When Therapy Hurts: Confronting Coercive Control in the Counseling Room

As a survivor, I've experienced firsthand how some therapists can inadvertently affirm and enable abusive behaviors rather than naming and addressing them directly with the person choosing to engage in them. This failure to properly assess for coercive control and domestic abuse is unfortunately all too common, especially among marriage and family therapists who may prioritize keeping couples together over assessing for & ensuring safety and behavioral accountability.

Drawing from the Safe & Together Institute's approach, here are some key recommendations for therapists to better identify and respond to abuse:

1. Always screen for coercive control and domestic violence, even if abuse isn't the stated reason for seeking therapy. Don't assume relationships are healthy by default.

2. Use pattern-based behavioral assessments to look at the full scope of a potential abusers actions, not just isolated incidents.

3. Focus on how behaviors impact family functioning, not just on individual feelings or communication issues. Abuse affects the entire family system.

4. Validate the experiences of survivors. Avoid language that minimizes abuse or blames victims for relationship problems.

5. Be willing to directly name abusive and controlling behaviors. Therapeutic "neutrality" should not mean staying silent about harm.

6. Recognize that couple's counseling is not appropriate when there is ongoing abuse. Safety and accountability must come first.

7. Understand how children are impacted by living with domestic violence, even if they aren't direct targets.

8. Look at how therapy language, religious or cultural beliefs may be used to justify coercively controlling & trauma-causing behaviors. Challenge these rationalizations directly as a professional.

9. Assess for intersections between domestic violence and other issues like substance abuse or mental health, without excusing abusive behaviors.

10. Connect survivors with community resources and safety planning support as needed. Document in a way that names to the abusive patterns of a partner being a factor in their mental health needs so other services do not blame the victim.

Therapists have an ethical responsibility to recognize abuse, document accordingly to clearly communicate the causal & exacerbating nature of a partner's behavioral patterns of abuse on a client's mental health and prioritize the victim's safety. Failing to do so can reinforce trauma and give perpetrators tactics & permission to continue harmful behaviors. We need a paradigm shift in how the mental health field approaches domestic violence - one that centers the experiences of survivors and holds those who choose abusive behaviors fully accountable.

Want to learn more? Check out our Intersections course: https://academy.safeandtogetherinstitute.com/course/intersections