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Power and Control

Abusers use various tactics to gain power and control such as the following:

  • DOMINANCE – Abusive individuals need to feel they are in total control of the relationship. They insist on making all family decisions, regardless of how it affects the victim. They expect all persons in the situation to obey their wishes without question. Often they are found to treat the victim like slaves or their possessions.
  • HUMILIATION – Abusers do everything they can to make the victim feel bad about themselves. Weapons such as personal insults, name-calling, shaming, and putting victim down in public as means to erode self-esteem and make the victim feel powerless. If the victim believes they are worthless they are less likely to leave the situation.
  • ISOLATION – In order to be in complete control of the victim, the abuser wants to increase the victim’s dependency on them. Tactics used are cutting victim off from outside world such as; keeping victim from family and friends (either in person or by other means), prevent victim from working or attending school, attending social events or family outings, or making victim ask permission to do anything, go anywhere or see anyone.
  • THREATS – Threats are a basic tactic all abusers use. Threats come in various forms such as; stating they will kill the victim-pet-or a member of the family, stating they will commit suicide, stating they will turn the victim into children’s services or file false reports to the police or court, state they will contact the children’s school and bar victim from picking up children or contact the church the victim attends and lie to the reverend or priest of the victim’s supposed actions.
  • INTIMIDATION – The message “if you don’t obey, there will be violent consequences” is an intimidation tactic used all too readily by abusers. Various forms are looking at the victim in a threatening way, making threatening or demeaning gestures, hurting pets, destroying victim’s personal things, breaking things in front of victim, showing no concern if victim is ill or needs medical attention, displaying weapons or saying if you know what is good for the victim they will obey.
  • DENIAL and BLAME – Abuser’s use denial of their actions in making excuses for the inexcusable. They blame their violent behavior on the victim, bad childhood, bad day, peers at work or the children. Abusers commonly minimize the abuser or deny that it occurred and shift the responsibility for their actions to the victim, thus in the abuser’s mind the violent episode is the victim’s fault.
  • CHILDREN – Abusers use children in various forms to control. They state their children are not theirs and accuse the victim of various affairs. They make false reports to children’s services or the courts, which causes victim to defend themselves needlessly. They harm the children and deny their involvement. They create an impossible environment for the family to live in and blame the victim for the problem.