WHAT IS COERCIVE ABUSE?

Dr Vidhya Nair, holistic psychologist, explains how to identify coercive abuse. According to her, coercive abuse involves a person’s attempts to frighten, control or isolate another.

“It’s in the abuser’s words and actions, and their persistent behaviors by using emotions to criticize, embarrass, shame, blame or manipulate another person,” says Dr Nair, who’s trained in psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, neuro-linguistic programming amalgamating psychology, study of subconscious mind, neuroscience and biology to heal an individual.

Unfortunately, as per Aarathi Selvan, a clinical psychologist and founder and director of “Pause and Perspective” (a Hyderabad-based mental healthcare organization),

The controlling behavior shown in the 2017-movie Arjun Reddy is a classic example of coercive abuse

coercive control can be difficult to identify sometimes.

“In a typical patriarchal system where cis–heteronormative ideas of relating are most profoundly pervasive, even media romanticises such coercive control,” states Aarthi, who uses the 2017-movie Arjun Reddy as an example. “The film is a good example of coercive control in intimate relationships. Possessiveness, acting out from a place of jealousy, which includes insisting on keeping phones unlocked, snooping into partners’ phones, constantly doubting the partner to be dishonest or not transparent about the people they are with outside their relationship are some examples of coercive control. It’s also coercive control when partners don’t engage in healthy separation.”