Coercive control - is it all about training and how do we spot an abuser or a victim?
Last night and this morning, we have seen in the UK major BBC news stories featuring SHERA members
and ‘Lisa’ discussing the lack of training that social workers receive on coercive and controlling behaviour (CCB) in England.
The stories focused largely on the shocking finding from a freedom of information (FOI) request made by the BBC, which highlighted that despite coercive and controlling behaviour (CCB) being a crime since 2015, just over 1/3 of the universities who responded to the FOI confirmed that they did not teach social work students about CCB:
‘Social Work England, which accredits these courses, clearly states the curriculum should be updated to reflect the law. But, of the 67 universities that responded, 25 (37%) admitted they did not carry out any specific training on coercive and controlling behaviour, even though nearly a decade has passed since it became a crime.
And less than 10% of higher education accredited social work courses in England offered students a standalone course on coercive control.’
We heard from ‘Lisa’, who discussed how the man who was abusing her (and still is via the family court by denying her any relationship with her child and having destroyed her health over the last decade) would ‘lock her out of the house in the rain’ and ‘explode with violence once or twice a year’. After Lisa managed to escape her abuser, he then tried to claim that he was the victim to social services and Lisa says ‘social services failed to see through his lies’. As a result, Lisa’s child was moved to live with her abuser in the family court and Lisa and her child now do not have any contact. Worse still, Lisa’s abuser has convinced their child that he is the victim and Lisa the abuser. We explain this phenomenon in our CAMS paper here.
The story is much worse than this though. I know Lisa’s case in-depth. I have seen extensive evidence of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her abuser. I know that Lisa is a victim of coercive control, because I have expertise in coercive control, being an academic whose focus of research is CCB and having received extensive training over many years. Sadly, Lisa was not just failed by social services, but by the family courts, the police and multiple agencies.
Coercive control is not well understood by most people. It is too often downgraded as ‘not as serious’ as say physical violence, but this is false. CCB is incredibly dangerous. If you imagine a fire within a building, a fire officer will always tell you that the most dangerous part of the fire is actually the smoke. It is the smoke that kills almost instantaneously, but it is the fire - the more physical threat - that people fear most or take most notice of. The research tells us that like smoke, coercive control is the most dangerous form of abuse because it underpins almost all forms of abuse, whether that is domestic abuse, child sexual abuse or spiritual abuse. Coercive control predicts an escalation of violence, post-separation abuse (often via systems such as the family courts) and even murder/femicide as Prof Jane Monckton-Smith details in her research.
The fallout from CCB can be catastrophic, causing life-long trauma, health problems, educational and employment impacts, destroyed relationships and can even lead to murder as noted above. This is why it is equally important that professionals are trauma-informed and trained regularly, as well as trained on CCB and other forms of abuse. Being trauma-informed means partnering with victim-survivors. It is a strengths-based approach, which seeks to understand and respond to the impact of trauma and abuse/control on people's lives. The approach emphasises physical, psychological, and emotional safety for everyone and aims to empower individuals to re-establish control of their lives. You can learn more about being trauma-informed from Echo training.
These are just some examples of why it is essential for everyone to undertake CCB and trauma-informed practice training.
But this is not just about training.
On a typical day, if we break it down, a social worker may be given a case where two parents are both claiming that the other parent is an abuser. So, the social worker who has had zero training in CCB, will definitely not be able to figure out who is the abuser. They will simply have their personal judgement to guide them. But our personal judgements of others are laced with unconscious or implicit bias, whether we wish to accept that or not, they are.
Research tells us that bias impacts clinical and professional reasoning in social work.
This diagram from The Science Behind Unconscious Bias & How It Affects Hiring (beapplied.com) shows some good examples of this:
The Gender Social Norms Index, covering 85 percent of the global population, reveals that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women. What does this mean for Lisa? It means that as a woman, if her social worker has not had any CCB training, they are more likely to hold biases against her as a woman, than they are towards her abuser who is a man. The danger with gender-bias is there is a ‘double whammy’ effect: if we hold biased views against women (which evidence shows 9/10 of us do) we are also susceptible to confirmation bias: ‘I presume this woman is a manipulative, vengeful and scorned woman because I hear this about women a lot, so I believe the man is the victim’ and perception bias: ‘you often hear that women often seek revenge after a break up’. Then the halo effect kicks in: ‘media tells us men find it difficult to admit they are victims, so I believe this man must be a victim’.
Remember though, the evidence tells us women as a group are far more subject to partner abuse than men. Generally, they are physically and economically less powerful than men within both society and the home, and misogynist stereotypes are far more common than negative male stereotypes, making women far more vulnerable to multiple strategies of abuse (Stark, 2007). Men can be victims though not as often as women and so it is important to be able to identify CCB patterns of behaviour.
Without training in unconscious bias and CCB, it is quite easy to jump to conclusions which are not evidence-based. In Lisa’s case, she provided years worth of evidence that she was a victim, which included evidence of physical abuse (broken bones), police reports and evidence supporting her allegations from many professionals. Unfortunately, because of a combination of factors including but not limited to bias and lack of training in CCB, Lisa’s abuse was not understood and she has been incorrectly assumed to be the abuser, rather than the victim.
You can read about more biases and how this directly impacted one social worker and his practice here.
Unfortunately, training alone will not solve everything.
Even training on implicit or unconscious bias has been found to only raise awareness at best, but not actually reduce bias.
We must also consider that professionals are also fearful of making the wrong decision. They are faced with lack of resourcing and over-stretched services and so there is also a culture of blame and mistrust within our services. Self-preservation then becomes the key pursuit of struggling professionals - while victims are desperate for someone who has the knowledge, time and resource to help them. The system is currently therefore set up to fail these victims and place professionals in very difficult situations.
So what can be done?
I believe we need a whole system approach because we live in a world which encourages people to engage in coercive and controlling behaviours.
When people are pitted against each other, whether over resources, friendships, looks, wealth, popularity or whatever it may be in our capital-driven society - it is not surprising then that people have been taught for decades to abuse others, to lie and manipulate to get what they want.
This is a non-exhaustive list of some key changes that we could make as a society:
Create public health campaigns about the harms of misogyny and implicit bias such as gender-bias, classism, racism and ageism
Provide trauma-informed continual training to ALL professionals who work with families. There is no use in only understanding abuse if you do not understand how to effectively support someone who has been abused.
Supply adequate funding, resources and continuing professional development and training on CCB and all types of abuse to our schools, social care and health services
Teach children from a young age about healthy and non-abusive relationships
Invest in community resources: Each community has unique needs and they should be empowered to support perpetrators who authentically want to change their behaviour and victims who need help to rebuild their lives safely. Communities should be given resources to allow them to provide services for all ages to build support networks and ultimately, to eradicate poverty and provide a basic level of health and safety for all
Hold abusers accountable ‘pivot to the perpetrator’ rather than victim-blame: Too often mothers living in poverty have their children removed due to neglect linked to their socio-economic status - we should not punish people for being poor. As Support not Separation argue, we should take way people’s poverty not their children. Conversely, the private law courts punish women whose ex- ‘partners’ have the most money to keep them engaged in family court. We must de-incentivise the family courts; justice should not just be available to the person with the most money (usually the father). We believe this represents state-sanctioned abuse of women and children, with evidence of catastrophic harm to health, which could be costing society billions. Moreover, prison sentences for dangerous offenders are too lenient. We must stop sending the message that ‘abuse pays’ and send the message ‘if you abuse you will pay’.
Train ALL professionals who work with families (not just social workers) how to understand and identify CCB
Provide resources for victims to give them routes to safety - there is no point training everyone to spot abuse if you are not going to give victims an avenue to safety
Harness the Arts to raise awareness
There are lots of brilliant organisations providing training on CCB, including SHERA and also the Safe and Together Institute. I’m going to provide some examples of how you might spot who an abuser is. This is not a replacement for in-depth training, but it is to help people understand that there are markers and patterns of CCB that can be mapped to understand what is really going on in a situation. This is not a quick win though and supporting victims requires time and resource. It also requires a whole system approach, because currently, our systems are not equipped to serve the people they are meant to.
Signs of coercive control, adapted from training I have delivered with Dr Emma Katz of , who is one of the world’s leading experts on coercive control and the leading expert on CCB in the lives of mothers and children:
control of time and movement, and the micro-management of the victim-survivor’s everyday life & self-expression
emotional and psychological abuse against the victim-survivor and their loved ones (including pets)
manipulation, including through periods of ‘niceness’
sexual coerciveness and rape, paranoia about infidelity, intimate image/video abuse and reproductive coercion
economic and financial abuse
isolation from sources of support, including family, friends, communities and professionals
monitoring, harassment and stalking (including via technology)
manipulating others (including children) to upset, marginalise and disempower the victim-survivor
using and manipulating legal processes and institutions/systems to threaten, harm, impoverish or discredit the victim-survivor
physical violence, physical abuse, intimidation, destruction of property, and threats of violence against the victim-survivor, their loved ones (including pets)
Look out for DARVO:
When a victim attempts to break free, raises concerns about the abuse, and seeks safety, the perpetrator typically responds by justifying, minimising, or outright denying their abusive behaviour. They then attempt to turn the blame on the victim by making counter accusations against the victim to try to make it seem like the victim is the offender and the offender is the victim.
Possible perpetrator:
Seems overbearing or threatening
They more often than not will believe/portray they are ‘entitled’ to enact harmful behaviours e.g. ‘she is my wife I am entitled to sex whether she wants it or not’
Drops hints that their partner/ex is ‘crazy or bipolar’
They may be overtly hostile or be charming and manipulative
Often has complete control over finances/resources
Often has ‘rules’ they expect the victim/family to follow, which they don’t adhere to themselves
As Dr
and Amy Polacko describe in their new book ‘Framed: Women in the family court underworld’ it is essential to keep in mind that: ‘We have a multitude of research describing the character traits of these abusers. Coercive controllers, due to their character traits are wholeheartedly invested in revenge’.It is important to map patterns of behaviours, circumstances and life/context of both the suspected abuser and victim to get the whole picture
Possible victim seems to be very constrained in their daily life, fearful of negative consequences if they displease possible perpetrator:
Answers calls and texts very rapidly
Seems short of money and food
Seems unwell
May have injuries
Seems isolated
To summarise, while training is extremely important and much-needed, there is a lot more we need to do to stop this heinous abuse from occurring. Thank you for reading, to learn more please visit our website:
Thank you Liz!
Excellent article. Thank you for all of the desperately needed research and work that you do.