Yeah. 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? LinkedIn and Twitter. I really want to thank you, and I hope that you're being well-supported,

Starting point is 00:29:36 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. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're around you. Thank you, Marianne. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you so much. What a fabulous guest Chrissie was. Thank you so much for your time, Chrissie.

Starting point is 00:29:55 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 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.

Starting point is 00:30:25 Thank you so much for your time. If you 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. Then let this be your guide With this podcast at your side You'll be on your way to being qualified It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast With Dr. Marianne Trent My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist it just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of

Starting point is 00:31:36 filled me of confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me you will not put the book down once you start.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - What is Controlling and Coercive Behaviour? Coercive Control

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