The Invisible Cage: Tactics of Coercive Control Every Person Needs to Know

Coercive control = any intentional pattern of behavior designed to control or dominate another person and is the umbrella over all forms of abuse. Bethany Jantzi, DPC, MSc. explains why intelligent, strong people fall victim to it, and the early red flags to watch for: from love bombing and commitment whirlwinds to sexual pressure and the slow erosion of your autonomy. 

She also shares her powerful FOG-C framework to help you recognize coercion in real time. And if someone you love is being controlled, whether in a relationship or a cult, Bethany shares why compassionate curiosity, not confrontation, is the key to keeping that lifeline open.

Whether you're a parent worried about your teen, someone dating again after abuse, or a survivor still making sense of what happened, this conversation is for you.

RESOURCES

Dr. Jane Monckton Smith's TED Talk – The domestic homicide timeline 

Bethany's Website & Instagram – freefromcontrol.ca / @freefromcontrol.ca

Connect with Mandi:

• Website: WomenAwareAndPrepared.com
• Take the Free Intuition Quiz WomenAwareAndPrepared.com/Quiz
• Instagram: @WomenAwareAndPrepared
• LinkedIn: Mandi Pratt

The primary purpose of the Women Aware and Prepared Podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute advice or services. Please use common sense for your own situation.

Transcript

Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor. Here we keep it real with true crime stories and real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit.

All to help you feel safer, trust yourself more deeply, and live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace that you deserve.

Hey, welcome back to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. So I have a very special guest here with us and. Bethany Yancy is here with us, and she is a coercive control consultant and mental health professional holding a master of science in the psychology, of course of control.

She's passionate about helping people understand the intricate mechanisms of coercive control, and believes that every person has a right to live free from coercion, abuse, and control. Her research explored high control groups and a weaponization of religious texts. As a form of coercive control against women.

Other areas of interest are trauma, coerced attachment grooming, and adult clergy sexual abuse. Bethany's writing has been published in the Academic Journal, Priscilla Papers, as well as Mutuality Magazine. So welcome in Bethany. 

Thank you so much for having me, Mandy. I'm really excited to meet with you today and talk all things coercive control.

Yeah, you're so welcome. And, um, thank you so much for your time. So I was going through your Instagram and was like, um, heart, heart, heart. I was like, harting everything, because everything you were saying was so spot on and so helpful. But before we dig in, I wanted to make sure that our listeners understand what exactly is coercive control.

Yeah, it's a great question that I, I get a lot and I love getting that question. So, coercive control is re really any intentional form of behavior that is designed to control or dominate another person. And so this can look like a lot of different things, but the key aspect is that it's an intentional behavior, it's a pattern of behavior, and the goal is.

Domination or control. So whether that is just emotional abuse, whether that is sexual abuse, um, we also can see coercive control in workplaces. Um, so it doesn't necessarily have to involve an intimate partnership. 

Mm-hmm. 

Um, we also see coercive control in like cult and high control settings. 

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, but yeah, that behavior of.

Intentional patterns of behavior designed to control or dominate another person. Mm-hmm. And we'll usually see, um, isolation is a very common one that we see. Humiliation is another one. Um, and threats is very common as well. Um, and sometimes, but not always, we will see violence. 

Hmm. Okay. Um, that was interesting because.

As you were explaining it, I was thinking it of it as like an umbrella. 'cause I always think of like emotional abuse, but I don't think of the other things that you were mentioning. So it's like an umbrella that has all these things under it, right? 

Yeah. That's actually a great way to look at it is coercive control is the umbrella and then all these different subsets and types of abuse and control are under it.

And the abuser can kind of take their pick. Um, but the end goal is control and subjugation of that person. Um, another way I like to look at course of control is that it's really like an invisible cage. Mm-hmm. And those forms of abuse. Are kind of the bars, the rungs that block that person in. But people, we can't see it.

It's invisible to us. Mm-hmm. Um, so I like to bring up that picture too, to help people really kind of understand what they're dealing with. 

That's a great analogy too. I like that idea of an invisible cage because when you're a victim of this, a lot of times, like you don't even know you're in this cage.

And then definitely people around you don't usually know that you're in this. Right. 

Yeah, I actually find that the majority of victims and survivors that I've worked with for most of the duration of their relationship, they wouldn't have categorized it as abuse. Um, but then when we start digging a bit further.

There's a lot of subtle threats. A lot of like do this or else. Mm-hmm. Whether they use emotional manipulation, but that or else is the coercion. It's the, subtle threat that's a part of that. And yeah, so it's extremely common that victims. Aren't able to really put their finger on that behavior that they're experiencing.

Right. Yeah. Um, and so you mentioned things like isolation, intimidation, threats, humiliation. So like what types of threats, like, can you give some examples of what that would actually sound like? 

Yeah, so it can be really a threat about anything. But the threat, how course of control is very personalized to the victim because it's built and shaped off of the intimate knowledge that that abuser has gained during that relationship.

So those threats will often be very specific to that person. So it could be that, um, the victim shared. Really intimate details or things that they struggle with. And the abuser's, like, if you don't do blank, I will tell your coworkers or tell your boss, or tell your sister that you did this or that you cheated on me in this relationship.

So. The threats are very personalized to the victim, so they can kind of be any manner of things. But one thing to note about threats is that when a relationship is controlled using threats, you often don't need violent. Because just the threat of that is enough. Or sometimes an abuser will use violence once, and then just threatening that after that is enough to stabilize that person's coercive control.

Um, but it's, yeah, it's very tailored to the victim. 

Yeah. That's so interesting. I could see that and I know you mentioned on your Instagram, they will like in religious settings, they might use that type of thing, um, to keep that power and control, right?

Yeah. A lot of the clients that I work with are from conservative evangelical backgrounds and abusers with this kind of theology in their hands. It gives them so much power and a way that they can claim. To represent God, to stand in for God and that their partner's submission to them is submission to God.

And so they must always submit to their partner, uh, because that's what God asks of them in this specific interpretation of scripture. And so I do find that abusers find a ready made home in some of these specific theological. Interpretations, unfortunately. 

Right, exactly. Yeah. So they use that as like a environment or like a vehicle to deliver that coercive control.

Yeah. And the other thing too, we see that's really common within coercive control and domestic abuse, but is. Um, like entrenched gender roles and very delineated separation between the genders, and that's something that we often also find a lot within these, some of these conservative environments. And it really gives permission to these men who do believe.

That men are entitled to be in control. They are entitled to have a submissive partner. So when they walk through the doors of some of these faith communities, they're given a theology that really legitimizes their justification in their desire for control and it spiritualizes it. Mm-hmm. And when you alize something like that, it really makes that control almost invisible, like a lot harder to detect.

Right. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. And I shared with you before we got chatting here that, um, in my background, I came from something like that and now I found, a different church that does not run with that theology and there isn't that power and control. Theology over women.

So, super helpful to, to note that and, I think your work is so important in that area. Um, but yeah, thank you for, for sharing that with us. So for some of us listening. We want to shield, you know, our loved ones, maybe if we're a mom, right? Um, and we have a teenager and so we're trying to think, you know, how do I help my, my teen avoid this?

Or maybe we are a teenager and we're like, how do I know that I'm not? Getting into this type of relationship, or we're an adult and we're dating again, and we're thinking, how do I, you know, um, and then there's those of us who have been through it like myself, and we're just like, Ooh, I got those Spidey senses and I can spot you from a mile away.

So for those of us who have not been in that. Circumstance. Um, congratulations. I'm so happy for those of us, first of all, before I get go in further, for those of us who have. Abuse is never your fault. I just wanna make sure that we note that there is no victim blaming. Um, so by talking about how do we avoid this, I wanna be sure that people understand.

I'm not saying that people like myself, you know, if I just would've X, Y, Z, right? It's not my fault. It's the perpetrator's fault always. Mm-hmm. So I just wanna point that out first. 

Yeah, and I think that you were touching on something that's so important and that people don't necessarily realize is such a big part of the equation, and that's that abusers and coercive controllers, cult leaders, controlling clergy, they exploit and leverage our basic human desires and needs against us.

Hmm. 

So unless you are a robot and you are not a human being, you are vulnerable to this and that. These types of people have sophisticated tactics and methods that they employ. So people who have been victimized and have survived this, it says nothing about their intelligence level or anything like that.

It just speaks to the sophisticated. Tactics and the exploitation that the abusers employed of basic human needs and desire. So I love that you brought that up. 

Thank you. And thanks for expounding on that. It's super important. 

Mm-hmm. 

Um, so for those of us who want to be more knowledgeable about this and wanna be able to spot it, you know, right away, um, what are some of the tips that maybe you could give to our listeners?

Yeah. So. A lot of these relationships early on is characterized by what we would call like love bombing, which is where that person, it's a very new relationship and that person is really showered with affection. It could be. Verbal affection or gifts or money or trips and um, a person is in their phone all the time.

These are all behaviors that can fall under the category of love bombing. And so we see that these relationships start off in a way that's really characterized by a lot of intensity and also. Kind of what we call like a commitment whirlwind, um, where things just happen so fast, um, and it kind of happens so fast that that person doesn't even really have the time or space to really get some perspective.

Yeah. 

And so I always tell people that like, infatuation is normal. Those early stages of falling in love can be very heady and emotionally intense. Um, but. To like pump the brakes a little bit like. If this person's contacting you every day, um, that could be a warning sign. But what's really telling is that if you are to ask for just like a little bit of space, um mm-hmm.

Or that like, you are actually not free every weekend and this weekend you have something, their response to that is going to be very telling about if this is a relationship where there's love bombing and if they feel entitled to your time. And entitled to reciprocity from you. 

Mm-hmm. 

So that's a big thing that I tell people to look for in those early stages, is that commitment whirlwind.

That heady rush. And what's their response when you decide that you can't go on this coffee date or that that weekend you actually wanna spend time with your friends or your family? What is their response? 

Right. Yeah, that's a good one. And it is so healthy too. To make sure that you, you're not getting isolated and to still be able to have that time and space Right.

To spend with your friends and family. 

Yeah, and I'd say another key one that I see a lot is that I, um, that in that relationship, that person soon finds out that their autonomy. Is like a threat to the controller. So whether or not they wanna go back to school or like they're thinking maybe they could apply for this new position, maybe they would get it, or maybe they'd like to move to a new city to, I don't know, to be closer to this really cool business.

Any kinds of signs of that person extending their autonomy is seen as a threat, and so that person. We'll clamp down, but it's not always so obvious. Often it's under the guise of benevolence, like, oh, like maybe financially that wouldn't be a good move. Or like, oh, like I've heard at college campus, like the professors there or this, or like.

I don't think this person is good for you, this friend of yours. Mm-hmm. So in that way, your autonomy starts to be constrained and your world doesn't get bigger. It starts to get smaller and become exactly more dominated by this person. 

Right. And so you start to feel less free. You have less freedom. 

Yeah.

Yeah. But you might not even really consciously be able to put your finger on that. 

Right. 

But if there's things that you want, that you're passionate about, opportunities that before you met this person, you would've gone for, but you're not, that's a sign to kind of think about like, what's impacting my decision making in this way?

Yeah, a hundred percent. That's, that's a good one, for sure. 

Mm-hmm. 

Any other tips that you can think of? 

Yeah, I would say another big one that's a big red flag is any kind of sexual coercion and sexual pressure. Even framed in the words of like obligation. 

Mm-hmm. 

So particularly even in like with younger couples, teens, young adults, any kind of language around like, oh, we can't stop now.

You got me all wrapped up. Or like, I feel so much for you. Like, why can't you show me in this way? Like how you feel about me. Any language or pressure around sexual coercion. Or sexual pressure is a huge red flag. Mm-hmm. Because what we're looking for is anything that points to that controller's sense of entitlement.

Mm-hmm. And their justification to have what they want, when they want it, to have their needs met. Um, so yeah, just kind of screening for those responses if you push back on something like what is their response? But yeah, early sexual pressure and like guilting that person and kind of wearing them down mm-hmm.

Is something I see a lot in these relationships. 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, a lot of what you're saying, I feel like at that moment we might not be able to really. Stop and sense, like what our body is feeling. Like the pressure of why is my stomach tight? Why am I getting headaches, why are my shoulders like rocks?

Right? So it's important too to check in with your body if you can. If you can take that pause and um, check in with yourself. Right. 

Yeah, and what you just touched on too is like another way where we just Yeah. Push pause to step out of that whirlwind that emotional intensity and yeah, figure out do I actually want this or am I feeling pressure?

And if we sense any kind of, or else do this or else like emotional guilt or like obligation, that's that coercion piece that. Hopefully we can recognize if we listened to this podcast and been introduced to some of these concepts, 

right? Yeah. 

Yeah. 

So somebody that is trying to employ that coer of control, they want to be the one who's in power and control.

So they're trying to kind of, it makes me think of like a balloon, how they're kind of letting the air out slowly, slowly, slowly, and then all of a sudden it's deflated, right? 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other way that I kind of look at coercive control is that you're kind of a, a treasure hidden away in a box just for that person.

So all the things that they initially love about you in the early stages, they don't appreciate when that benefits other people. They want to keep you and the benefits that you provide to them and the relationship just for themselves. 

Mm-hmm. 

So it's like almost like you're their treasure and that's amazing, but eventually you're that treasure that's locked in that box or in that invisible cage.

Right, right. Yeah. That's good.



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Are there any other tips you would give

yeah. I'll just say one last thing that I always like to talk about is this acronym FOG with a silent C. So the fog, the F stands for fear. The O stands for obligation.

The G stands for guilt. And the SCY stands for confusion. So I always say watch out for the fog. If you're experiencing any of those, um, in your own internal emotional world, if you feel like your relationship with this person so often guilt is surfacing, fear is surfacing, a sense of obligation is surfacing or a sense of like confusion.

That's like a big red flag that there's some very tricky dynamics of coercion that could be at play. So watch him for the fog with the silent See 

Uhhuh. I'm so glad you said confusion too, because a lot of times they just hit you with all this stuff and you're just like, what?

Huh? Okay, whatever. And you just keep going. 

Yeah, 

right. It just makes me think of like they're just trying to like stun you, so you just kind of don't even know. Yeah. It's 

a tactic. 

Yeah. Right. 

So for those of us who have been through something like this, you do a lot of one-to-one work,

mm-hmm. And so how do you help them start? Like, I feel like clarity, of course, but how do you describe that? 

Yeah, so. In the process of control, really the end result is what we call psychological murder. So it's that you as a person, your sense of self, your connection to yourself, your self trust has been systematically destroyed and annihilated.

And so when someone first comes to me, it's about. Validating, encouraging and holding space for them to reconnect to who they really are. Yeah. And to rebuild that muscle of self trusts again. Mm-hmm. Because that has been systematically dismantled by the abuser. Yes. Right. Um, the other thing too, I find is a lot of psychoeducation is helpful because.

So many people blame themselves, and that's so convenient for the abuser. Mm-hmm. And for other abusers in our society that they locate the problem as being within themselves. So when you can help people understand these processes, you really empower them. Um, and validate why it was so confusing, why they didn't see what it was.

And that's such a big part of what I do. And then I also love using, Dr. Jane Monton Smith's her research on the eight stage domestic homicide timeline. Because for a lot of coercive control cases, we can actually chart where they are on this stage, and her research lays out. Escalating stages that lead up to domestic homicide, and not everyone who is on a stage on this timeline will end up at that point.

But coercive control is one of the best indicators that we have for lethality in a relationship. And that includes relationships where there's no violence. It's that control, the control. It's the dangerous piece. So when I can tell them a bit about this research, they can be like, oh my gosh, I'm in stage four.

The next stage they can plot themselves on it and it gives them kind of a framework to understand the psychology of coercive controllers and how they can protect themselves. So that's a another part of work that I do, that, people find very resonant with them. 

So it sounds like you're helping them get clarity on kind of where they're at in these stages and that 

Yeah.

Then helps them determine, how to be able to grow from there. Right. And like you were saying with the self-trust. 

Yeah, it can help them recognize the intentionality of the abuser's behaviors and their tactics. Mm-hmm. And how there's. A laid out, predictable escalation that happens in these relationships.

Mm-hmm. Um, and so if they're still in it, we wanna talk about that. And then also, even if they've left, if there's been any kind of post-separation abuse, any kind of stalking, harassment, that is a big indicator that we need to have a look at that timeline. Um, so it's just a really important tool that I rely on a lot.

Yeah, that sounds super helpful. 

I can give, um, so Dr. Jane Monton Smith, she does this amazing like 15 minute TED talk that talks about the domestic homicide timeline. So I can give you that link 'cause then if people are interested, they can kind of go and watch this and yeah, she's like a fantastic researcher and I rely on her work a lot.

Okay. Awesome. So everybody, we will put that into the show notes, so you can click on that 

definitely. 

And go watch her TED talk and then understand more of what Bethany's talking about. Mm-hmm. That's great that you specialize in helping them fit, because I feel like I've said this already a couple times but I feel like clarity is really the beginning of healing because we just are kind of like s.

You know, just stunned. And we lose our self identity and 

yeah, 

we definitely don't trust ourselves. So, um, I love that you provide that for people.

You are in Canada, so you offer one-to-one. Can you offer one-to-one for people in the United States or just Canada? 

Yeah, I do it all virtually, so yeah.

Anyone, yeah, is free to reach out to me and. Find out more about what I do and if they think they could benefit from what I offer. 

Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's great. Of course I'll be putting all of your links in there to your website and your Instagram and everything. And, as I said in the beginning, I highly encourage those who are listening to go to your Instagram and, um, there's so much help there too.

What can you tell the listeners what your Instagram is? 

Yeah, it's at free from control.ca and that's just because someone already had the handle free from control, so I just added do ca. But if you start to type in free from Control, you'll see me come up there. 

Yeah, they'll see you and then your name Bethany.

Yeah. That's cool. 

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And that's my website as well, so they can 

find 

me 

there too. Oh, that makes it easy. Do you have any more words of wisdom for either people trying to avoid this or people trying to heal from it? 

Yeah, I would say for the people who are trying to heal from it, that they have already done what was never supposed to be possible.

They were never supposed to see this invisible cage for what it was. And they're on the other side of it. So for people that are healing, I just wanna encourage them and say this points to you, following your instincts, to your strengths, to your resilience, to your self-trust. 'cause you were never meant to see the abuse for what it actually was.

And so if you're healing from it, you saw it for what it was, and you're on the other side of that and that says so much about the kind of person you are and your strength. So I wanna offer that encouragement to them. 

That's awesome. Yeah. So we are cheering you, cheering you on. Yeah. 

Yeah, yeah. We really are.

Awesome.

Yeah, I think I could talk forever, but this seems like a natural way to close it off is that we're all vulnerable to coercive control and so we need to. Talk about this more, and we need to ask our friends some of these questions and we need to help people be able to recognize this for what it is and to call it what it is.

I think that's really important it's not just jealousy. Um, it's entitlement and ownership. And so I think that these conversations are so important and so I'm so grateful that you have this platform where you're having these discussions. 

Cool, thank you. And one last question. What would you recommend if you are a parent or you're a friend and you're seeing a loved one just slide into this and be sucked into it, like, what can you do?

Like what would you recommend? 

Yeah, it's actually very similar to working with cult survivors. Mm-hmm. So I also work with family members who have loved ones in high control groups. Um, and so the big thing is to resist this sense of like urgency, where you just like insert yourself in and declare that this person is bad for you, they're being abusive.

To resist that urge, uh, but to maintain an attitude of compassionate curiosity. Mm-hmm. So the most important thing is maintaining a connection, a positive connection with that person, because the controller will be trying to isolate them. Yeah. And you just want to be able to. Not hand that person a ready made reason.

Mm-hmm. To convince the victim that this person isn't good for you. So, so often I hear like your mom or your sister, like they don't support our relationship, and every time you hang out with them, you come back having all these negative thoughts about me, accusing me of all these things. So initially and for a while, like timing is really important, but just maintaining that curiosity and that like kind of open stance to them where that relationship is maintained.

Hmm. Yeah. That's so good. So I know a lot of times our knee jerk reaction is, oh my gosh, like, what are you doing? You're going into a cult. Or like, what are you doing? You're dating this guy and he's totally controlling you. You know, that's what we wanna say. 

Yeah. 

So instead, should we say something like, um, like how are you feeling about this relationship?



Yeah, absolutely. So that compassionate curiosity, if they describe something or if you like see something or hear something, what you just did, like, ah, like how did he feel about, like his voice sounded kind of elevated, like how did you feel with the way that he talked to you? Another , tactic that I use, but usually a bit further down the road is, um.

Getting them to kind of do a thought experiment where they. Put someone else in that situation. So like mm-hmm. If your niece or your sister came to you and described this, like, what would you tell them? Because that abuser, that thought control, that psychological control, it removes your objectivity. And so if you can put someone else in that situation, you can regain some of that perspective.

You have to be very. Thoughtful and sensitive with when you kind of ask those kinds of questions, but just at least maintain this like compassionate curiosity. Right. And you can like note things, but staying away from like accu accusations or like mm-hmm. Labeling them abusive.

Right. 

But just being like, oh, how, how are you feeling? That didn't look like that. Yeah. Felt very good for you. That kind of thing. Mm-hmm. 

Instead of like, yeah. How did you feel after that? Oh my. Right. Like that's not helpful either. It's your tone also. Yeah. Like you said, come at it with compassion, so like how are you doing?

After that conversation, it sounded a little tough. 

Yeah. And also like we want to avoid replicating those same dynamics of the abuser in telling them how they feel or how they should feel. Exactly. 

Exactly. 

So you want to just hold this space for them to be like, huh. How do I feel like, was I okay with the way that he talked to me?

Yeah. 

Right. A lot of times what we end up doing is, when somebody discloses to us or if we notice something, we ended, uh, like taking away their agency and it's doing the same thing. Like you're taking away their power and control by going, Hey, like, you need to get out of this and like, you need to call this hotline right now.

And like. It's the same thing, right? 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless that person frames it that way, you Yeah. Want to avoid that framing and imposing your perspective on them, because that's what abusers do. Exactly. Like you, like you just said. 

Yeah, exactly. Well, awesome. This was such a good conversation and I feel like our listeners will really get a lot out of this.

So we appreciate your time and I encourage everybody to go follow you on Instagram and then, um, reach out to you if they want your help. So, thank you Bethany. 

Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Mandy. I really appreciate what you're doing here. I think it is invaluable. So thank you for having me.

Thank you. 

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