Family violence is rarely just physical abuse. It almost always involves a combination of other types of abuse (verbal, emotional, sexual), resulting in a dynamic of coercive control. Coercive control is a pattern of behavior in which the abuser seeks to maintain power and control in the relationship through various forms of manipulation, intimidation and punishment. One type of abuse often begets another in a vicious cycle ultimately resulting in the survivor feeling powerless and trapped in the relationship.

What Is Financial Abuse?

Each type of abuse plays its own role in shifting the power and control to the abuser. Physical abuse can be used to show noncompliance with an abuser’s authority will result in physical pain, which also carries the implied threat that noncompliance in the future will have similar repercussions. Verbal abuse is often used to convey the threat of physical violence, exploit the survivor’s insecurities, or threaten financial or social ruin. Emotional or psychological abuse often involves diminishing the survivor’s self-esteem, self-confidence, and/or making the survivor feel as they are somehow responsible for (and possibly deserving of) the abuse they receive.