Lesson 2 of 6 · Control is a pattern, not an incident
What this is called, and why the name matters
This has a name and a research literature, and there is a practical reason to know it. What helps in a relationship where two people fight badly is not what helps where one person is running a control project. Treating the two as one thing produces advice that gets people hurt.
What the research says
The argument here is that counting separate assaults misses the actual injury, which is your liberty. Isolation, rules about daily life, monitoring and unpredictable consequences work together to remove your freedom, and no single incident shows it on its own.
Stark's argument is that focusing on separate assaults misses the actual injury, which is liberty. Isolation, rules about daily life, monitoring and unpredictable consequence work together to remove a person's freedom of movement and judgement, and that removal is the harm, whether or not anyone is struck. This is a book rather than a paper, so it carries an ISBN and not a DOI.
Stark E (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 9780195154276
There is a real difference between violence inside a project of control and conflict that escalates with no control behind it. They look alike on an incident form and they are not alike, and which one you are in changes what is safe to do.
Johnson separates violence that sits inside a project of control from conflict between two people that escalates without any control behind it. The two look similar on an incident form and are not the same thing, and what is safe to do about them differs completely.
Johnson MP (1995). Patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence: two forms of violence against women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 57(2), 283 to 294 doi
Economic abuse takes three recognised forms: restricting your access to money, exploiting you through debt or taken wages, and sabotaging your work. It is named here because it is often not recognised as abuse by the person living in it.
Economic abuse is described in three recognised forms: restricting access to money, exploiting a person financially through debt or taken wages, and sabotaging their employment. The review's point is that it is not a milder category, because it is commonly the thing that removes the practical possibility of leaving.
Postmus JL, Hoge GL, Breckenridge J, Sharp-Jeffs N, Chung D (2020). Economic abuse as an invisible form of domestic violence: a multicountry review. Trauma, Violence, and Abuse, 21(2), 261 to 283 doi