What is coercive control?

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour (non-physical and physical) that one person uses to dominate another, almost always a current or former intimate partner, by gradually removing their freedom, choices and independence.

It works through repeated tactics such as intimidation, isolation, monitoring, financial restriction and humiliation, rather than through a single violent act.

The harm comes from the pattern building over time that targets the person using psychological, emotional and/or physical control tactics, so the person is slowly hemmed in until ordinary decisions start to feel unsafe and the person’s sense-of-self is gradually eroded.

Researchers describe the experience as a loss of self, where the controlled person changes how they think and act to manage the other person's reactions.

Put simply, coercive control is about ongoing domination and entrapment, not about isolated incidents.

What does coercive control ‘look’ like?

Recent reviews identify a recognisable set of tactics that, used together and repeatedly, make up coercive control.

These commonly include isolation from support; close monitoring or surveillance of movements and communication; control of money and daily activities; and degradation through criticism, humiliation or threats.

Physical or sexual violence may also be present, but when it is, it usually works as one more method of control rather than the defining feature.

What ties the components together is intent and effect: the behaviour is aimed at dominating the other person, and its result is reduced freedom and growing fear.

No single tactic describes it; the pattern and its cumulative impact do.

Is coercive control a crime?

Yes, BUT only in some jurisdictions within some countries, and for those that have, only in the context of certain relationships (with more recognising it each year).

England and Wales were first, criminalising controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship in 2015, with the offence requiring proof of a serious effect on the person. Scotland followed in 2018 with a broader offence that covers abusive behaviour towards a partner or ex-partner, does not require proof of a serious effect, and takes the impact on children into account.

In Australia, New South Wales became the first state, with its offence limited to current or former intimate partners and a maximum penalty of seven years, in force from 1 July 2024 (Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 54D).

Queensland's offence, known as Hannah's Law, went further by also covering family members and informal carers and carrying a higher maximum of fourteen years, in force from 26 May 2025 (Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (Qld)).

South Australia passed its law in 2025, covering current and former relationships with a maximum of seven years, with the offence set to start on a later date fixed by proclamation (Criminal Law Consolidation (Coercive Control) Amendment Act 2025 (SA)).

Other states are in the consultation stage to define their future legislation of the offence.

It’s worth checking the status of legal recognition of coercive control in your area. There are most certainly discussions and reviews happening around the world, including in Canada and the USA. Often there are offences that relate to coercive control, however the wording may describe offences related to assault and battery for example. However, often those offence categories fail to capture the psychological and emotional domination components that are characteristic of coercive control.

Despite the increasing recognition of the harm of coercive control by governments, due to the insidious and often hidden nature of coercive control, there continues to be practical difficulties for police and prosecutors to provide the evidence required to establish the burden of proof that’s required for a court of law.

However, this doesn’t in any way invalidate your experience of the harms that are experienced when someone uses coercive control repeatedly in a relationship with you.

Lived-experience of coercive control and a legal finding are very different things. Learning to recognise and to track the patterns provides you with the knowledge AND skill to ensure that you are able to confidently identify it for yourself, and to make informed decisions about your relationship from that position of clarity.

Why did these jurisdictions recognise it as a criminal offence?

The main reason is that coercive control is closely linked to the most serious outcomes in abusive relationships, including intimate partner homicide.

The NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team found that controlling behaviours were present in 97 per cent of the intimate partner homicides it examined, frequently before any physical violence occurred (NSW Government, Department of Communities and Justice, 2024). Lawmakers also recognised that older laws focused on single physical incidents, which missed the ongoing pattern that does most of the damage (Tolmie, Smith & Wilson, 2024). Making the pattern itself an offence allows police and courts to act earlier, before harm escalates (NSW Government, Department of Communities and Justice, 2024).

The aim was to name the conduct, give it legal weight, and create a point of intervention that incident-based laws don’t provide.

How is it different from domestic and family violence or abuse?

Domestic and family violence is a broad term that often brings to mind separate incidents of physical or verbal abuse, whereas coercive control describes the lived-experience of harm from being targetted by an ongoing pattern of domination that is enforced through (often subtle) psychological and emotional control tactics that sometimes also includes the use of physical control and force.

When we think of domestic abuse, we tend to understand it as being physical or sexual violence, however many women are significantly impacted by non-physical harms that are repeated across the relationship causing confusion, shame, anxiety, fear and a sense of helplessness.

Coercive control may involve little or no physical violence, relying instead on isolation, monitoring, financial control and intimidation that are hard to see from the outside. When physical violence does occur within coercive control, it tends to be one tool inside a wider system of control rather than a standalone event. The clearest difference is the unit of harm: traditional abuse is often measured incident by incident, while coercive control is measured by the cumulative effect of behaviour over time.

This is why a person can be seriously harmed even when no single act looks ‘serious’ on its own.

This is also why it can be so hard to recognise when living inside it.

If it isn’t recognised as a criminal offence where I live, is it still harmful (and if so, how)?

Yes. Whether or not a place has a specific criminal offence, the evidence on harm is consistent and serious.

A systematic review and meta-analysis by Lohmann and colleages in 2024 found that coercive control is linked to worse mental health outcomes than other forms of intimate partner violence, with particularly strong associations with complex post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress and depression.

The harm comes from prolonged exposure: living under constant pressure, surveillance and unpredictability wears down a person's confidence, independence and sense of self. Survivors also describe lasting effects on their relationships, work and freedom of movement, regardless of the law where they live.

Why is it difficult to know if someone is using coercive control?

Coercive control is hard to spot because it usually builds gradually, so each step can seem minor or even caring at the time, and only the accumulated pattern reveals the problem.

As the tactics are mostly non-physical, such as managing money, checking phones, setting rules or withdrawing approval, they are easily explained away as ordinary relationship issues or arguments.

Over time the controlled person often adjusts their own behaviour to keep the peace, which makes the control feel normal rather than imposed.

Many people also turn the blame inward, assuming the difficulty is their own fault, which delays recognition and help-seeking.

Limited public awareness of what coercive control looks like adds to this, so it can take a long time to name what is happening. And the longer it takes, the more exposure to the harmful impacts.

How can I be sure if someone is using coercive control tactics?

As coercive control often involves a gradual increase in patterns of control that directly impact our human attachment and nervous systems, it can be challenging to recognise coercive control, particularly early in a relationship.

Other factors can blur coercive control and keep it hidden including our own psychological vulnerabilities, social conditioning including the influence of gendered assumptions and stereotypes, religious and cultural beliefs that normalise hierarchical or uneven power distribution within relationships.

Most resources available provide checklists of abuse behaviour and ‘red flags’ to watch out for. These tend to miss the complexity of the systematic nature of coercive control and the series of microaggressions that lead to the harmful impacts over time.

Unfortunately, social media and the impact of misinformation can increase confusion. Often when a woman suspects that something in their intimate partner relationship, family dynamics, friendship, or in her religious or workplace culture feels wrong or harmful in some way, the noise of opinion, influencer self-help, or AI slop may interfere with her access to reliable information sources; leading to her remaining in harmful relationships longer.

However, it is possible to gain an evidence-informed understanding when you know where to look.

WiseWOMAN Studio offers one such ‘place’ where you are able to access just that. We offer women a variety of resources that are specifically designed to support women in learning to recognise, track and to make sense of coercive control and its harmful impacts.

To begin we recommend starting here (you’ll find links below):

1.    Completing the WiseWOMAN Studio coercive control screener to gain a sense of whether coercive control behaviours are emerging or present in your intimate partner relationship (and there’s no cost involved to access it).

2.    Depending on your preferred way of approaching content, you might like to check out:

a.    our YoutubeChannel for videos and podcast episodes that describe the experience of coercive control,

b.    our founder, Dee’s, Substack page for articles on coercive control, or

c.    our website Resources page for recommended readings.

3.    Completing the Relationship Clarity Mapping program that explains coercive control in a way that makes sense to women with lived-experience of it and provides a structured method to connect the dots between a partner’s behaviour and the impacts it has on you over time in a seven-step method.

This is the tool that makes the hidden patterns visible. You can find out more about the program here: