Written by: Angela Derrick, Ph.D. & Susan McClanahan, Ph.D.
Date Posted: July 15, 2026 4:56 am
Coercive control in relationships is a pattern of emotional and psychological abuse that can be difficult to recognize but deeply impacts mental health and personal autonomy.
Many people experiencing coercive control do not initially identify it as abuse. Instead, it can feel like confusion, anxiety, or a growing sense of losing yourself in a relationship.
If you are experiencing coercive control in a relationship, it may have begun with small requests, like sharing your location or responding quickly to texts. Over time, those requests and others became expectations. If you don’t meet them, there is tension, withdrawal, or criticism. Maybe you have started anticipating reactions, editing your behavior, and making yourself smaller just to keep things calm.
Coercive control can include:
Over time, coercive control reshapes how a person thinks, feels, and makes decisions. They lose confidence and begin to doubt their inner knowing. It is not about one moment. It is about a pattern.
Coercive control is not just a relationship issue. It is a mental health issue.
Research has found that exposure to coercive control is moderately associated with both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression (Lohmann et al., 2023).
These findings are significant. They confirm that coercive control is not simply “toxic” or difficult. It is psychologically harmful in measurable and clinically meaningful ways.
Importantly, these effects are comparable to other forms of intimate partner violence, including physical abuse. This challenges the common assumption that harm must be visible to be serious. It does not.
Coercive control often creates a state of chronic fear, instability, and entrapment, where a person’s autonomy, relationships, and access to resources are gradually restricted. Over time, this can impact:
There is also growing recognition that coercive control may contribute to complex trauma, particularly because it involves repeated, inescapable interpersonal stress over time.
Coercive control is often subtle in how it appears.
But it is not subtle in its impact.
Coercive control does not always escalate to physical violence. Many individuals experience years of psychological, emotional, and relational control without ever being physically harmed.
However, when physical violence is present, it is almost always embedded within a broader pattern of coercive control.
Physical acts do not occur in isolation. They are typically part of an ongoing system of dominance that includes intimidation, restriction of autonomy, and erosion of self-trust.
This distinction matters.
Emotional and psychological abuse are sometimes minimized because they are less visible. But research and clinical experience consistently show that emotional abuse can be every bit as damaging as physical violence, particularly because it operates over time and targets a person’s sense of reality, identity, and safety.
The impact is not only emotional. It can affect:
In many cases, it is the cumulative effect of coercive control, not a single incident, that creates the deepest and most lasting harm.
For individuals in Chicago, Northbrook, and across Illinois, recognizing these patterns can be an important first step toward change. If this resonates, support is available, and you can start with a free 15-minute consultation to determine what type of treatment, whether individual, group, or IOP therapy services, is the best fit.
For those whose symptoms have become harder to manage alone, an Intensive Outpatient Program, or IOP, offers a higher level of support. Coercive control can leave lasting effects, including PTSD, depression, chronic anxiety, and complex trauma. When those effects begin to interfere with daily life, an IOP provides more frequent and more structured care than a weekly session allows, while still letting you stay in your own home and keep up with work, family, and everyday responsibilities.
SpringSource offers a hybrid IOP for adults that meets three days a week, with weekday evening and weekend hours. Because it is hybrid, you can attend in person or virtually, whichever fits your circumstances and feels safest.
Coercive control rarely begins with something obvious. It develops through patterns that escalate over time.
Examples include:
Individually, these behaviors can sometimes be explained away. But together, they form a system.
Many people recognize coercive control through how they feel, not what they can prove.
For example, you may not be able to point to a specific incident, but you notice you feel anxious before responding to a text, replay conversations in your head, or no longer feel like you can relax or fully be yourself in the relationship.
Common signs include:
One of the most defining features of coercive control is the erosion of self-trust.
Not all controlling behavior is the same, and understanding the distinction can be an important part of recognizing what is happening in a relationship.
Controlling behavior can show up in many relationships, especially during times of stress, insecurity, or poor communication. It might look like wanting reassurance, asking a lot of questions, or struggling to tolerate uncertainty. In healthier dynamics, these behaviors can be acknowledged, reflected on, and changed over time.
Coercive control is different.
Coercive control is not about isolated behaviors or moments. It is a consistent pattern that shapes the relationship over time. The focus is not just on influence, but on power, dominance, and restriction of autonomy.
Rather than occasional tension, coercive control creates an environment where one person’s freedom becomes increasingly limited. This may include monitoring, isolation, emotional manipulation, or subtle and overt intimidation.
One of the clearest ways to understand the difference is through impact.
Controlling behavior may feel frustrating or difficult.
Coercive control often feels disorienting, anxiety-provoking, and destabilizing. Over time, a person may begin to feel like they are walking on eggshells, second-guessing themselves, or losing a sense of who they are.
Another key distinction is whether the behavior can change.
In relationships where controlling behavior is present but not part of a coercive pattern, there is typically space for accountability, repair, and mutual growth.
In coercive control, the pattern tends to persist because it serves a function. It maintains power in the relationship.
Understanding this difference is not about labeling every difficult dynamic as abuse. It is about recognizing when a pattern is no longer about conflict or insecurity, but about control.
Coercive control creates confusion, not clarity.
Over time, people begin to question their own perceptions rather than the behavior itself.
For example, you may find yourself thinking, “Maybe I’m overreacting” or “Maybe I remembered that wrong,” even when something felt clearly upsetting in the moment.
This is not a lack of insight. It is the effect of sustained psychological pressure.
This pattern has been extensively described as a system of control and domination that shapes a person’s life over time, not just a series of isolated, harmful moments (Stark, 2007). Stark argues that coercive control can resemble entrapment, where a person’s freedom, autonomy, and access to resources are gradually restricted. Many individuals seek help not because of a single incident, but because their ability to live freely and make independent decisions has been steadily taken away. Stark’s work highlights how coercive control can function to undermine a person’s autonomy and sense of self.
For many individuals, coercive control does not feel entirely unfamiliar.
People who grew up in environments with inconsistent caregiving, emotional neglect, or high criticism may have already learned to:
This can create what is often referred to as learned helplessness, where a person gradually stops believing they can change their circumstances, even when options exist.
In coercive relationships, this pattern can be reinforced.
When efforts to assert needs are dismissed, punished, or ignored, the nervous system adapts by:
Over time, this can create a powerful internal narrative: “It’s easier to go along than to fight this.”
Understanding this connection is not about blame.
It is about recognizing how early relational experiences can shape what feels familiar, tolerable, or even normal in adult relationships.
Dr. Angela Derrick notes, “Individuals who grow up in emotionally or physically unsafe environments often develop survival strategies that help them cope with difficult circumstances. While these patterns may have been protective early in life, they can sometimes carry over into adult relationships in ways that are no longer helpful. Therapy can help people recognize how their past experiences influence their present relationships, allowing them to make more intentional choices and build healthier connections. One of the most rewarding parts of this work is supporting clients as they begin to recognize their own worth, break free from old patterns, and create more fulfilling and secure relationships.”
In recent years, more people have become familiar with psychological concepts like boundaries, triggers, attachment styles, and emotional regulation. This awareness can be incredibly helpful.
However, in coercively controlling relationships, this language can sometimes be misused or weaponized.
Instead of supporting growth, therapy language is used to invalidate, deflect, or control.
For example:
On the surface, these statements may sound psychologically informed. But in context, they can function as a form of gaslighting.
Gaslighting involves causing someone to question their own perception of reality. When therapy language is used in a controlling way, it can make that confusion feel even more convincing.
Instead of addressing behavior, the focus is shifted onto:
Over time, this can lead you to:
This is not the same as a partner encouraging growth or emotional awareness.
It is the use of psychological language to maintain control and avoid accountability.
Healthy use of therapy language:
Weaponized use of therapy language:
The difference is not the words themselves.
It is how they are used, and who they ultimately serve.
This is a complex and often uncomfortable question.
Coercive control is not caused by one single factor. It typically reflects a combination of entitlement and power.
At its core, coercive control often involves a belief, conscious or not, that one person has the right to dominate or define the relationship.
This can show up as:
For some individuals, control is a way to manage deep insecurity, longstanding fears, or emotional instability.
However, insecurity alone does not explain coercive control.
Many people feel insecure and do not control others.
People who grew up in controlling or chaotic environments may replicate those dynamics without fully recognizing them.
Control can become normalized as a way of relating.
Healthy relationships require two separate people.
Coercive control often reflects an inability to tolerate that separation.
Instead of connection, the goal becomes regulation through control.
Boundaries in coercive relationships are not simple.
In healthy relationships, boundaries are respected.
In coercive dynamics, boundaries may be:
This is why boundary-setting can feel destabilizing or even unsafe.
Boundaries are not about changing the other person.
They are about clarifying what you will and will not participate in.
This may include:
If you have been conditioned to:
then boundaries can feel like a threat, even when they are necessary.
That sense of threat often comes from a heightened fear of abandonment, one that can feel overwhelming, as if your entire world is at risk of unraveling.
You may notice feelings of guilt or anxiety arise, even when you are simply standing up for yourself.
This is not a failure.
It is a learned adaptation.
At a certain point, the need for boundaries can become so constant and all-encompassing that it raises a deeper question: What am I trying to sustain here?
If you find yourself needing to protect your time, your words, your reactions, and even your internal experience in nearly every interaction, it may no longer be about setting better boundaries. It may be about recognizing that the relationship itself is not structured in a way that allows you to feel safe, respected, or fully yourself.
In some coercive dynamics, boundaries alone do not shift the system. This is because coercive control is not rooted in misunderstanding. It is about maintaining power.
When boundaries are needed in nearly every interaction, it may no longer be a boundary issue. It may be a relationship issue.
In these situations, support, thoughtful planning, and professional guidance can become essential.
Many people experiencing coercive control might not know to search for that term right away. Instead, they Google questions that reflect how the relationship feels.
You might find yourself asking:
These questions are not random.
They are often early signals of a pattern that has not yet been fully recognized.
Coercive control has evolved with technology and modern life.
It may show up as:
In midlife relationships, coercive control may also intersect with:
These layers can make it more difficult to identify and disrupt.
What is coercive control?
Coercive control pattern of controlling and psychologically abusive behavior used to dominate, isolate, and control another person. It often includes manipulation, monitoring, gaslighting, intimidation, financial control, and restriction of autonomy.
What are signs of coercive control in a relationship?
Common signs of coercive control include feeling like you are always doing something wrong, second-guessing your thoughts or decisions, changing your behavior to avoid conflict, feeling isolated from friends or family, and losing a clear sense of who you are.
Is coercive control abuse even if there is no physical violence?
Yes. Coercive control is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. A relationship can be highly abusive and deeply harmful even when there is no physical violence.
Is it normal for my partner to check my phone?
In healthy relationships, privacy and trust are respected. Repeatedly checking a partner’s phone or expecting access can be a sign of controlling behavior.
Why do I feel like I’m walking on eggshells?
This often reflects an environment where reactions are unpredictable, leading you to adjust your behavior to avoid conflict. It is a common experience in coercively controlling relationships.
Why is coercive control so hard to leave?
Coercive control often creates chronic fear, confusion, self-doubt, and emotional dependency. Over time, a person may begin to question their own perceptions, lose confidence in their judgment, and feel trapped by the relationship dynamic.
Can coercive control affect mental health?
Yes. Research has found that coercive control is moderately associated with both PTSD and depression. It can also contribute to chronic anxiety, loss of self-trust, and symptoms related to complex trauma.
Can therapy help with coercive control?
Yes. Therapy can help individuals identify coercive patterns, rebuild self-trust, strengthen boundaries, process relational trauma, and make safer, more grounded decisions about next steps.
Coercive control is often persistent and deeply disorienting.
If you feel like you are losing your sense of self in a relationship, that matters.
You are not imagining it.
And you are not alone.
At SpringSource: Eating, Weight, and Mood Disorders, we specialize in helping individuals understand complex relationship dynamics, including coercive control, emotional abuse, and relational trauma.
Our clinicians use relational, attachment-focused, evidence-based, and trauma-informed approaches, including CBT, DBT, and psychodynamic therapy, to help individuals rebuild self-trust, strengthen boundaries, and navigate difficult relationships.
We provide in-person therapy in Chicago and Northbrook, with virtual care available throughout Illinois.
Lohmann, S., Cowlishaw, S., Ney, L., O’Donnell, M., & Felmingham, K. (2023).
The trauma and mental health impacts of coercive control: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10666508/
Stark, E. (2007).
Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
We provide in-person therapy in Northbrook and Chicago, with telehealth therapy available throughout Illinois.
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