When Systems Misread Power, Harm Becomes Invisible One of the most persistent failures in child abuse and family court cases is not indifference to children’s safety. It is a failure of interpretation. Coercive control is still widely treated as a relationship problem rather than what it actually is: a structural form of abuse rooted in …
There are moments in coercive control where nothing seems to make sense. If you have ever wondered why professionals sometimes get it wrong or why you may have doubted yourself along the way, I want to offer a framework that brings clarity. For more than forty years, across clinical practice, research, and my own lived …
Introduction As clinicians, we are trained to validate our clients’ experiences. But in cases of family estrangement, that well-intentioned validation can sometimes reinforce a false narrative—particularly when coercive control is at play. The child who rejects a parent is not always responding to genuine harm. Sometimes, that rejection is the result of indoctrination—a process by …
For many protective parents, the courtroom doesn’t feel safe. It feels like just another place where the abuser is in control. Yet another battlefield. Coercive controllers know how to twist the story. They push buttons, they provoke, they record, they accuse, they stay calm in public, and they control the narrative. All of it is …
Coercive control is abuse, even when there are no bruises. For children, it’s not just confusing. It’s developmental and complex trauma. And yet, because it often doesn’t “look like abuse,” it gets ignored, especially by family court. In this blog, we’ll break down why coercive control is especially dangerous for children, how it operates in …
Your ex isn’t just being difficult… they are using your child to control you. This isn’t co-parenting. This is abuse. While they play the calm, collected parent in court, you’re left fighting for your child’s well-being, painted as the unstable one. Sound familiar? Introduction Coercive control is the underpinning of all abuse. It can be …