Transcription
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 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 [Music] useful.
Well, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Mariann 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, 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, just want to welcome along our guest for today, Chrissy. Hi, Chrissy. 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 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 conversation being had around complex PTSD. Yeah, thank you for your kind comments about that episode. So, you are a research assistant for 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 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? Yeah, definitely. And I think that this particular type of domestic abuse, it was only criminalized 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. They, 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'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 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 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 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 from our audience what coercive control is? 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 behavior that is coercive or controlling towards a person who you're personally connected with. The sort of behaviors we're talking about are wide-ranging, often very subtle behaviors 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 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 there almost can be that trying to reinforce the couple's as being a team, you know, a complete team. Well, we don't need anyone else. So we don't need to see your mom or we don't need to see your friends because, you know, we're enough as we are. So you might not almost realize that they're being edged out and the bubble of just the two of you is being prioritized until years down the line, maybe when you suddenly realize 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 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, 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 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 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, 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, is it? This can be, 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, you know, difficult family backgrounds or who have maybe 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 kind of especially under the guise of looking after you can be really attractive. There are lots of people who end up in in these sort of situations because they entered the relationship in quite a 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 definitely 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, and I also kind of, I'm thinking if people are listening or watching this, perhaps working in a CAMHS service, 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 a coercive relationship actually. Yeah, definitely. I think that where the focus 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 that's living together or in close quarters in particular. It's just something that we need to be more aware of. Definitely, we do. And actually, I kind of, you know, it's not, you have a real realization like, oh yeah, of course, that makes sense. But I, 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, Chrissy. Yeah, no, definitely. It's, I think the key thing about is that it's sort of a pattern of behavior and that the effects on the victim are serious. So the victim might be isolated, as 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, you know, 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 behavior 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 diagnosis here, but what do we think that person would get from that? I think it obviously completely depends on the person and in the situation. But things often play out in life and the way we relate to each other. It probably comes from a place of of deep insecurity and of maybe that having quite unhealthy scripts of of what relationships are. 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 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 and unhappy way to relate to people. You know, ideally, as the psychologists, we would see, we would 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 insight, some reflection, some kind of 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, 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 this sort of behavior 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, that 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, yeah, recognizing the coercive element and ending that relationship. Like, it's very involved and it's, it's all into woven, isn't it? 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 certain 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 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, over time, just sort of become molded. Absolutely. And in this modern age of ours, you know, if someone buys us something that 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, "Oh, you've bought them a trip to, you know, New York." "Wow." "You know, you've been out to that Michelin star 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 be tricky to kind of open up that narrative as well. Like, actually, that's, you know, there's, uh, maybe another side to the story too. And that's, this is part of the kind of the walls that 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, I bought you this." Or, "Well, you know, I'm a wonderful husband because I, I did this and I did that." And it's very much 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. "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 on social media, people that you know will look from the outside and think, "Oh, he's, what a wonderful relationship. You know, they look so happy," sort of thing. So, 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 up to even a, you know, a really close friend or, you know, 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 that, you know, I thought you seemed really happy," sort of thing. So it's off, 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 to get out of that situation. Yeah, and you know, I think as a, as a therapist, as a friend, as a daughter, as a, as a sister, as a mommy, I don't know why that one came last. I guess it's, 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 shouldn't be saying, "But you've got that trip to Paris booked." You know, it's, it's our job therapeutically, and, you know, personally, if it's a person relationship, to really tune in, to really hear, and to to give space and oxygen to this conversation. Yeah, so I think it's, it's really important to, as he 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 tense and kind of like I'm put 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 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. 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 just, just the one of the biggest red flags. Because this sort of 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 bubbles 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 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 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 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 this sense of that you're really lucky to have me and no one else would put up with you and all 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 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 down our own lives and intergenerationally as well when 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 someone has a 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 think that's gaslighting. It's much more complex than that, really. It's, 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 will keep, you know, keep going at you and going at you until you kind of see yourself starting to like to 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 in and sort of say, "What are you talking about? You've made that up." Lot. Gaslighting often kind of makes people struggle a lot with their mental health because because it makes you doubt your reality, you start feeling like you're going mad, you start mistrusting everyone. So you start thinking, "Did 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 of what's happening in your life. A good sign that you, that that's happening to you is if you start feeling the need to, which is something that that I've experienced, is is started feeling feeling the need to record things. So feeling the need to write things down all the time, feeling the need to 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, for me to be able to think, to start to have an idea of, "No, that, that did happen. That, you know, they did say that or they did do that." A really dangerous tactic, really, because of those effects it has on on your mental health and on your 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 notes you're making are to to learn to trust yourself again because you've become so undermined. And I know kind of some examples might involve of, you know, finding that your pill packet or some other medication that you're taking, the foil blister is empty. And thinking, "I, I haven't taken that." And then the partner might say, "Yeah, yeah, you took it. Standing by the window this morning. You know, I saw you. We 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. That must have happened." Or, you know, that 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 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 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." Is 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 police to investigate and to to build up evidence of because it's often so subtle. It's often, you know, these 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 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 kind of, you know, taking your your wages, um, 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 kill, things like that, that it's often a crime 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 of any real tests for it. And I think that this is this is part of the issue with it in terms of recognizing coercive control and then this the step further in terms of prosecuting it. Yeah, okay. 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 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. Yeah, definitely. I think it's quite common as well for 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 the savior and the hero and the carer. And also sort of because of the 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, I know they're mentally ill." Or there, you know, to undermine their ability to think for themselves again. Absolutely. And you know, I think with what we were saying about the almost radicalization, you know, that people are being picked on because they're vulnerable. This is really potentially helpful conversations to be having at secondary school education level so that people are beginning to make informed choices about what healthy relationships look like and to to kind of make them more immunized for future, really. So that they don't, they don't, they're not years down the line, you know, we don't want them being groomed and 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 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 is education and awareness and making sure that that our children grow up really able to 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, 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 your feel your thoughts and feelings to begin with, because you've not had that, you know, 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 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 under 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, 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 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 both at work and personally and that you can go on and have really happy, healthy, fruitful relationships with everyone around you. Thank you, Mariann. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you so much. What a fabulous guest Chrissy was. Thank you so much for your time, Chrissy. If you would like to go and follow Chrissy on LinkedIn, please do. The details are on screen. 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. Mariann TR, which is on Facebook, which is the free and exclusive home of Mariann's motivation and mindset sessions. I hope this has really helped you to understand the 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 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. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being part of my world. I will bring you the next episode of the podcast on YouTube from 10:00 a.m. on Saturdays. And wherever you get your podcast, it will be 6:00 a.m. on Monday. Take care. [Music]