Source 8 of 10
Lundy Bancroft / Evan Stark — Coercive Control
The relationship-specific version of the control material — on firm clinical and legal ground.
The Source
Lundy Bancroft's Why Does He Do That?, drawing on his years running counseling programs for abusive men, combined with sociologist Evan Stark's clinical concept of coercive control. Sharpens the relationship-specific version of the gaslighting and control material already in the project.
Evidentiary note: coercive control is a well-established clinical and increasingly legal concept — several countries (the UK, Ireland) and some U.S. states have made it a specific criminal offense. This is on firmer ground than some other material in this project, like the BITE Model.
Core Ideas (from the project so far)
- A pattern of choices, not a loss of control — the same person who "loses their temper" at home is reliably calm at work or with a boss. That inconsistency is itself diagnostic.
- Behavior that shifts sharply by audience — reasonable in public, controlling in private.
- Blame-shifting — blaming a partner for the abuser's own actions ("you made me do this").
- Progressive isolation — from friends, family, and financial independence, often framed as care or protectiveness rather than control.
- Minimizing or denying — past incidents the other partner remembers clearly. Direct overlap with the memory-undermining/gaslighting material already in the project.
- Resource — National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.
My Notes
(Add your own observations, questions, and connections as you go.)
Open Questions
(What's still unresolved or worth digging into further?)