Recovery gives you back safety and agency.
Experiencing ongoing abuse from a past intimate partner can cause serious injuries to your sense of self and well-being that, if not addressed, may leave you vulnerable and at risk for another potentially harmful relationship. Prioritizing recovery and taking the time to identify the nature of the abuse allows for healing that’s necessary to regain confidence in yourself and the strength to act in your own best interest.
Intimate Partner Abuse: How It Works
A partner who is out to achieve power and control in their intimate relationship uses coercive tactics that are highly effective, particularly when living under the same roof.
Often, the coercive process is subtle and insidious at first with the use of words, demeanor, and manipulation. At times, there can be periods of positive attention, making it all the more effective in confusing the recipient.
Coercive abuse affects one’s life dramatically because the abuse targets a person’s thoughts, feelings, and how they perceive things—affecting their sense of self, view of the relationship, and connection with the world surrounding them.
Until they are able to acknowledge the coercive tactics embedded in their partner’s behavior and identify the psychological injuries they sustained, they will not see themselves as a victim of abuse and will remain in a state of feeling unsafe and a loss of agency over their life.
Identifying the Coercive Tactics and the Injuries
First, it is critical to move out of “not seeing” and minimizing to identifying the specific coercive tactics at play with your partner, and second, to see the traumatic impact on yourself.
I have used Biderman’s Chart of Coercion for the past 30 years in my psychoeducational recovery groups, and it has proven extremely helpful to participants in recognizing the specific coercive tactics they endured.
Recipients of abuse can learn from the Chart of Coercion which tactics they have experienced and begin to see the impact on their psyche. The Chart of Coercion includes the strategic harm of each coercive tactic that’s intended to undermine one’s sense of well-being:
