Coercive Control - Expert Witness
Dr. Lisa Fontes: Lisa A. Fontes, PhD is an expert on coercive control, child abuse, and intimate partner violence. A researcher, professor, and expert witness, she has authored Invisible Chains, Interviewing Clients Across Cultures, and Child Abuse and Culture. A Senior Lecturer at UMass Amherst, she has over 30 years of experience in research, psychotherapy, and education. Her work is widely published, with millions of readers on Psychology Today and Domesticshelters.org. She has served as an expert witness in 17 states on trauma, abuse, and child development.
A very comprehensive account from an Expert Witness, Dr. Lisa Fontes, being interviewed by the Trauma-Informed specialist, Dr. Cocchiola.
Coercive Control is defined by Dr. Fontes as: A strategy one person uses to dominate their intimate partner, which can contain tactics of one or more of the methods in the toolbox of the coercive controlling person.
Tactics of Abuse:
Physical, Sexual, Litigation, Isolation, Manipulation, Intimidation and/or controlling the children post separation. Or pre-separation, of wearing the other down by threatening "If you leave me, you will lose the children... or you will lose the house."
Coercive Control is a pattern of behaviour over time, that can be subtle in nature. The two professional also spoke of "Bread Crumbing" as intermittent reinforcement which often serves to keep the victim in the cycle of abuse.
Dr. Fontes states that there is "No such thing as mutual domestic violence." Dr. Fontes seeks to have the Family Courts better understand the complex dynamics in coercive controlling behaviour and the self-doubt and trauma that victims experience.
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