Jess Hill

Biderman established that three primary elements were at the heart of coercive control: dependency, debility and dread. To achieve this effect, the captors used eight techniques: isolation, monopolisation of perception, induced debility or exhaustion, cultivation of anxiety and despair, alternation of punishment and reward, demonstrations of omnipotence, degradation, and the enforcement of trivial demands.

At the highest end, perpetrators micromanage the lives of their victims, prevent them from seeing friends and family, track their movements and force them to obey a unique set of rules. This abuse is called ‘coercive control’ (and sometimes ‘intimate terrorism’) – the type of oppression Biderman first identified. Here, two types of intimate abuser are commonly identified: the calculating abuser who knowingly manipulates and degrades his partner so he can dominate her; and the paranoid, emotionally dependent abuser who becomes more controlling over time because he’s afraid his partner will leave. They both fit under the title of coercive controllers. At the lower end of the power and control spectrum, we have abusers who are not so intent on dominating their partners, who better suit the term ‘insecure reactors’.

The key to coercive control is to alternate punishments with rewards.