Asking the wrong question about coercive controllers

Coercive control is a pattern of assault, threats, humiliation, intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish or frighten the victim. Where does this behavior come from?

A Lovefraud reader sent me an article by Dr. Emma Katz, who describes herself as a “globally respected expert in coercive control, domestic violence and domestic abuse.” I invite you to read the article:

She didn’t “pick wrong.” Society failed by creating millions of abusive men.

In her article, Katz says there are so many abusers in the world that “we need to stop blaming women for ‘ignoring red flags’ when men turn out to be controlling and abusive partners.”

I listened to Katz speak on a few podcasts, and she does seem to be an expert in coercive control and how it affects women and children. I agree with her point that victim-blaming is counter-productive, but she doesn’t mention the psychological reasons why people get stuck in abusive relationships. And as far as explaining where this behavior comes from and how to address it, I’m afraid she’s clueless.

Coercive control

Katz is a lecturer in criminology at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, England, where coercive control is illegal. 

Coercive control became a criminal offense in the UK in 2015. This is great, although I’ve heard of people who have a hard time getting the crime prosecuted. Among the groups advocating for the law was the Women’s Aid charity.

“Coercive and controlling behaviour is at the heart of domestic abuse,” the charity states on its website. “This controlling behaviour is designed to make a person dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence and regulating their everyday behaviour.”

Here are examples of coercive control, according to Women’s Aid.

• Isolating you from friends and family
• Depriving you of basic needs, such as food 
• Monitoring your time 
• Monitoring you via online communication tools or spyware 
• Taking control over aspects of your everyday life, such as where you can go, who you can see, what you can wear and when you can sleep 
• Depriving you access to support services, such as medical services 
• Repeatedly putting you down, such as saying you’re worthless
• Humiliating, degrading or dehumanising you 
• Controlling your finances 
• Making threats or intimidating you

These behaviors may be familiar to you. That’s because they are all classic psychopathic behaviors that we talk about here on Lovefraud.

Stop blaming the victim

We all know that abusive relationships don’t start out that way. As Katz writes:

“They usually start out seeming really nice. Abusive words and actions are slowly and subtly introduced, alongside a lot of ‘nice’ behaviour that dilutes the impacts of this subtle abuse. They typically wait until the target is entangled and entrapped – after moving in together, marrying them or expecting a baby with them – until they start to abuse more obviously.”

This is true. Because the perpetrators are nice in the beginning, the targets develop psychological bonds with them. When the bad behavior starts, it actually strengthens the psychological bonds and makes it difficult for the targets to leave.

I agree that the targets should not be blamed. But to address why this is happening, we all need to be educated about the psychological realities of both the targets and the perpetrators. 

Katz simplifies this incredibly complex issue by saying, “our societies create vast amounts of people (the large majority of them men) who want to coercively control and domestically abuse their partners and families.”

I’m sorry, but men don’t suddenly wake up in the morning and decide to become abusive. There are reasons for the behavior.

Intimate Partner Violence statistics

Katz quoted statistics about how many men engage in interpersonal violence (IPV). She did note, parenthetically, that women can be abused by other women or people of “diverse gender identities,” but she focused on blaming men. 

She quoted a study that said one in five U.S. men had been domestically violent toward their current partner or spouse. 

That particular study looked for correlations between IPV and physical and mental health issues in the perpetrators. It found that IPV is associated with irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, substance abuse and prior family violence.

As far as mental health issues, the study looked at relationships between IPV and anxiety, depression and PTSD in the perpetrator. It did NOT look into personality disorders. 

Abuser psychological issues

Another paper, however, did exactly that. It was authored by Katherine L. Collison and Donald R. Lyman, who is a well-known psychopathy researcher. The research found that all personality disorders were significantly and positively related to IPV perpetration, especially antisocial and borderline personality disorders.

The idea that abusers have personality disorders is not new. Back in 1995, Dr. Donald G. Dutton wrote The Batterer: A psychological profile. (Read my review of the book on Lovefraud.) Dutton focused on abusive men in this book.

He identified three types of wife assaulters: 

• Psychopathic — men who become cool and controlled when engaged in violence.
• Over-controlled — men who have rigid ideas about sex roles and demand subservience.
• Cyclical and emotionally volatile — men who follow a pattern of tension building, acute battering and loving contrition. Dutton believes they have borderline personality disorder.

The point is that men — or women — who engage in coercive control have serious psychological issues. Many of them are sociopaths, meaning they have antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic or psychopathic personality disorders.

We all need to know that people like this exist. We need to know the warning signs, so that when we see them, we can run away.

Predators live among us

Katz, however, believes most women can’t do this, and it’s not reasonable to expect them to.

“Long term, reducing the terrible rates of intimate partner rape, domestic violence and abuse and coercive control can’t be achieved by expecting all the non-abusive people who are genuinely looking for love to be able to steer clear of all of the abuse perpetrators,” she writes.

I disagree. This is exactly what needs to happen. 

The blunt truth is that predators live among us. In fact, as Dr. Liane Leedom explains in the free introduction to her fabulous skills training program, psychopaths evolved, they were designed by nature, to use other people. It’s in their DNA. Once they are adults, they are not going to change. So yes, we all need to know about them.

The wrong questions

Katz, on the other hand, wants questions asked on a “broader societal level.” She asks:

• What is it about how our societies are functioning that is causing so many men to become domestically abusive and coercively controlling to their partners and families?
• What happens to make so many men grow up into a person who makes choices to domestically abuse other human beings? 

These are the wrong questions to ask about coercive controllers. 

The fact is that many perpetrators of coercive control and domestic violence are genetically predisposed to this behavior. They have personality disorders.

Yes, there is an interaction between nature and nurture. Bad parenting fosters people who already have genetic predisposition towards abuse to engage in that behavior. Often at-risk kids have sociopathic parents. And guess what? They’re lousy parents.

Once at-risk children are adults, they are not going to develop a conscience or the ability to love. They are permanently predisposed to abusive behavior. 

Katz says we should change societies so future generations will have fewer abusers. 

A better solution is to educate everyone about the predators who live among us. We need to avoid them and not have children with them, so that maybe, after many generations, the abusers will die out.

Learn more: Survivors guide to healthy people and healthy relationships