December 1, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode of Genesis The Podcast, host Maria MacMullin delves into the topic of coercive control with expert Kate Amber. Ms. Amber, a survivor, who holds an MS in Psychology of Coercive Control from the University of Salford and is the founder of End Coercive Control USA (ECCUSA), shares her personal experiences with domestic abuse and explains her Quicksand Model of understanding coercive control. Kate Amber discusses how coercive control extends beyond physical violence in relationships to include patterns of manipulation and domination. The conversation covers the evolution of the term, systemic failures in recognizing coercive control, the impact on children, and how societal structures like patriarchy enable such behaviors. Amber also highlights how legislative and cultural shifts can aid in better addressing coercive control. The episode concludes with a discussion on the role of media in perpetuating or challenging coercive control and offers resources for further learning and support. Listeners can receive a discount on education modules related to coercive control offered through ECCUSA. Listen to the full episode for a discount code and where to find links to the trainings.
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Today, we delve into the complex and often hidden
dynamics of coercive control,where manipulation, subtlety,
and distortion of truth createpowerful barriers to autonomy.
I'm joined by Kate Amber, anational expert in the field of
coercive control, to illuminatethe ways this pattern of
behavior operates, not justwithin private relationships,
(00:21):
but within the very structuresthat shape our collective
experience.
This episode will offer a deeperunderstanding of how such
insidious tactics underminefreedom and how awareness is the
first step to reclaiming powerand truth.
I'm Maria McMullen, and this isGenesis the Podcast.
In a world where truth is oftentwisted and power can be wielded
(00:43):
as a weapon, understanding thatcoercive control can entrap
targeted victims like quicksandis more urgent than ever.
Today we're joined by KateAmber, a leading expert whose
work is reshaping how we seeabuse.
With a Master of Science andPsychology of Coercive Control
from the University of Salford,Kate has dedicated her career to
exposing the subtle strategicpatterns that underlie
(01:05):
oppression in intimaterelationships, groups, and
society at large.
As the founder of NCORCIVControl USA and creator of the
Quicksand model, Kate bringsinvaluable insight into how
individuals and professionalscan recognize, resist, and
ultimately prevent thisinsidious abuse.
Together, we'll uncover thetactics of coercive control and
(01:27):
empower ourselves to challengeits grip within relationships,
our organizations, our systems,and beyond.
Kate, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:36):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Let's get started with a few definitions that can
shape our understanding of thistopic.
How would you define coercivecontrol?
SPEAKER_00 (01:48):
I define coercive control as the pattern of
behavior used to entrap a targetin oppression and domination.
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Okay.
We'll unpack all of that,hopefully, throughout this
conversation.
I also understand you havecreated your own model of
coercive control called thequicksand model.
What led you to create andresearch that model?
SPEAKER_00 (02:12):
Well, initially, I had recently been able to
escape, or at least I thought Ihad escaped, a relationship with
someone who had been abusive,but it seemed like it was a
little different from myunderstanding of domestic
violence.
It certainly had some aspects ofthat, but it seemed like I
needed to figure out what thiswas that I'd actually gone
(02:34):
through.
So I started doing research andI found Evan Stark's book on
coercive control.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:43):
And from there I ended up finding the master's
program at the University ofSalford, and I enrolled in that
program.
They have a master's degree inthe psychology of coercive
control.
And while in that program, Istarted to see coercive control
(03:04):
in a much broader sense.
It was no longer, in mythinking, just within the arena
of domestic violence.
And while I was doing researchand reading and studying for my
master's, and then I did myresearch program, I had an
(03:24):
experience where the countyattorney's office had contacted
me and said that they were goingto be dropping the pending
protective order violation case.
Now, my ex had already beenconvicted of family violence,
but this was a second case thathad been pending for three years
because of COVID.
(03:45):
So the courts were all shutdown, right?
Right.
And they contacted me to let meknow that the case was going to
be dismissed.
And when they did that, all ofmy complex PTSD symptoms went
through the roof.
And I woke up in the middle ofthe night one night with my
heart racing and my mind racingand panic attacks, and just and
(04:08):
for more than an hour I laythere just trying to get myself
calmed down.
SPEAKER_01 (04:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:14):
Because I felt like I was drowning and suffocating.
I felt like I was sinking.
And it was absolutelyterrifying.
And in that moment, I had thismoment of clarity where I
realized this must be what itfeels like to die in quicksand.
And that was the birth of thequicksand model.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
Which I intentionally created so that it
would apply across every contextwhere coercive control could be
used.
SPEAKER_01 (04:49):
That's fascinating.
Thank you for sharing some ofyour personal story with us.
And I'm just really glad to havethat context around this
conversation.
Can you share some specificbehaviors or patterns that
constitute coercive control inintimate relationships?
SPEAKER_00 (05:08):
Sure.
So coercive control inregardless of whether it's an
intimate relationship or a groupor wherever it occurs, there are
certainly signs that it'shappening.
And the quicksand model, I setthese up as weapons.
I call them the D's, the E's,the F's, and the I's.
(05:31):
And I did it that way so itwould be very easy to learn.
And I won't go into many ofthem, but just to give you an
idea, the Fs, for instance, areforce, fraud, and fear.
And so if you are learning thequicksand model or you just want
to learn a little bit aboutcoercive control, if you just
learn those three (05:48):
force, fraud, and fear, you will be well on
your way to seeing how coercivecontrol functions.
Because those three methods areused across all of the behaviors
that coercive controllers use toentrap their victims.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
So that is also significantly complex, and a lot
of people do not often see thosetypes of behaviors as forms of
domestic violence.
So let's kind of break it downfor them how it differs from
things like physical violence tobe a victim of coercive control.
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
Sure, yes.
So there is currently amisconception about the way that
coercive control differs fromother forms of violence and
abuse.
Within our laws, in the UnitedStates at least, domestic
violence is considered theumbrella, and coercive control
is considered this little thingthat happens underneath domestic
(06:51):
violence.
But from the training that Ireceived at the University of
Salford and from my own livedexperience, it's actually the
other way around.
Coercive control is consideredthe umbrella, and domestic
violence would fall underneaththat umbrella.
And inside of domestic violencewould be this one thing called
(07:13):
physical violence.
So when you have a pattern ofcoercive control, there may be
physical violence present, theremay not.
But the big issue about coercivecontrol is that it is a pattern
of many different types of abuseover a period of time that
(07:34):
results in the targeted victimbecoming entrapped and losing
their autonomy, having theirlife constrained, and being
unable to essentially they areunfree.
They are in a slave-like orhostage-like situation.
SPEAKER_01 (07:51):
So described in that way, that does sound to me like
abuse.
That sounds to me like a form ofviolence or domestic terrorism,
if you will, to entrap someonein a psychological control or
manipulation is terrifying.
And it certainly does cause alot of trauma, a lot of PTSD as
(08:15):
you experienced uh in your ownlife.
And it is definitely a form ofabuse.
And so I like that visual thatyou've just given us of the
change in what is the umbrellathat surrounds all of these
things that are part of domesticviolence or even systemic
(08:35):
oppression and manipulation,which are things that we're
going to talk about here today.
Could you describe for us theorigins of the term coercive
control and how itsunderstanding has evolved over
time?
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
Yeah, the term coercive control was actually
coined in the early 80s by SusanSchechter.
And then it was popularized inEvan Stark's book, the first
book that I read on coercivecontrol.
And the reason and the thinkingbehind a shift from a violent
(09:11):
incident model, which is thecurrent model that our systems
are all structured on, to apattern of behavior model was
because there was suchstructural and systemic failure
for victims trying to navigatethese systems.
And because we were looking atdomestic violence as though it
(09:35):
was equal to physical violence,we were missing 95% of what's
actually happening to thesevictims in these situations.
And at the same time that theywere talking about needing to
shift to a pattern-basedbehavior model, they also
discovered through someAustralian homicide reviews that
(09:58):
domestic violence homicide wasstrongly related to coercive
control.
And they discovered that in 99%of the cases of homicide that
they were studying in this onehomicide review in 2015, they
discovered that 99% of thosehomicides were preceded by a
(10:22):
pattern of coercive control by amale perpetrator against a
female victim.
And so that indicated thatcoercive control was a very high
risk factor for homicide, if notthe highest.
So that was the motivation forpassing the criminalization of
(10:42):
coercive control in the UK in2015.
And because they wanted toreduce domestic violence
homicide.
Now, in that study, the otherthing that was really
interesting that they found wasnot only was there coercive
control present in 99% of thesecases before the homicide, and
there are two homicide reviews.
(11:04):
In the first one, 30% of thosehomicides, that was the first
act of physical violence.
And in the second one, which isthe more recent one, 75% it was
the first act of physicalviolence.
So it completely shifted ourthinking around domestic
(11:27):
violence, how to determinewhat's high risk.
And so now there's a betterunderstanding, and I and the
hope is that we can get thiscommunicated to the rest of the
systems, just how critical thisis, that we need to be able to
detect this system, this patternof coercive control, before it
(11:49):
escalates to that level ofdanger.
SPEAKER_01 (11:53):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
That's a lot of very importantcontext for us to understand
about coercive control and howthings might be evolving in the
future, because we know that thedomestic violence movement here
in the United States started outreally as the battered women's
movement, and that was based orrooted very strongly in physical
violence and getting legislationpassed to end or to criminalize
(12:20):
wife beating.
And, you know, that goes wayback to the 70s and the women's
movement and a lot of otherthings.
But staying very focused then ondomestic violence and here in
the 21st century, could youprovide some real-world examples
illustrating how abusers usecoercive control to isolate,
(12:40):
intimidate, and or manipulatetheir partners?
SPEAKER_00 (12:44):
Yeah, so there's a lot of ways.
Um coercive controllers arecreative and they are very good
at shifting their behaviorwhenever something is no longer
permitted.
So ergo, that's why once wecriminalize physical violence,
they had to find some other wayto dominate their partners, and
(13:07):
that's where coercive controlreally took off.
And I got myself a little offtrack there.
So No, that's okay.
SPEAKER_01 (13:12):
Maybe just give us a few examples because I think
what you just said is superimportant.
And apropos of that, justrecently I had another podcast
conversation who the speaker wastalking about narcissistic
personality disorder,narcissism, and so on.
And she said something verysimilar about people who have
(13:34):
narcissistic behaviors beingshape-shifters.
SPEAKER_00 (13:40):
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
SPEAKER_01 (13:41):
Yeah, it definitely uh aligns with what you're
talking about because coercivecontrol is part of abuse by
someone who has narcissisticbehaviors or narcissistic
personality disorder.
So let's look at the invisiblesigns, if you will, or red flags
that may indicate someone isexperiencing coercive control in
(14:04):
a relationship.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
So other than physical violence, which at
least is obvious, right?
So if you're experiencing that,then you are likely experiencing
coercive control as well.
So we'll start there.
But the behaviors that are inthe law, that are in the
statutes within the UnitedStates, as you mentioned,
isolation, intimidation,humiliation, isolation will show
(14:28):
up in many different ways, andit's gonna look different while
you're with a partner than itwill look like after you have
escaped the quicksand in therelationship, they will likely
uh begin, and it's usuallyslowly over time, they will
begin to isolate you from yourfriends and family.
(14:48):
Depending on how overt they are,because there are overt coercive
controllers, there are covertcoercive controllers, and then
there are ones that are so goodthat they go back and forth and
they really can really throw youoff.
But if it's overt, it might looklike you're spending too much
(15:09):
time with your mom, I expect youto be with me at all times.
A covert way of doing the samething might be like, you know,
you've mentioned that your momwas not always nice to you
growing up, and I'm not reallysure you should be spending so
much time with her.
I mean, don't you think thatshe's a little abusive?
Okay, yeah.
(15:29):
So they might say thingsdirectly to the targeted victim
to isolate them, or they mightspeak badly about their target
to outsiders.
So they might go to their wife'sfamily members and start saying
things to them like, oh, I'mreally concerned about my wife.
She seems to be having some kindof mental health issue, or oh, I
(15:53):
think she might be an alcoholic.
I don't really know what to doabout that.
Those are isolating tactics thatcome across as sort of a caring
sort of thing, but they'rehiding underneath this intent to
isolate the person.
And so anything used to isolatethem, a lot of coercive
(16:13):
controllers will demand thatthey move.
Oh, I'm gonna get a job in uhMilwaukee and we're gonna move
across the country, and um, andyou're coming with me, whether
you want to or not.
SPEAKER_01 (16:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:27):
And now you're in a city that you have no support
structure.
So there can be geographicisolation, there can be
isolation from supports offriends and family, there can be
isolation from things like beingable to get medical care when
you need it.
There are ways to isolate familymembers from each other.
(16:49):
Coercive controllers are verydivisive, and they will often
talk about other people in thefamily using something called
triangulation to turn themagainst each other, but without
them knowing that they're beingturned against each other, and
often in ways that sound likecare, like what I was saying
before.
Oh, I think she has a drinkingproblem, right?
(17:12):
And then the kids start tothink, oh, mom's an alcoholic.
Oh no, maybe I'm in danger.
So those are some of the waysthat isolation occurs.
SPEAKER_01 (17:20):
Yeah, and it causes uh some what they call
quote-unquote crazy making,right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:26):
Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
It creates confusion.
And you know, the words thatyou've said to me before about
this is you can't even tell whatthe truth is anymore.
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
Yeah, they completely rewrite reality.
And the more isolated you are,the more dependent you are on
that person's reality.
So if that person is lying toyou and they are creating a
false reality, and you have noone to reality check with on the
(18:00):
outside, then you're far moretrapped that way.
You're much more under thatperson's control because of
that.
SPEAKER_01 (18:06):
I feel like I need to go read a textbook on dark
psychology at this moment, justso I can fully unpack all of the
nuances around this behavior.
Um, I want to move on to howthose types of behavior within a
family dynamic, so if mom is thetarget of the abusive partner,
(18:26):
what are the impacts of that onchildren living with that
coercive controller?
SPEAKER_00 (18:34):
Well, there's going to be impacts while they're
together, and they're going tobe different from impacts that
might occur if they separate ordivorce.
So while in the home, we knowthat being in a home where one
person is violent againstanother family member, that
(18:54):
that's harmful to children.
We know this from the ACESstudy, which talks about
different forms of abuse andneglect and family household
dysfunction.
Yes.
It is dependent that the amountof abuse is cumulative.
And so the more different types,the more risk of harm.
(19:18):
And with ACE, for each ace thatyou add, you are exponentially
increasing the risks for the topeight out of ten causes of
death.
SPEAKER_01 (19:32):
So heart disease, cancer, stroke, you are and
you're referring to in thefuture of these children who
experience that behavior.
SPEAKER_00 (19:42):
Yes.
unknown (19:43):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (19:43):
ACEs are adverse childhood experiences.
So these are experiences whenthey're children that are abuse
or neglect or those other typesof dysfunction.
And one of the types ofdysfunction is divorce.
So if the target is able toescape the quicksand and get out
of that relationship, and thenthe children are having to go
(20:07):
between two households, they arenow in this really weird
unreality world where at oneparent's home they are with a
healthy, protective parent wholoves them unconditionally and
is sacrificing and willing tosacrifice for their children's
(20:30):
benefit.
And in the other home, they arewith someone whose entire
mindset is all about domination,who is not a fit parent, is
unable to provide the child withwhat they need developmentally,
and is likely directly abusingthat child now because there's
not a protective parent there tooversee and protect them in the
(20:54):
home.
SPEAKER_01 (20:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
And so at Genesis Women'sChildren's Support, we see this
a lot.
We work with women and childrenwho are survivors of domestic
violence.
And as our clinicians will tellyou, it just kind of validates
what you're talking about.
Children really cannot, eventhough they go through clinical
counseling and other forms oftherapy, there's a limit to how
(21:17):
much they can fully resolvetheir trauma while they are
still children if they are stillhaving visitation or being
exposed to the abusive partner.
SPEAKER_00 (21:29):
True.
So, like for example, my parentsdivorced when I was four, and
when I was seven, my abusivefather kidnapped my brother and
I and took us to a foreigncountry.
SPEAKER_01 (21:39):
Oh my.
SPEAKER_00 (21:40):
So that was a fracturing of the relationship
with our mother, and we wereunable to see or speak with, we
had no contact with our motherfor almost a year while we were
in the exclusive custody of ourabusive father.
(22:09):
It made it so that I didn't havethe normal healthy development
that I needed for my brain todevelop in a way where I would
be able to process informationaccurately.
There's all sorts of harmfulimpacts that occurred because of
that.
At the time, we were able to getback home.
My mother was able to find usand she had to kidnap us to get
(22:32):
us back.
SPEAKER_01 (22:33):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
Because the US was not willing to help, Australia
wasn't willing to help, but shegot some funds and went and got
us while we were walking homefrom school one day and brought
us back to the US.
SPEAKER_01 (22:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:45):
Um, not sure where I was going next.
SPEAKER_01 (22:48):
Well, that that must have been quite the reunion, I
would suspect.
SPEAKER_00 (22:54):
It was um surreal.
It was absolutely surreal.
She picked us up, took usstraight to the passport office.
The passport guy photographedus, and our and on our way out
the door, he said to my mother,I'm closing up for the day so
that if anybody comes herelooking for you, they're not
gonna know where you are.
(23:14):
She took us straight to theairport because we knew that if
our dad found out in time, hecould stop us.
And so until the moment that wewere in the air, my mom was a
nervous wreck.
I bet.
And she didn't even recognize mybrother because my dad had cut
his hair.
My brother used to have thesebeautiful blonde ringlet curls.
SPEAKER_01 (23:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:37):
And he had cut his hair really short and it had
gotten darker, and so he didn'tlook like he had.
And so she said in her becauseshe wrote a little book
afterward, and in her book, shesaid that when my brother turned
to her and said, Mommy, can wedo nose to nose?
That was the first time she wassure she actually had the right
kid with her.
SPEAKER_01 (23:57):
Oh my gosh.
Kate, I'm I'm in tears.
I have the chills, I'm in tears.
I had no idea we were going totalk about this today.
You're so brave, you were sostrong to share that with us.
If we didn't have so many thingsto cover in this episode, I
would keep asking more questionsabout your personal story.
(24:18):
Thank you so much for sharingthat.
Alas, we have to move forwardbecause I did promise this
audience a conversation oncoercive control.
Let's talk about systems becauseyou give a really good example
here with your own personalexperience as a child where the
systems were not helpful to thesituation.
(24:39):
So, how do systems meant toprotect victims, such as law
enforcement, courts, socialservices, and others sometimes
fail to recognize or respond tocoercive control?
SPEAKER_00 (24:51):
Well, a lot of the time the failures that are
happening in the system arebecause the structure is
structured on this violentincident model.
And because they don't, they'renot focused on looking for a
pattern of behavior, they arefocused on physical violence,
they miss this context.
(25:13):
And it is absolutely criticalthat we understand the context
of whatever happened in order todetermine who is the victim and
who is the perpetrator.
Because a lot of the time,victims are ending up being
arrested instead of theperpetrator.
(25:35):
And the way this happens is thatthe way that the physical or the
violent incident model looks atthis is they think, okay, a slap
is a slap is a slap.
So if we get there, so ifthey're law enforcement, they
come in and one person hasslapped the other, well Yeah,
that's the aggressor.
Legally, that's domesticviolence and that's the
(25:56):
aggressor, right?
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (25:58):
That's the assumption because they aren't
looking for a pattern ofbehavior.
Now, if they were looking for apattern of behavior, they might
ask, what led up to this?
And if victims feel safe enoughto even say what happened, which
we're gonna need the system toactually arrest people if we're
(26:21):
gonna feel safe to report.
But let's say that we've got itall fixed and all the victims
feel safe.
So the victim might say, Well, Igot home and he was screaming at
me because I was late because Iwas forced to stay at work to
finish some project.
He's screaming at me because Idon't have dinner ready yet, and
(26:42):
he's calling me names, and Ifinally get the food put down in
front of him, and he picks upthe plate and he throws it
across the room, and and then hecomes after me and he's like,
You will do what I say, and heslapped me.
Okay.
We now know it was an aggressiveand dominating slap.
(27:04):
But what if they get there andshe's the one who slapped him?
Okay, so he same scenario, allthe way up to the point where
he's screaming in her face, andshe's trying to get past him,
and she slaps him to get himaway from her so that she can
get away from him.
That's a very different context.
(27:26):
That is not an aggressive slapto dominate him.
That is either self-defense orit's a way to just a way to
escape, or it's a fullyemotional reaction to what's
being done to her, right?
But it's not violence that oughtto be punished.
(27:47):
If anything, it's an act ofresistance that ought to be
applauded.
And our systems right now aren'tlooking for that context.
And because they're not lookingfor it, they're not finding it,
and they're arresting the wrongpeople sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (28:01):
And it just perpetuates the cycle of
violence.
Exactly.
So let's back into what we'retalking about with this example
and talk about what underliesdomestic violence and this
aggressive behavior, and a lotof it is rooted in patriarchy.
Let's talk about how coercivecontrol is embedded within
(28:22):
patriarchal social structuresand norms.
SPEAKER_00 (28:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um and that is probably our bigbiggest issue that if we could
solve that piece, if we couldcreate systems and structures
and especially societal normsthat honor equality and equity,
(28:50):
and that do not intentionallyenable oppression in any way, we
could really prevent a lot ofthis.
So many of our systems arestructured on these gender
norms, and and even our languageis sort of written around these
(29:13):
norms like family values.
Family values sound so nice andhealthy and good for the family,
but when family values are beingspoken about within a
patriarchal structure, whatfamily values mean inside of
that is the man needs to be incharge, the woman needs to
(29:39):
submit, the children need to beseen and not heard.
It sets up this hierarchy, andall of our systems are
hierarchical, and it creates asystem of domination, and the
difference between a healthHealthy, happy relationship and
(30:02):
family and this dominationmindset, we need to shift from
the idea that we can dominateone another and have power over
one another and shift to a morepartnership-oriented system.
Because when we have thesehierarchical systems, we are
(30:25):
making it very difficult to evensee coercive control.
We are obscuring it because weare making assumptions that
allow for men to dominate womenwithout consequence, which in
turn makes it next to impossiblefor a woman to escape that
(30:47):
domination without also beingpunished for daring to try.
SPEAKER_01 (30:51):
Can you give us just one or two examples of what that
looks like, how that plays outin society?
SPEAKER_00 (30:59):
Sure.
So let's say within religiousstructures, for instance, a lot
of religions are patriarchal,and their viewpoint is that the
man needs to be the head of thehouse and the woman needs to be
submissive to that man.
Now, let's say that that man isa coercive controller.
(31:21):
Well, when he starts to dominatethe wife, both people, both the
man and the woman, have thisassumption that he has a right
to do that.
So her initial response might beto comply.
But as human beings, we don'tlike to be enslaved.
(31:42):
It's not normal for a human towant to be in that situation.
And so after a little while, shestarts to see that this is
really unfair.
He gets to make all thesedecisions.
My liberty is being constrained,my freedoms being taken away.
I have no autonomy or agencyhere.
(32:02):
But what is she going to do?
Well, she could go to the pastorof the church and she could say,
I'm experiencing abuse in myhome.
What's likely to happen becauseyou're in a patriarchal system
is the pastor is likely to say,You are not being a good enough
wife.
What is it that you're doingwrong?
(32:24):
You must be doing somethingwrong.
And so all the blame is placedon the victim.
So patriarchy and misogyny setup a system where if you are, if
you do not comply with thegendered roles and assumptions
of that system, then we have theright to punish you for it.
(32:46):
And that's how the systems areoperating right now.
SPEAKER_01 (32:49):
And so many of them operate in that manner.
And we're living in a time herein 2025 when we're seeing a lot
of changes, a lot of challengesin just how patriarchy is
structured, how it works, andhow the agenda of it is being
pushed forward.
SPEAKER_00 (33:09):
Absolutely, yes.
And this year has been awhirlwind of it.
SPEAKER_01 (33:14):
It certainly has, and we could talk all day about
that, right?
Um, how does your organizationand coercive control USA and the
quicksand model that you createdaddress the complexities of
coercive control within thesetypes of systems and
relationships and patriarchalframeworks?
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
Well, in coercive control USA, which uh is ECUSA
is short for ICUSA, um, what wedo is we focus on assisting
professionals within the systemto detect coercive control, and
then to look at theirorganization or their system
(33:57):
that they are working within andlook for ways that they can
dismantle anything that iscreating coercive control,
anything that is enabling it orexacerbating it.
That is our focus is to get thesystems to deconstruct the
current structures that areenabling it.
(34:37):
It would beendcoercivecontrolusa.com.
And if you click on thequicksand model tab, you can
find the courses there and youcan uh choose the one that you
like best and just enter Genesis20 at checkout, and that'll give
you that discount.
SPEAKER_01 (34:53):
Super.
That is so exciting, and Imyself want to do that.
Now let's just move forward alittle bit to talk about how
coercive control plays out ingovernment and policy and media.
How do we see this reflected ingovernment actions or policies?
SPEAKER_00 (35:12):
Hmm, that is a really big question, especially
right now.
We are watching it unfold in theUnited States on an hourly
basis.
Things are moving much fasterthan even I expected.
And I was told I wascatastrophizing when I when I
when I expressed my concernswhen the the when the election
(35:32):
first happened, I was thinkingthis is gonna be it's gonna be
worse than the first timearound.
SPEAKER_01 (35:37):
Um and truly, truly, the term quicksand applies in
2025.
I mean, we're going under.
SPEAKER_00 (35:46):
It it feels like that, doesn't it?
It does.
SPEAKER_01 (35:48):
At times it really does.
SPEAKER_00 (35:50):
And and when I talk with, um especially when I talk
with survivors andprofessionals, especially in the
domestic violence field, youknow, with the removal of
research funding, with theshifts away from like taking
funds away from USAID, that VAWAfunding was being granted and
(36:13):
had been all these folks hadbeen given these grants through
VAWA, and then they are rollingthose back.
What that does is it creates anenormous amount of chaos.
And that is one of the coercivecontrollers' goals is to create
so much chaos and fear thatpeople can't function because
(36:36):
when you are completelyoverwhelmed, you can't think
straight, you have a hard timemaking decisions.
Like you said, it feels likeyou're sinking in quicksand.
SPEAKER_01 (36:44):
It's also very difficult to keep on top of all
of the things that are shiftingon, as you said, on an hourly
basis.
It's impossible for one person,for me as one person to
understand how my rights arebeing impacted on a daily basis
and what I had as a rightyesterday and may not have
(37:06):
today.
SPEAKER_00 (37:08):
Well, and that's that's the whole purpose of
doing it across all of thesedifferent systems at the same
time.
They are dismantling thestructures of protection, which
is kind of similar to the way acoercively controlling
(37:30):
ex-partner might handle adivorce situation.
SPEAKER_01 (37:35):
That just brought us full circle, didn't it, to what
you told me at the beginning ofthis episode.
SPEAKER_00 (37:41):
Well, all of these things are connected.
That's why I developed thismodel to cross contexts, because
all of these different forms ofviolence and abuse are connected
through a pattern of coercivecontrol.
And if we can combine ourresources from because right now
(38:04):
everything's all siloed.
We've got we got domesticviolence, we got child abuse,
we've got human trafficking,we've got gangs, and all these
different systems are addressingabuse, but they're all connected
through coercive control.
And you can see it on a dailybasis playing out politically,
where they are dismantlingthings in so many different
(38:25):
areas so quickly that nobody, nohuman being, could possibly keep
up with it all.
And even if you could keep upwith it, you're not going to
have enough time to respond toit in an intelligent way,
because how can you think about10 different places you're being
attacked at once?
But that's what coercivecontrollers do.
(38:46):
That's why they use differentforms of abuse so that it's
harder to detect.
If they were using only onetactic, if they were only going
after the universities, right?
Well, we might notice that.
But they're not just going afterone thing.
They are going after all thesedifferent areas all at the same
(39:08):
time, and we are being attackedon multiple fronts.
And that is what's sooverwhelming about it, and quite
frankly, what is so dangerousabout it, because we are waking
up to the fact that we are onthe absolute edge of being in an
authoritarian country.
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Without a doubt, and I think this is what you also
have referred to uh when wespoke previously as
government-sanctioned chaos.
SPEAKER_00 (39:37):
Yeah.
In my research paper, mydissertation, I called it
systemic coercive control,because it is coercive control
happening across all the systemsat the same time.
SPEAKER_01 (39:48):
So I I like that term because it does kind of put
things in a neat little package,right, of what exactly what's
going on here.
And I I say this if listenerstake nothing else away from this
episode today, if they couldunderstand and do understand the
type of environment we're livingin right now with this
(40:08):
government-sanctioned chaos andunderstand that as coercive
control, then they can certainlymake the leap to understand how
coercive control is domesticviolence.
SPEAKER_00 (40:20):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (40:21):
Yeah, that's if you know how you feel when you hear
just the next thing and the nextthing, and we're going to talk
about media in a minute.
If you know how that makes youfeel and the confusion and the
anger that you feel about howyou're being treated by those
who, you know, took oath ofoffice to stand by our
(40:42):
Constitution and protect you,then you every bit know how it
feels to be trapped in amarriage or a relationship with
someone who is controlling youin every possible way within the
household.
So it's just a mini form ofwhat's happening in the
government.
And as my CEO Jan Langbein likesto say, women will not be safe
(41:08):
until they're safe at home.
SPEAKER_00 (41:10):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (41:12):
And you're exactly right.
Americans may not be safe untilthey're safe at, you know, air
quotes home, being the countryof the United States of America.
So I just want to point out thatthis should be a good way for
people, a good parallel forpeople to use to understand what
it feels like to be inpotentially not a physically
(41:35):
violent abusive relationship ora situation of physical
violence, but what it feels liketo be manipulated to the point
where you don't know what thetruth is, you don't know what
your own reality is, and someoneis is controlling you, the
isolating you to your previousexample, and so on.
(41:59):
Um, I want to jump ahead tocoercive control in the media
because I do feel that that isuh today, if not always in the
past, but mostly this year in2025, is really painting a
picture that you know eithercoercive control is not
(42:20):
happening or that all of thesechanges are good for us.
But anyway, let me have youanswer the questions.
You're the expert.
How does the media contribute toor perpetuate coercive control
and its representation ofindividuals, groups, or events?
SPEAKER_00 (42:37):
Well, first of all, because of these hierarchies of
power, and because everything inour in the United States at
least, and I would imagine mostcountries are have monetary
motivations and powermotivations.
When the person in power or thegroup in power begins to make
(43:01):
threats, whether those be veiledthreats or direct threats, it is
very difficult for groups tostand against that when it could
mean that they could lose theirlivelihood.
Yes.
And that's what I feel like weare watching happen is there are
these coercive and controllingthreats and intimidation that
(43:26):
are being used in all thesedifferent arenas, and one of
them is the media, and becauseof that, the media is being
forced to either resist thefalse narrative, or they are
perpetuating the mis anddisinformation that's being
(43:48):
broadcast.
And so we are really watchingwhat I what inside of a
coercively controllingrelationship often looks like
the coercive controllerattempting to dominate the
victim, and the victimattempting to resist that
domination, we are watching thaton a nationwide scale while we
(44:12):
see whether whether the lawfirms are standing up or not,
whether the organizations thatlose their funding are fighting
back or not.
Are we going to resist or are wegoing to capitulate?
And unfortunately, it is causingmass confusion because you can
(44:34):
hardly tell what is trueanymore, because the media
information that's available tous is very contradictory,
especially if you are inside ofan echo chamber and you only
look at the media from the sidethat you align with.
(44:55):
Right.
So if you consider yourself onthe left, then you're only
getting what's being presentedon the left.
And if you consider yourself onthe right, you and you're in
that, then what we really needis we need to get back to truth.
I don't care if you'reRepublican or Democrat.
I care that the informationthat's being presented is
truthful and accurate and isn'tbeing used to manipulate and
(45:20):
deceive so that people can gainmore power.
SPEAKER_01 (45:25):
I agree with that idea.
I have no idea how to implementit.
And, you know, we are the kindof the media here on a podcast
of sorts.
Uh we're we're not our ownnetwork, of course, but um and
so we're here to bringinformation to listeners for
consideration, right?
These are our ideas, ouropinions, and we can certainly
(45:49):
talk about cores of control andother topics in domestic
violence and give peopleopportunities to learn more and
to educate themselves on thosetopics.
And that's really what ourconversations are about if we
were to think of ourselves asmedia.
In your opinion, how can webecome more resilient to subtle
(46:10):
forms of coercive control aspresented in the news and social
media?
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
That's a real challenge.
Um, resilience has a lot to dowith us being able to think
critically when we analyze theinformation that we are getting.
Unfortunately, that requires alot of additional effort.
And so for me, that looks likelimiting the number of emails
(46:37):
that I'm getting that are givingme news so that I can dig deeper
to see what's below the headlineand to look for to look for
signs of misinformation anddisinformation and to follow up
on information that's presentedto see if it's being presented
(47:00):
accurately and truthfully.
SPEAKER_01 (47:02):
Kate, can you give us your website again?
And we'll also uh want to giveour listeners the discount code
too for learning about thequicksand model and any other
resources you'd like to sharefor learning about coercive
control or getting support ifyou need it.
SPEAKER_00 (47:17):
Great.
So the website isendcoercifontrolusa.com.
And for resources on thatwebsite, there's a resources
page, and there is a ton ofresources on the resources page.
There's also a tab for expertwitness testimony, and on that
(47:37):
tab you can sign up for a freeconsultation.
So if you are going through acustody case with a coercive
controller and you need anexpert witness, that's the place
to go to get a free consult.
If you are an organization thatneeds training on coercive
control, you can book a freeconsultation for that.
(47:58):
And then the best place to learnmore about coercive control and
the quicksand model, in additionto those courses where you can
get that 20% discount and youwant it free.
I do a ton of TikTok videos andInstagram posts on Acusa's
Instagram and TikTok.
And they're real short.
(48:19):
And if you listen to those, youget little bite-sized pieces of
it.
And over time, what that can dois it can undo the negative
patriarchal programming that ledyou to a position where you may
have been vulnerable to coercivecontrol, and it can help you
overcome that.
SPEAKER_01 (48:35):
So what's your handle?
SPEAKER_00 (48:37):
That's a great question.
I think on TikTok it's Acusa, EC C U S A.
And on Instagram, I think it'smy name, Kate Amber, but the
logo is Acusa's logo.
So if you search for Kate Amberor Acusa or End Coercive Control
USA, you should be able to findme.
There are also um buttons at thebottom of the page of the
(49:00):
website that'll take you to thesocial media.
SPEAKER_01 (49:02):
Brilliant.
Kate Amber, thank you so muchfor being here and for all the
work you do.
SPEAKER_00 (49:07):
Oh, thank you.
It was a huge pleasure.
SPEAKER_01 (49:09):
Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to
give women in abusive situationsa way out.
We are committed to our missionof providing safety, shelter,
and support for women andchildren who have experienced
domestic violence and to raiseawareness regarding its cause,
prevalence, and impact.
Join us in creating a societalshift on how people think about
(49:29):
domestic violence.
You can learn more atGenesisShelter.org and when you
follow us on social media, onFacebook and Instagram at
Genesis Women's Shelter, and onX at Genesis Shelter.
The Genesis Helpline isavailable 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, by call or text at214 946 HELP.
(49:50):
214 946 4357.
Today, we delve into the complex and often hidden
dynamics of coercive control,where manipulation, subtlety,
and distortion of truth createpowerful barriers to autonomy.
I'm joined by Kate Amber, anational expert in the field of
coercive control, to illuminatethe ways this pattern of
behavior operates, not justwithin private relationships,
(00:21):
but within the very structuresthat shape our collective
experience.
This episode will offer a deeperunderstanding of how such
insidious tactics underminefreedom and how awareness is the
first step to reclaiming powerand truth.
I'm Maria McMullen, and this isGenesis the Podcast.
In a world where truth is oftentwisted and power can be wielded
(00:43):
as a weapon, understanding thatcoercive control can entrap
targeted victims like quicksandis more urgent than ever.
Today we're joined by KateAmber, a leading expert whose
work is reshaping how we seeabuse.
With a Master of Science andPsychology of Coercive Control
from the University of Salford,Kate has dedicated her career to
exposing the subtle strategicpatterns that underlie
(01:05):
oppression in intimaterelationships, groups, and
society at large.
As the founder of NCORCIVControl USA and creator of the
Quicksand model, Kate bringsinvaluable insight into how
individuals and professionalscan recognize, resist, and
ultimately prevent thisinsidious abuse.
Together, we'll uncover thetactics of coercive control and
(01:27):
empower ourselves to challengeits grip within relationships,
our organizations, our systems,and beyond.
Kate, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:36):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Let's get started with a few definitions that can
shape our understanding of thistopic.
How would you define coercivecontrol?
SPEAKER_00 (01:48):
I define coercive control as the pattern of
behavior used to entrap a targetin oppression and domination.
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Okay.
We'll unpack all of that,hopefully, throughout this
conversation.
I also understand you havecreated your own model of
coercive control called thequicksand model.
What led you to create andresearch that model?
SPEAKER_00 (02:12):
Well, initially, I had recently been able to
escape, or at least I thought Ihad escaped, a relationship with
someone who had been abusive,but it seemed like it was a
little different from myunderstanding of domestic
violence.
It certainly had some aspects ofthat, but it seemed like I
needed to figure out what thiswas that I'd actually gone
(02:34):
through.
So I started doing research andI found Evan Stark's book on
coercive control.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:43):
And from there I ended up finding the master's
program at the University ofSalford, and I enrolled in that
program.
They have a master's degree inthe psychology of coercive
control.
And while in that program, Istarted to see coercive control
(03:04):
in a much broader sense.
It was no longer, in mythinking, just within the arena
of domestic violence.
And while I was doing researchand reading and studying for my
master's, and then I did myresearch program, I had an
(03:24):
experience where the countyattorney's office had contacted
me and said that they were goingto be dropping the pending
protective order violation case.
Now, my ex had already beenconvicted of family violence,
but this was a second case thathad been pending for three years
because of COVID.
(03:45):
So the courts were all shutdown, right?
Right.
And they contacted me to let meknow that the case was going to
be dismissed.
And when they did that, all ofmy complex PTSD symptoms went
through the roof.
And I woke up in the middle ofthe night one night with my
heart racing and my mind racingand panic attacks, and just and
(04:08):
for more than an hour I laythere just trying to get myself
calmed down.
SPEAKER_01 (04:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:14):
Because I felt like I was drowning and suffocating.
I felt like I was sinking.
And it was absolutelyterrifying.
And in that moment, I had thismoment of clarity where I
realized this must be what itfeels like to die in quicksand.
And that was the birth of thequicksand model.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
Which I intentionally created so that it
would apply across every contextwhere coercive control could be
used.
SPEAKER_01 (04:49):
That's fascinating.
Thank you for sharing some ofyour personal story with us.
And I'm just really glad to havethat context around this
conversation.
Can you share some specificbehaviors or patterns that
constitute coercive control inintimate relationships?
SPEAKER_00 (05:08):
Sure.
So coercive control inregardless of whether it's an
intimate relationship or a groupor wherever it occurs, there are
certainly signs that it'shappening.
And the quicksand model, I setthese up as weapons.
I call them the D's, the E's,the F's, and the I's.
(05:31):
And I did it that way so itwould be very easy to learn.
And I won't go into many ofthem, but just to give you an
idea, the Fs, for instance, areforce, fraud, and fear.
And so if you are learning thequicksand model or you just want
to learn a little bit aboutcoercive control, if you just
learn those three (05:48):
force, fraud, and fear, you will be well on
your way to seeing how coercivecontrol functions.
Because those three methods areused across all of the behaviors
that coercive controllers use toentrap their victims.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
So that is also significantly complex, and a lot
of people do not often see thosetypes of behaviors as forms of
domestic violence.
So let's kind of break it downfor them how it differs from
things like physical violence tobe a victim of coercive control.
SPEAKER_00 (06:30):
Sure, yes.
So there is currently amisconception about the way that
coercive control differs fromother forms of violence and
abuse.
Within our laws, in the UnitedStates at least, domestic
violence is considered theumbrella, and coercive control
is considered this little thingthat happens underneath domestic
(06:51):
violence.
But from the training that Ireceived at the University of
Salford and from my own livedexperience, it's actually the
other way around.
Coercive control is consideredthe umbrella, and domestic
violence would fall underneaththat umbrella.
And inside of domestic violencewould be this one thing called
(07:13):
physical violence.
So when you have a pattern ofcoercive control, there may be
physical violence present, theremay not.
But the big issue about coercivecontrol is that it is a pattern
of many different types of abuseover a period of time that
(07:34):
results in the targeted victimbecoming entrapped and losing
their autonomy, having theirlife constrained, and being
unable to essentially they areunfree.
They are in a slave-like orhostage-like situation.
SPEAKER_01 (07:51):
So described in that way, that does sound to me like
abuse.
That sounds to me like a form ofviolence or domestic terrorism,
if you will, to entrap someonein a psychological control or
manipulation is terrifying.
And it certainly does cause alot of trauma, a lot of PTSD as
(08:15):
you experienced uh in your ownlife.
And it is definitely a form ofabuse.
And so I like that visual thatyou've just given us of the
change in what is the umbrellathat surrounds all of these
things that are part of domesticviolence or even systemic
(08:35):
oppression and manipulation,which are things that we're
going to talk about here today.
Could you describe for us theorigins of the term coercive
control and how itsunderstanding has evolved over
time?
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
Yeah, the term coercive control was actually
coined in the early 80s by SusanSchechter.
And then it was popularized inEvan Stark's book, the first
book that I read on coercivecontrol.
And the reason and the thinkingbehind a shift from a violent
(09:11):
incident model, which is thecurrent model that our systems
are all structured on, to apattern of behavior model was
because there was suchstructural and systemic failure
for victims trying to navigatethese systems.
And because we were looking atdomestic violence as though it
(09:35):
was equal to physical violence,we were missing 95% of what's
actually happening to thesevictims in these situations.
And at the same time that theywere talking about needing to
shift to a pattern-basedbehavior model, they also
discovered through someAustralian homicide reviews that
(09:58):
domestic violence homicide wasstrongly related to coercive
control.
And they discovered that in 99%of the cases of homicide that
they were studying in this onehomicide review in 2015, they
discovered that 99% of thosehomicides were preceded by a
(10:22):
pattern of coercive control by amale perpetrator against a
female victim.
And so that indicated thatcoercive control was a very high
risk factor for homicide, if notthe highest.
So that was the motivation forpassing the criminalization of
(10:42):
coercive control in the UK in2015.
And because they wanted toreduce domestic violence
homicide.
Now, in that study, the otherthing that was really
interesting that they found wasnot only was there coercive
control present in 99% of thesecases before the homicide, and
there are two homicide reviews.
(11:04):
In the first one, 30% of thosehomicides, that was the first
act of physical violence.
And in the second one, which isthe more recent one, 75% it was
the first act of physicalviolence.
So it completely shifted ourthinking around domestic
(11:27):
violence, how to determinewhat's high risk.
And so now there's a betterunderstanding, and I and the
hope is that we can get thiscommunicated to the rest of the
systems, just how critical thisis, that we need to be able to
detect this system, this patternof coercive control, before it
(11:49):
escalates to that level ofdanger.
SPEAKER_01 (11:53):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
That's a lot of very importantcontext for us to understand
about coercive control and howthings might be evolving in the
future, because we know that thedomestic violence movement here
in the United States started outreally as the battered women's
movement, and that was based orrooted very strongly in physical
violence and getting legislationpassed to end or to criminalize
(12:20):
wife beating.
And, you know, that goes wayback to the 70s and the women's
movement and a lot of otherthings.
But staying very focused then ondomestic violence and here in
the 21st century, could youprovide some real-world examples
illustrating how abusers usecoercive control to isolate,
(12:40):
intimidate, and or manipulatetheir partners?
SPEAKER_00 (12:44):
Yeah, so there's a lot of ways.
Um coercive controllers arecreative and they are very good
at shifting their behaviorwhenever something is no longer
permitted.
So ergo, that's why once wecriminalize physical violence,
they had to find some other wayto dominate their partners, and
(13:07):
that's where coercive controlreally took off.
And I got myself a little offtrack there.
So No, that's okay.
SPEAKER_01 (13:12):
Maybe just give us a few examples because I think
what you just said is superimportant.
And apropos of that, justrecently I had another podcast
conversation who the speaker wastalking about narcissistic
personality disorder,narcissism, and so on.
And she said something verysimilar about people who have
(13:34):
narcissistic behaviors beingshape-shifters.
SPEAKER_00 (13:40):
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
SPEAKER_01 (13:41):
Yeah, it definitely uh aligns with what you're
talking about because coercivecontrol is part of abuse by
someone who has narcissisticbehaviors or narcissistic
personality disorder.
So let's look at the invisiblesigns, if you will, or red flags
that may indicate someone isexperiencing coercive control in
(14:04):
a relationship.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
So other than physical violence, which at
least is obvious, right?
So if you're experiencing that,then you are likely experiencing
coercive control as well.
So we'll start there.
But the behaviors that are inthe law, that are in the
statutes within the UnitedStates, as you mentioned,
isolation, intimidation,humiliation, isolation will show
(14:28):
up in many different ways, andit's gonna look different while
you're with a partner than itwill look like after you have
escaped the quicksand in therelationship, they will likely
uh begin, and it's usuallyslowly over time, they will
begin to isolate you from yourfriends and family.
(14:48):
Depending on how overt they are,because there are overt coercive
controllers, there are covertcoercive controllers, and then
there are ones that are so goodthat they go back and forth and
they really can really throw youoff.
But if it's overt, it might looklike you're spending too much
(15:09):
time with your mom, I expect youto be with me at all times.
A covert way of doing the samething might be like, you know,
you've mentioned that your momwas not always nice to you
growing up, and I'm not reallysure you should be spending so
much time with her.
I mean, don't you think thatshe's a little abusive?
Okay, yeah.
(15:29):
So they might say thingsdirectly to the targeted victim
to isolate them, or they mightspeak badly about their target
to outsiders.
So they might go to their wife'sfamily members and start saying
things to them like, oh, I'mreally concerned about my wife.
She seems to be having some kindof mental health issue, or oh, I
(15:53):
think she might be an alcoholic.
I don't really know what to doabout that.
Those are isolating tactics thatcome across as sort of a caring
sort of thing, but they'rehiding underneath this intent to
isolate the person.
And so anything used to isolatethem, a lot of coercive
(16:13):
controllers will demand thatthey move.
Oh, I'm gonna get a job in uhMilwaukee and we're gonna move
across the country, and um, andyou're coming with me, whether
you want to or not.
SPEAKER_01 (16:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:27):
And now you're in a city that you have no support
structure.
So there can be geographicisolation, there can be
isolation from supports offriends and family, there can be
isolation from things like beingable to get medical care when
you need it.
There are ways to isolate familymembers from each other.
(16:49):
Coercive controllers are verydivisive, and they will often
talk about other people in thefamily using something called
triangulation to turn themagainst each other, but without
them knowing that they're beingturned against each other, and
often in ways that sound likecare, like what I was saying
before.
Oh, I think she has a drinkingproblem, right?
(17:12):
And then the kids start tothink, oh, mom's an alcoholic.
Oh no, maybe I'm in danger.
So those are some of the waysthat isolation occurs.
SPEAKER_01 (17:20):
Yeah, and it causes uh some what they call
quote-unquote crazy making,right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:26):
Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
It creates confusion.
And you know, the words thatyou've said to me before about
this is you can't even tell whatthe truth is anymore.
SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
Yeah, they completely rewrite reality.
And the more isolated you are,the more dependent you are on
that person's reality.
So if that person is lying toyou and they are creating a
false reality, and you have noone to reality check with on the
(18:00):
outside, then you're far moretrapped that way.
You're much more under thatperson's control because of
that.
SPEAKER_01 (18:06):
I feel like I need to go read a textbook on dark
psychology at this moment, justso I can fully unpack all of the
nuances around this behavior.
Um, I want to move on to howthose types of behavior within a
family dynamic, so if mom is thetarget of the abusive partner,
(18:26):
what are the impacts of that onchildren living with that
coercive controller?
SPEAKER_00 (18:34):
Well, there's going to be impacts while they're
together, and they're going tobe different from impacts that
might occur if they separate ordivorce.
So while in the home, we knowthat being in a home where one
person is violent againstanother family member, that
(18:54):
that's harmful to children.
We know this from the ACESstudy, which talks about
different forms of abuse andneglect and family household
dysfunction.
Yes.
It is dependent that the amountof abuse is cumulative.
And so the more different types,the more risk of harm.
(19:18):
And with ACE, for each ace thatyou add, you are exponentially
increasing the risks for the topeight out of ten causes of
death.
SPEAKER_01 (19:32):
So heart disease, cancer, stroke, you are and
you're referring to in thefuture of these children who
experience that behavior.
SPEAKER_00 (19:42):
Yes.
unknown (19:43):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (19:43):
ACEs are adverse childhood experiences.
So these are experiences whenthey're children that are abuse
or neglect or those other typesof dysfunction.
And one of the types ofdysfunction is divorce.
So if the target is able toescape the quicksand and get out
of that relationship, and thenthe children are having to go
(20:07):
between two households, they arenow in this really weird
unreality world where at oneparent's home they are with a
healthy, protective parent wholoves them unconditionally and
is sacrificing and willing tosacrifice for their children's
(20:30):
benefit.
And in the other home, they arewith someone whose entire
mindset is all about domination,who is not a fit parent, is
unable to provide the child withwhat they need developmentally,
and is likely directly abusingthat child now because there's
not a protective parent there tooversee and protect them in the
(20:54):
home.
SPEAKER_01 (20:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
And so at Genesis Women'sChildren's Support, we see this
a lot.
We work with women and childrenwho are survivors of domestic
violence.
And as our clinicians will tellyou, it just kind of validates
what you're talking about.
Children really cannot, eventhough they go through clinical
counseling and other forms oftherapy, there's a limit to how
(21:17):
much they can fully resolvetheir trauma while they are
still children if they are stillhaving visitation or being
exposed to the abusive partner.
SPEAKER_00 (21:29):
True.
So, like for example, my parentsdivorced when I was four, and
when I was seven, my abusivefather kidnapped my brother and
I and took us to a foreigncountry.
SPEAKER_01 (21:39):
Oh my.
SPEAKER_00 (21:40):
So that was a fracturing of the relationship
with our mother, and we wereunable to see or speak with, we
had no contact with our motherfor almost a year while we were
in the exclusive custody of ourabusive father.
(22:09):
It made it so that I didn't havethe normal healthy development
that I needed for my brain todevelop in a way where I would
be able to process informationaccurately.
There's all sorts of harmfulimpacts that occurred because of
that.
At the time, we were able to getback home.
My mother was able to find usand she had to kidnap us to get
(22:32):
us back.
SPEAKER_01 (22:33):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
Because the US was not willing to help, Australia
wasn't willing to help, but shegot some funds and went and got
us while we were walking homefrom school one day and brought
us back to the US.
SPEAKER_01 (22:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:45):
Um, not sure where I was going next.
SPEAKER_01 (22:48):
Well, that that must have been quite the reunion, I
would suspect.
SPEAKER_00 (22:54):
It was um surreal.
It was absolutely surreal.
She picked us up, took usstraight to the passport office.
The passport guy photographedus, and our and on our way out
the door, he said to my mother,I'm closing up for the day so
that if anybody comes herelooking for you, they're not
gonna know where you are.
(23:14):
She took us straight to theairport because we knew that if
our dad found out in time, hecould stop us.
And so until the moment that wewere in the air, my mom was a
nervous wreck.
I bet.
And she didn't even recognize mybrother because my dad had cut
his hair.
My brother used to have thesebeautiful blonde ringlet curls.
SPEAKER_01 (23:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:37):
And he had cut his hair really short and it had
gotten darker, and so he didn'tlook like he had.
And so she said in her becauseshe wrote a little book
afterward, and in her book, shesaid that when my brother turned
to her and said, Mommy, can wedo nose to nose?
That was the first time she wassure she actually had the right
kid with her.
SPEAKER_01 (23:57):
Oh my gosh.
Kate, I'm I'm in tears.
I have the chills, I'm in tears.
I had no idea we were going totalk about this today.
You're so brave, you were sostrong to share that with us.
If we didn't have so many thingsto cover in this episode, I
would keep asking more questionsabout your personal story.
(24:18):
Thank you so much for sharingthat.
Alas, we have to move forwardbecause I did promise this
audience a conversation oncoercive control.
Let's talk about systems becauseyou give a really good example
here with your own personalexperience as a child where the
systems were not helpful to thesituation.
(24:39):
So, how do systems meant toprotect victims, such as law
enforcement, courts, socialservices, and others sometimes
fail to recognize or respond tocoercive control?
SPEAKER_00 (24:51):
Well, a lot of the time the failures that are
happening in the system arebecause the structure is
structured on this violentincident model.
And because they don't, they'renot focused on looking for a
pattern of behavior, they arefocused on physical violence,
they miss this context.
(25:13):
And it is absolutely criticalthat we understand the context
of whatever happened in order todetermine who is the victim and
who is the perpetrator.
Because a lot of the time,victims are ending up being
arrested instead of theperpetrator.
(25:35):
And the way this happens is thatthe way that the physical or the
violent incident model looks atthis is they think, okay, a slap
is a slap is a slap.
So if we get there, so ifthey're law enforcement, they
come in and one person hasslapped the other, well Yeah,
that's the aggressor.
Legally, that's domesticviolence and that's the
(25:56):
aggressor, right?
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (25:58):
That's the assumption because they aren't
looking for a pattern ofbehavior.
Now, if they were looking for apattern of behavior, they might
ask, what led up to this?
And if victims feel safe enoughto even say what happened, which
we're gonna need the system toactually arrest people if we're
(26:21):
gonna feel safe to report.
But let's say that we've got itall fixed and all the victims
feel safe.
So the victim might say, Well, Igot home and he was screaming at
me because I was late because Iwas forced to stay at work to
finish some project.
He's screaming at me because Idon't have dinner ready yet, and
(26:42):
he's calling me names, and Ifinally get the food put down in
front of him, and he picks upthe plate and he throws it
across the room, and and then hecomes after me and he's like,
You will do what I say, and heslapped me.
Okay.
We now know it was an aggressiveand dominating slap.
(27:04):
But what if they get there andshe's the one who slapped him?
Okay, so he same scenario, allthe way up to the point where
he's screaming in her face, andshe's trying to get past him,
and she slaps him to get himaway from her so that she can
get away from him.
That's a very different context.
(27:26):
That is not an aggressive slapto dominate him.
That is either self-defense orit's a way to just a way to
escape, or it's a fullyemotional reaction to what's
being done to her, right?
But it's not violence that oughtto be punished.
(27:47):
If anything, it's an act ofresistance that ought to be
applauded.
And our systems right now aren'tlooking for that context.
And because they're not lookingfor it, they're not finding it,
and they're arresting the wrongpeople sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (28:01):
And it just perpetuates the cycle of
violence.
Exactly.
So let's back into what we'retalking about with this example
and talk about what underliesdomestic violence and this
aggressive behavior, and a lotof it is rooted in patriarchy.
Let's talk about how coercivecontrol is embedded within
(28:22):
patriarchal social structuresand norms.
SPEAKER_00 (28:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um and that is probably our bigbiggest issue that if we could
solve that piece, if we couldcreate systems and structures
and especially societal normsthat honor equality and equity,
(28:50):
and that do not intentionallyenable oppression in any way, we
could really prevent a lot ofthis.
So many of our systems arestructured on these gender
norms, and and even our languageis sort of written around these
(29:13):
norms like family values.
Family values sound so nice andhealthy and good for the family,
but when family values are beingspoken about within a
patriarchal structure, whatfamily values mean inside of
that is the man needs to be incharge, the woman needs to
(29:39):
submit, the children need to beseen and not heard.
It sets up this hierarchy, andall of our systems are
hierarchical, and it creates asystem of domination, and the
difference between a healthHealthy, happy relationship and
(30:02):
family and this dominationmindset, we need to shift from
the idea that we can dominateone another and have power over
one another and shift to a morepartnership-oriented system.
Because when we have thesehierarchical systems, we are
(30:25):
making it very difficult to evensee coercive control.
We are obscuring it because weare making assumptions that
allow for men to dominate womenwithout consequence, which in
turn makes it next to impossiblefor a woman to escape that
(30:47):
domination without also beingpunished for daring to try.
SPEAKER_01 (30:51):
Can you give us just one or two examples of what that
looks like, how that plays outin society?
SPEAKER_00 (30:59):
Sure.
So let's say within religiousstructures, for instance, a lot
of religions are patriarchal,and their viewpoint is that the
man needs to be the head of thehouse and the woman needs to be
submissive to that man.
Now, let's say that that man isa coercive controller.
(31:21):
Well, when he starts to dominatethe wife, both people, both the
man and the woman, have thisassumption that he has a right
to do that.
So her initial response might beto comply.
But as human beings, we don'tlike to be enslaved.
(31:42):
It's not normal for a human towant to be in that situation.
And so after a little while, shestarts to see that this is
really unfair.
He gets to make all thesedecisions.
My liberty is being constrained,my freedoms being taken away.
I have no autonomy or agencyhere.
(32:02):
But what is she going to do?
Well, she could go to the pastorof the church and she could say,
I'm experiencing abuse in myhome.
What's likely to happen becauseyou're in a patriarchal system
is the pastor is likely to say,You are not being a good enough
wife.
What is it that you're doingwrong?
(32:24):
You must be doing somethingwrong.
And so all the blame is placedon the victim.
So patriarchy and misogyny setup a system where if you are, if
you do not comply with thegendered roles and assumptions
of that system, then we have theright to punish you for it.
(32:46):
And that's how the systems areoperating right now.
SPEAKER_01 (32:49):
And so many of them operate in that manner.
And we're living in a time herein 2025 when we're seeing a lot
of changes, a lot of challengesin just how patriarchy is
structured, how it works, andhow the agenda of it is being
pushed forward.
SPEAKER_00 (33:09):
Absolutely, yes.
And this year has been awhirlwind of it.
SPEAKER_01 (33:14):
It certainly has, and we could talk all day about
that, right?
Um, how does your organizationand coercive control USA and the
quicksand model that you createdaddress the complexities of
coercive control within thesetypes of systems and
relationships and patriarchalframeworks?
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
Well, in coercive control USA, which uh is ECUSA
is short for ICUSA, um, what wedo is we focus on assisting
professionals within the systemto detect coercive control, and
then to look at theirorganization or their system
(33:57):
that they are working within andlook for ways that they can
dismantle anything that iscreating coercive control,
anything that is enabling it orexacerbating it.
That is our focus is to get thesystems to deconstruct the
current structures that areenabling it.
(34:37):
It would beendcoercivecontrolusa.com.
And if you click on thequicksand model tab, you can
find the courses there and youcan uh choose the one that you
like best and just enter Genesis20 at checkout, and that'll give
you that discount.
SPEAKER_01 (34:53):
Super.
That is so exciting, and Imyself want to do that.
Now let's just move forward alittle bit to talk about how
coercive control plays out ingovernment and policy and media.
How do we see this reflected ingovernment actions or policies?
SPEAKER_00 (35:12):
Hmm, that is a really big question, especially
right now.
We are watching it unfold in theUnited States on an hourly
basis.
Things are moving much fasterthan even I expected.
And I was told I wascatastrophizing when I when I
when I expressed my concernswhen the the when the election
(35:32):
first happened, I was thinkingthis is gonna be it's gonna be
worse than the first timearound.
SPEAKER_01 (35:37):
Um and truly, truly, the term quicksand applies in
2025.
I mean, we're going under.
SPEAKER_00 (35:46):
It it feels like that, doesn't it?
It does.
SPEAKER_01 (35:48):
At times it really does.
SPEAKER_00 (35:50):
And and when I talk with, um especially when I talk
with survivors andprofessionals, especially in the
domestic violence field, youknow, with the removal of
research funding, with theshifts away from like taking
funds away from USAID, that VAWAfunding was being granted and
(36:13):
had been all these folks hadbeen given these grants through
VAWA, and then they are rollingthose back.
What that does is it creates anenormous amount of chaos.
And that is one of the coercivecontrollers' goals is to create
so much chaos and fear thatpeople can't function because
(36:36):
when you are completelyoverwhelmed, you can't think
straight, you have a hard timemaking decisions.
Like you said, it feels likeyou're sinking in quicksand.
SPEAKER_01 (36:44):
It's also very difficult to keep on top of all
of the things that are shiftingon, as you said, on an hourly
basis.
It's impossible for one person,for me as one person to
understand how my rights arebeing impacted on a daily basis
and what I had as a rightyesterday and may not have
(37:06):
today.
SPEAKER_00 (37:08):
Well, and that's that's the whole purpose of
doing it across all of thesedifferent systems at the same
time.
They are dismantling thestructures of protection, which
is kind of similar to the way acoercively controlling
(37:30):
ex-partner might handle adivorce situation.
SPEAKER_01 (37:35):
That just brought us full circle, didn't it, to what
you told me at the beginning ofthis episode.
SPEAKER_00 (37:41):
Well, all of these things are connected.
That's why I developed thismodel to cross contexts, because
all of these different forms ofviolence and abuse are connected
through a pattern of coercivecontrol.
And if we can combine ourresources from because right now
(38:04):
everything's all siloed.
We've got we got domesticviolence, we got child abuse,
we've got human trafficking,we've got gangs, and all these
different systems are addressingabuse, but they're all connected
through coercive control.
And you can see it on a dailybasis playing out politically,
where they are dismantlingthings in so many different
(38:25):
areas so quickly that nobody, nohuman being, could possibly keep
up with it all.
And even if you could keep upwith it, you're not going to
have enough time to respond toit in an intelligent way,
because how can you think about10 different places you're being
attacked at once?
But that's what coercivecontrollers do.
(38:46):
That's why they use differentforms of abuse so that it's
harder to detect.
If they were using only onetactic, if they were only going
after the universities, right?
Well, we might notice that.
But they're not just going afterone thing.
They are going after all thesedifferent areas all at the same
(39:08):
time, and we are being attackedon multiple fronts.
And that is what's sooverwhelming about it, and quite
frankly, what is so dangerousabout it, because we are waking
up to the fact that we are onthe absolute edge of being in an
authoritarian country.
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Without a doubt, and I think this is what you also
have referred to uh when wespoke previously as
government-sanctioned chaos.
SPEAKER_00 (39:37):
Yeah.
In my research paper, mydissertation, I called it
systemic coercive control,because it is coercive control
happening across all the systemsat the same time.
SPEAKER_01 (39:48):
So I I like that term because it does kind of put
things in a neat little package,right, of what exactly what's
going on here.
And I I say this if listenerstake nothing else away from this
episode today, if they couldunderstand and do understand the
type of environment we're livingin right now with this
(40:08):
government-sanctioned chaos andunderstand that as coercive
control, then they can certainlymake the leap to understand how
coercive control is domesticviolence.
SPEAKER_00 (40:20):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (40:21):
Yeah, that's if you know how you feel when you hear
just the next thing and the nextthing, and we're going to talk
about media in a minute.
If you know how that makes youfeel and the confusion and the
anger that you feel about howyou're being treated by those
who, you know, took oath ofoffice to stand by our
(40:42):
Constitution and protect you,then you every bit know how it
feels to be trapped in amarriage or a relationship with
someone who is controlling youin every possible way within the
household.
So it's just a mini form ofwhat's happening in the
government.
And as my CEO Jan Langbein likesto say, women will not be safe
(41:08):
until they're safe at home.
SPEAKER_00 (41:10):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (41:12):
And you're exactly right.
Americans may not be safe untilthey're safe at, you know, air
quotes home, being the countryof the United States of America.
So I just want to point out thatthis should be a good way for
people, a good parallel forpeople to use to understand what
it feels like to be inpotentially not a physically
(41:35):
violent abusive relationship ora situation of physical
violence, but what it feels liketo be manipulated to the point
where you don't know what thetruth is, you don't know what
your own reality is, and someoneis is controlling you, the
isolating you to your previousexample, and so on.
(41:59):
Um, I want to jump ahead tocoercive control in the media
because I do feel that that isuh today, if not always in the
past, but mostly this year in2025, is really painting a
picture that you know eithercoercive control is not
(42:20):
happening or that all of thesechanges are good for us.
But anyway, let me have youanswer the questions.
You're the expert.
How does the media contribute toor perpetuate coercive control
and its representation ofindividuals, groups, or events?
SPEAKER_00 (42:37):
Well, first of all, because of these hierarchies of
power, and because everything inour in the United States at
least, and I would imagine mostcountries are have monetary
motivations and powermotivations.
When the person in power or thegroup in power begins to make
(43:01):
threats, whether those be veiledthreats or direct threats, it is
very difficult for groups tostand against that when it could
mean that they could lose theirlivelihood.
Yes.
And that's what I feel like weare watching happen is there are
these coercive and controllingthreats and intimidation that
(43:26):
are being used in all thesedifferent arenas, and one of
them is the media, and becauseof that, the media is being
forced to either resist thefalse narrative, or they are
perpetuating the mis anddisinformation that's being
(43:48):
broadcast.
And so we are really watchingwhat I what inside of a
coercively controllingrelationship often looks like
the coercive controllerattempting to dominate the
victim, and the victimattempting to resist that
domination, we are watching thaton a nationwide scale while we
(44:12):
see whether whether the lawfirms are standing up or not,
whether the organizations thatlose their funding are fighting
back or not.
Are we going to resist or are wegoing to capitulate?
And unfortunately, it is causingmass confusion because you can
(44:34):
hardly tell what is trueanymore, because the media
information that's available tous is very contradictory,
especially if you are inside ofan echo chamber and you only
look at the media from the sidethat you align with.
(44:55):
Right.
So if you consider yourself onthe left, then you're only
getting what's being presentedon the left.
And if you consider yourself onthe right, you and you're in
that, then what we really needis we need to get back to truth.
I don't care if you'reRepublican or Democrat.
I care that the informationthat's being presented is
truthful and accurate and isn'tbeing used to manipulate and
(45:20):
deceive so that people can gainmore power.
SPEAKER_01 (45:25):
I agree with that idea.
I have no idea how to implementit.
And, you know, we are the kindof the media here on a podcast
of sorts.
Uh we're we're not our ownnetwork, of course, but um and
so we're here to bringinformation to listeners for
consideration, right?
These are our ideas, ouropinions, and we can certainly
(45:49):
talk about cores of control andother topics in domestic
violence and give peopleopportunities to learn more and
to educate themselves on thosetopics.
And that's really what ourconversations are about if we
were to think of ourselves asmedia.
In your opinion, how can webecome more resilient to subtle
(46:10):
forms of coercive control aspresented in the news and social
media?
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
That's a real challenge.
Um, resilience has a lot to dowith us being able to think
critically when we analyze theinformation that we are getting.
Unfortunately, that requires alot of additional effort.
And so for me, that looks likelimiting the number of emails
(46:37):
that I'm getting that are givingme news so that I can dig deeper
to see what's below the headlineand to look for to look for
signs of misinformation anddisinformation and to follow up
on information that's presentedto see if it's being presented
(47:00):
accurately and truthfully.
SPEAKER_01 (47:02):
Kate, can you give us your website again?
And we'll also uh want to giveour listeners the discount code
too for learning about thequicksand model and any other
resources you'd like to sharefor learning about coercive
control or getting support ifyou need it.
SPEAKER_00 (47:17):
Great.
So the website isendcoercifontrolusa.com.
And for resources on thatwebsite, there's a resources
page, and there is a ton ofresources on the resources page.
There's also a tab for expertwitness testimony, and on that
(47:37):
tab you can sign up for a freeconsultation.
So if you are going through acustody case with a coercive
controller and you need anexpert witness, that's the place
to go to get a free consult.
If you are an organization thatneeds training on coercive
control, you can book a freeconsultation for that.
(47:58):
And then the best place to learnmore about coercive control and
the quicksand model, in additionto those courses where you can
get that 20% discount and youwant it free.
I do a ton of TikTok videos andInstagram posts on Acusa's
Instagram and TikTok.
And they're real short.
(48:19):
And if you listen to those, youget little bite-sized pieces of
it.
And over time, what that can dois it can undo the negative
patriarchal programming that ledyou to a position where you may
have been vulnerable to coercivecontrol, and it can help you
overcome that.
SPEAKER_01 (48:35):
So what's your handle?
SPEAKER_00 (48:37):
That's a great question.
I think on TikTok it's Acusa, EC C U S A.
And on Instagram, I think it'smy name, Kate Amber, but the
logo is Acusa's logo.
So if you search for Kate Amberor Acusa or End Coercive Control
USA, you should be able to findme.
There are also um buttons at thebottom of the page of the
(49:00):
website that'll take you to thesocial media.
SPEAKER_01 (49:02):
Brilliant.
Kate Amber, thank you so muchfor being here and for all the
work you do.
SPEAKER_00 (49:07):
Oh, thank you.
It was a huge pleasure.
SPEAKER_01 (49:09):
Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to
give women in abusive situationsa way out.
We are committed to our missionof providing safety, shelter,
and support for women andchildren who have experienced
domestic violence and to raiseawareness regarding its cause,
prevalence, and impact.
Join us in creating a societalshift on how people think about
(49:29):
domestic violence.
You can learn more atGenesisShelter.org and when you
follow us on social media, onFacebook and Instagram at
Genesis Women's Shelter, and onX at Genesis Shelter.
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