Genesis The Podcast

Quicksand: The experience of coercive control with Kate Amber

• Genesis Women's Shelter & Support

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In this episode of Genesis The Podcast, host Maria MacMullin delves into the topic of coercive control with expert Kate Amber. Ms. Amber, a survivor, who holds an MS in Psychology of Coercive Control from the University of Salford and is the founder of End Coercive Control USA (ECCUSA), shares her personal experiences with domestic abuse and explains her Quicksand Model of understanding coercive control. Kate Amber discusses how coercive control extends beyond physical violence in relationships to include patterns of manipulation and domination. The conversation covers the evolution of the term, systemic failures in recognizing coercive control, the impact on children, and how societal structures like patriarchy enable such behaviors. Amber also highlights how legislative and cultural shifts can aid in better addressing coercive control. The episode concludes with a discussion on the role of media in perpetuating or challenging coercive control and offers resources for further learning and support. Listeners can receive a discount on education modules related to coercive control offered through ECCUSA. Listen to the full episode for a discount code and where to find links to the trainings.

SPEAKER_01:

Today, we delve into the complex and often hidden dynamics of coercive control, where manipulation, subtlety, and distortion of truth create powerful barriers to autonomy. I'm joined by Kate Amber, a national expert in the field of coercive control, to illuminate the ways this pattern of behavior operates, not just within private relationships, but within the very structures that shape our collective experience. This episode will offer a deeper understanding of how such insidious tactics undermine freedom and how awareness is the first step to reclaiming power and truth. I'm Maria McMullen, and this is Genesis the Podcast. In a world where truth is often twisted and power can be wielded as a weapon, understanding that coercive control can entrap targeted victims like quicksand is more urgent than ever. Today we're joined by Kate Amber, a leading expert whose work is reshaping how we see abuse. With a Master of Science and Psychology of Coercive Control from the University of Salford, Kate has dedicated her career to exposing the subtle strategic patterns that underlie oppression in intimate relationships, groups, and society at large. As the founder of NCORCIV Control USA and creator of the Quicksand model, Kate brings invaluable insight into how individuals and professionals can recognize, resist, and ultimately prevent this insidious abuse. Together, we'll uncover the tactics of coercive control and empower ourselves to challenge its grip within relationships, our organizations, our systems, and beyond. Kate, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's get started with a few definitions that can shape our understanding of this topic. How would you define coercive control?

SPEAKER_00:

I define coercive control as the pattern of behavior used to entrap a target in oppression and domination.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. We'll unpack all of that, hopefully, throughout this conversation. I also understand you have created your own model of coercive control called the quicksand model. What led you to create and research that model?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, initially, I had recently been able to escape, or at least I thought I had escaped, a relationship with someone who had been abusive, but it seemed like it was a little different from my understanding of domestic violence. It certainly had some aspects of that, but it seemed like I needed to figure out what this was that I'd actually gone through. So I started doing research and I found Evan Stark's book on coercive control.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And from there I ended up finding the master's program at the University of Salford, and I enrolled in that program. They have a master's degree in the psychology of coercive control. And while in that program, I started to see coercive control in a much broader sense. It was no longer, in my thinking, just within the arena of domestic violence. And while I was doing research and reading and studying for my master's, and then I did my research program, I had an experience where the county attorney's office had contacted me and said that they were going to be dropping the pending protective order violation case. Now, my ex had already been convicted of family violence, but this was a second case that had been pending for three years because of COVID. So the courts were all shut down, right? Right. And they contacted me to let me know that the case was going to be dismissed. And when they did that, all of my complex PTSD symptoms went through the roof. And I woke up in the middle of the night one night with my heart racing and my mind racing and panic attacks, and just and for more than an hour I lay there just trying to get myself calmed down.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because I felt like I was drowning and suffocating. I felt like I was sinking. And it was absolutely terrifying. And in that moment, I had this moment of clarity where I realized this must be what it feels like to die in quicksand. And that was the birth of the quicksand model.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Which I intentionally created so that it would apply across every context where coercive control could be used.

SPEAKER_01:

That's fascinating. Thank you for sharing some of your personal story with us. And I'm just really glad to have that context around this conversation. Can you share some specific behaviors or patterns that constitute coercive control in intimate relationships?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. So coercive control in regardless of whether it's an intimate relationship or a group or wherever it occurs, there are certainly signs that it's happening. And the quicksand model, I set these up as weapons. I call them the D's, the E's, the F's, and the I's. And I did it that way so it would be very easy to learn. And I won't go into many of them, but just to give you an idea, the Fs, for instance, are force, fraud, and fear. And so if you are learning the quicksand model or you just want to learn a little bit about coercive control, if you just learn those three: force, fraud, and fear, you will be well on your way to seeing how coercive control functions. Because those three methods are used across all of the behaviors that coercive controllers use to entrap their victims.

SPEAKER_01:

So that is also significantly complex, and a lot of people do not often see those types of behaviors as forms of domestic violence. So let's kind of break it down for them how it differs from things like physical violence to be a victim of coercive control.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, yes. So there is currently a misconception about the way that coercive control differs from other forms of violence and abuse. Within our laws, in the United States at least, domestic violence is considered the umbrella, and coercive control is considered this little thing that happens underneath domestic violence. But from the training that I received at the University of Salford and from my own lived experience, it's actually the other way around. Coercive control is considered the umbrella, and domestic violence would fall underneath that umbrella. And inside of domestic violence would be this one thing called physical violence. So when you have a pattern of coercive control, there may be physical violence present, there may not. But the big issue about coercive control is that it is a pattern of many different types of abuse over a period of time that results in the targeted victim becoming entrapped and losing their autonomy, having their life constrained, and being unable to essentially they are unfree. They are in a slave-like or hostage-like situation.

SPEAKER_01:

So described in that way, that does sound to me like abuse. That sounds to me like a form of violence or domestic terrorism, if you will, to entrap someone in a psychological control or manipulation is terrifying. And it certainly does cause a lot of trauma, a lot of PTSD as you experienced uh in your own life. And it is definitely a form of abuse. And so I like that visual that you've just given us of the change in what is the umbrella that surrounds all of these things that are part of domestic violence or even systemic oppression and manipulation, which are things that we're going to talk about here today. Could you describe for us the origins of the term coercive control and how its understanding has evolved over time?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the term coercive control was actually coined in the early 80s by Susan Schechter. And then it was popularized in Evan Stark's book, the first book that I read on coercive control. And the reason and the thinking behind a shift from a violent incident model, which is the current model that our systems are all structured on, to a pattern of behavior model was because there was such structural and systemic failure for victims trying to navigate these systems. And because we were looking at domestic violence as though it was equal to physical violence, we were missing 95% of what's actually happening to these victims in these situations. And at the same time that they were talking about needing to shift to a pattern-based behavior model, they also discovered through some Australian homicide reviews that domestic violence homicide was strongly related to coercive control. And they discovered that in 99% of the cases of homicide that they were studying in this one homicide review in 2015, they discovered that 99% of those homicides were preceded by a pattern of coercive control by a male perpetrator against a female victim. And so that indicated that coercive control was a very high risk factor for homicide, if not the highest. So that was the motivation for passing the criminalization of coercive control in the UK in 2015. And because they wanted to reduce domestic violence homicide. Now, in that study, the other thing that was really interesting that they found was not only was there coercive control present in 99% of these cases before the homicide, and there are two homicide reviews. In the first one, 30% of those homicides, that was the first act of physical violence. And in the second one, which is the more recent one, 75% it was the first act of physical violence. So it completely shifted our thinking around domestic violence, how to determine what's high risk. And so now there's a better understanding, and I and the hope is that we can get this communicated to the rest of the systems, just how critical this is, that we need to be able to detect this system, this pattern of coercive control, before it escalates to that level of danger.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's a lot of very important context for us to understand about coercive control and how things might be evolving in the future, because we know that the domestic violence movement here in the United States started out really as the battered women's movement, and that was based or rooted very strongly in physical violence and getting legislation passed to end or to criminalize wife beating. And, you know, that goes way back to the 70s and the women's movement and a lot of other things. But staying very focused then on domestic violence and here in the 21st century, could you provide some real-world examples illustrating how abusers use coercive control to isolate, intimidate, and or manipulate their partners?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so there's a lot of ways. Um coercive controllers are creative and they are very good at shifting their behavior whenever something is no longer permitted. So ergo, that's why once we criminalize physical violence, they had to find some other way to dominate their partners, and that's where coercive control really took off. And I got myself a little off track there. So No, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe just give us a few examples because I think what you just said is super important. And apropos of that, just recently I had another podcast conversation who the speaker was talking about narcissistic personality disorder, narcissism, and so on. And she said something very similar about people who have narcissistic behaviors being shape-shifters.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it definitely uh aligns with what you're talking about because coercive control is part of abuse by someone who has narcissistic behaviors or narcissistic personality disorder. So let's look at the invisible signs, if you will, or red flags that may indicate someone is experiencing coercive control in a relationship.

SPEAKER_00:

So other than physical violence, which at least is obvious, right? So if you're experiencing that, then you are likely experiencing coercive control as well. So we'll start there. But the behaviors that are in the law, that are in the statutes within the United States, as you mentioned, isolation, intimidation, humiliation, isolation will show up in many different ways, and it's gonna look different while you're with a partner than it will look like after you have escaped the quicksand in the relationship, they will likely uh begin, and it's usually slowly over time, they will begin to isolate you from your friends and family. Depending on how overt they are, because there are overt coercive controllers, there are covert coercive controllers, and then there are ones that are so good that they go back and forth and they really can really throw you off. But if it's overt, it might look like you're spending too much time with your mom, I expect you to be with me at all times. A covert way of doing the same thing might be like, you know, you've mentioned that your mom was not always nice to you growing up, and I'm not really sure you should be spending so much time with her. I mean, don't you think that she's a little abusive? Okay, yeah. So they might say things directly to the targeted victim to isolate them, or they might speak badly about their target to outsiders. So they might go to their wife's family members and start saying things to them like, oh, I'm really concerned about my wife. She seems to be having some kind of mental health issue, or oh, I think she might be an alcoholic. I don't really know what to do about that. Those are isolating tactics that come across as sort of a caring sort of thing, but they're hiding underneath this intent to isolate the person. And so anything used to isolate them, a lot of coercive controllers will demand that they move. Oh, I'm gonna get a job in uh Milwaukee and we're gonna move across the country, and um, and you're coming with me, whether you want to or not.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And now you're in a city that you have no support structure. So there can be geographic isolation, there can be isolation from supports of friends and family, there can be isolation from things like being able to get medical care when you need it. There are ways to isolate family members from each other. Coercive controllers are very divisive, and they will often talk about other people in the family using something called triangulation to turn them against each other, but without them knowing that they're being turned against each other, and often in ways that sound like care, like what I was saying before. Oh, I think she has a drinking problem, right? And then the kids start to think, oh, mom's an alcoholic. Oh no, maybe I'm in danger. So those are some of the ways that isolation occurs.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it causes uh some what they call quote-unquote crazy making, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

It creates confusion. And you know, the words that you've said to me before about this is you can't even tell what the truth is anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they completely rewrite reality. And the more isolated you are, the more dependent you are on that person's reality. So if that person is lying to you and they are creating a false reality, and you have no one to reality check with on the outside, then you're far more trapped that way. You're much more under that person's control because of that.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like I need to go read a textbook on dark psychology at this moment, just so I can fully unpack all of the nuances around this behavior. Um, I want to move on to how those types of behavior within a family dynamic, so if mom is the target of the abusive partner, what are the impacts of that on children living with that coercive controller?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, there's going to be impacts while they're together, and they're going to be different from impacts that might occur if they separate or divorce. So while in the home, we know that being in a home where one person is violent against another family member, that that's harmful to children. We know this from the ACES study, which talks about different forms of abuse and neglect and family household dysfunction. Yes. It is dependent that the amount of abuse is cumulative. And so the more different types, the more risk of harm. And with ACE, for each ace that you add, you are exponentially increasing the risks for the top eight out of ten causes of death.

SPEAKER_01:

So heart disease, cancer, stroke, you are and you're referring to in the future of these children who experience that behavior.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

ACEs are adverse childhood experiences. So these are experiences when they're children that are abuse or neglect or those other types of dysfunction. And one of the types of dysfunction is divorce. So if the target is able to escape the quicksand and get out of that relationship, and then the children are having to go between two households, they are now in this really weird unreality world where at one parent's home they are with a healthy, protective parent who loves them unconditionally and is sacrificing and willing to sacrifice for their children's benefit. And in the other home, they are with someone whose entire mindset is all about domination, who is not a fit parent, is unable to provide the child with what they need developmentally, and is likely directly abusing that child now because there's not a protective parent there to oversee and protect them in the home.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. And so at Genesis Women's Children's Support, we see this a lot. We work with women and children who are survivors of domestic violence. And as our clinicians will tell you, it just kind of validates what you're talking about. Children really cannot, even though they go through clinical counseling and other forms of therapy, there's a limit to how much they can fully resolve their trauma while they are still children if they are still having visitation or being exposed to the abusive partner.

SPEAKER_00:

True. So, like for example, my parents divorced when I was four, and when I was seven, my abusive father kidnapped my brother and I and took us to a foreign country.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my.

SPEAKER_00:

So that was a fracturing of the relationship with our mother, and we were unable to see or speak with, we had no contact with our mother for almost a year while we were in the exclusive custody of our abusive father. It made it so that I didn't have the normal healthy development that I needed for my brain to develop in a way where I would be able to process information accurately. There's all sorts of harmful impacts that occurred because of that. At the time, we were able to get back home. My mother was able to find us and she had to kidnap us to get us back.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Because the US was not willing to help, Australia wasn't willing to help, but she got some funds and went and got us while we were walking home from school one day and brought us back to the US.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, not sure where I was going next.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that that must have been quite the reunion, I would suspect.

SPEAKER_00:

It was um surreal. It was absolutely surreal. She picked us up, took us straight to the passport office. The passport guy photographed us, and our and on our way out the door, he said to my mother, I'm closing up for the day so that if anybody comes here looking for you, they're not gonna know where you are. She took us straight to the airport because we knew that if our dad found out in time, he could stop us. And so until the moment that we were in the air, my mom was a nervous wreck. I bet. And she didn't even recognize my brother because my dad had cut his hair. My brother used to have these beautiful blonde ringlet curls.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And he had cut his hair really short and it had gotten darker, and so he didn't look like he had. And so she said in her because she wrote a little book afterward, and in her book, she said that when my brother turned to her and said, Mommy, can we do nose to nose? That was the first time she was sure she actually had the right kid with her.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh. Kate, I'm I'm in tears. I have the chills, I'm in tears. I had no idea we were going to talk about this today. You're so brave, you were so strong to share that with us. If we didn't have so many things to cover in this episode, I would keep asking more questions about your personal story. Thank you so much for sharing that. Alas, we have to move forward because I did promise this audience a conversation on coercive control. Let's talk about systems because you give a really good example here with your own personal experience as a child where the systems were not helpful to the situation. So, how do systems meant to protect victims, such as law enforcement, courts, social services, and others sometimes fail to recognize or respond to coercive control?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, a lot of the time the failures that are happening in the system are because the structure is structured on this violent incident model. And because they don't, they're not focused on looking for a pattern of behavior, they are focused on physical violence, they miss this context. And it is absolutely critical that we understand the context of whatever happened in order to determine who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. Because a lot of the time, victims are ending up being arrested instead of the perpetrator. And the way this happens is that the way that the physical or the violent incident model looks at this is they think, okay, a slap is a slap is a slap. So if we get there, so if they're law enforcement, they come in and one person has slapped the other, well Yeah, that's the aggressor. Legally, that's domestic violence and that's the aggressor, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the assumption because they aren't looking for a pattern of behavior. Now, if they were looking for a pattern of behavior, they might ask, what led up to this? And if victims feel safe enough to even say what happened, which we're gonna need the system to actually arrest people if we're gonna feel safe to report. But let's say that we've got it all fixed and all the victims feel safe. So the victim might say, Well, I got home and he was screaming at me because I was late because I was forced to stay at work to finish some project. He's screaming at me because I don't have dinner ready yet, and he's calling me names, and I finally get the food put down in front of him, and he picks up the plate and he throws it across the room, and and then he comes after me and he's like, You will do what I say, and he slapped me. Okay. We now know it was an aggressive and dominating slap. But what if they get there and she's the one who slapped him? Okay, so he same scenario, all the way up to the point where he's screaming in her face, and she's trying to get past him, and she slaps him to get him away from her so that she can get away from him. That's a very different context. That is not an aggressive slap to dominate him. That is either self-defense or it's a way to just a way to escape, or it's a fully emotional reaction to what's being done to her, right? But it's not violence that ought to be punished. If anything, it's an act of resistance that ought to be applauded. And our systems right now aren't looking for that context. And because they're not looking for it, they're not finding it, and they're arresting the wrong people sometimes.

SPEAKER_01:

And it just perpetuates the cycle of violence. Exactly. So let's back into what we're talking about with this example and talk about what underlies domestic violence and this aggressive behavior, and a lot of it is rooted in patriarchy. Let's talk about how coercive control is embedded within patriarchal social structures and norms.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. Um and that is probably our big biggest issue that if we could solve that piece, if we could create systems and structures and especially societal norms that honor equality and equity, and that do not intentionally enable oppression in any way, we could really prevent a lot of this. So many of our systems are structured on these gender norms, and and even our language is sort of written around these norms like family values. Family values sound so nice and healthy and good for the family, but when family values are being spoken about within a patriarchal structure, what family values mean inside of that is the man needs to be in charge, the woman needs to submit, the children need to be seen and not heard. It sets up this hierarchy, and all of our systems are hierarchical, and it creates a system of domination, and the difference between a health Healthy, happy relationship and family and this domination mindset, we need to shift from the idea that we can dominate one another and have power over one another and shift to a more partnership-oriented system. Because when we have these hierarchical systems, we are making it very difficult to even see coercive control. We are obscuring it because we are making assumptions that allow for men to dominate women without consequence, which in turn makes it next to impossible for a woman to escape that domination without also being punished for daring to try.

SPEAKER_01:

Can you give us just one or two examples of what that looks like, how that plays out in society?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. So let's say within religious structures, for instance, a lot of religions are patriarchal, and their viewpoint is that the man needs to be the head of the house and the woman needs to be submissive to that man. Now, let's say that that man is a coercive controller. Well, when he starts to dominate the wife, both people, both the man and the woman, have this assumption that he has a right to do that. So her initial response might be to comply. But as human beings, we don't like to be enslaved. It's not normal for a human to want to be in that situation. And so after a little while, she starts to see that this is really unfair. He gets to make all these decisions. My liberty is being constrained, my freedoms being taken away. I have no autonomy or agency here. But what is she going to do? Well, she could go to the pastor of the church and she could say, I'm experiencing abuse in my home. What's likely to happen because you're in a patriarchal system is the pastor is likely to say, You are not being a good enough wife. What is it that you're doing wrong? You must be doing something wrong. And so all the blame is placed on the victim. So patriarchy and misogyny set up a system where if you are, if you do not comply with the gendered roles and assumptions of that system, then we have the right to punish you for it. And that's how the systems are operating right now.

SPEAKER_01:

And so many of them operate in that manner. And we're living in a time here in 2025 when we're seeing a lot of changes, a lot of challenges in just how patriarchy is structured, how it works, and how the agenda of it is being pushed forward.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, yes. And this year has been a whirlwind of it.

SPEAKER_01:

It certainly has, and we could talk all day about that, right? Um, how does your organization and coercive control USA and the quicksand model that you created address the complexities of coercive control within these types of systems and relationships and patriarchal frameworks?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, in coercive control USA, which uh is ECUSA is short for ICUSA, um, what we do is we focus on assisting professionals within the system to detect coercive control, and then to look at their organization or their system that they are working within and look for ways that they can dismantle anything that is creating coercive control, anything that is enabling it or exacerbating it. That is our focus is to get the systems to deconstruct the current structures that are enabling it. It would be endcoercivecontrolusa.com. And if you click on the quicksand model tab, you can find the courses there and you can uh choose the one that you like best and just enter Genesis 20 at checkout, and that'll give you that discount.

SPEAKER_01:

Super. That is so exciting, and I myself want to do that. Now let's just move forward a little bit to talk about how coercive control plays out in government and policy and media. How do we see this reflected in government actions or policies?

SPEAKER_00:

Hmm, that is a really big question, especially right now. We are watching it unfold in the United States on an hourly basis. Things are moving much faster than even I expected. And I was told I was catastrophizing when I when I when I expressed my concerns when the the when the election first happened, I was thinking this is gonna be it's gonna be worse than the first time around.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and truly, truly, the term quicksand applies in 2025. I mean, we're going under.

SPEAKER_00:

It it feels like that, doesn't it? It does.

SPEAKER_01:

At times it really does.

SPEAKER_00:

And and when I talk with, um especially when I talk with survivors and professionals, especially in the domestic violence field, you know, with the removal of research funding, with the shifts away from like taking funds away from USAID, that VAWA funding was being granted and had been all these folks had been given these grants through VAWA, and then they are rolling those back. What that does is it creates an enormous amount of chaos. And that is one of the coercive controllers' goals is to create so much chaos and fear that people can't function because when you are completely overwhelmed, you can't think straight, you have a hard time making decisions. Like you said, it feels like you're sinking in quicksand.

SPEAKER_01:

It's also very difficult to keep on top of all of the things that are shifting on, as you said, on an hourly basis. It's impossible for one person, for me as one person to understand how my rights are being impacted on a daily basis and what I had as a right yesterday and may not have today.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and that's that's the whole purpose of doing it across all of these different systems at the same time. They are dismantling the structures of protection, which is kind of similar to the way a coercively controlling ex-partner might handle a divorce situation.

SPEAKER_01:

That just brought us full circle, didn't it, to what you told me at the beginning of this episode.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, all of these things are connected. That's why I developed this model to cross contexts, because all of these different forms of violence and abuse are connected through a pattern of coercive control. And if we can combine our resources from because right now everything's all siloed. We've got we got domestic violence, we got child abuse, we've got human trafficking, we've got gangs, and all these different systems are addressing abuse, but they're all connected through coercive control. And you can see it on a daily basis playing out politically, where they are dismantling things in so many different areas so quickly that nobody, no human being, could possibly keep up with it all. And even if you could keep up with it, you're not going to have enough time to respond to it in an intelligent way, because how can you think about 10 different places you're being attacked at once? But that's what coercive controllers do. That's why they use different forms of abuse so that it's harder to detect. If they were using only one tactic, if they were only going after the universities, right? Well, we might notice that. But they're not just going after one thing. They are going after all these different areas all at the same time, and we are being attacked on multiple fronts. And that is what's so overwhelming about it, and quite frankly, what is so dangerous about it, because we are waking up to the fact that we are on the absolute edge of being in an authoritarian country.

SPEAKER_01:

Without a doubt, and I think this is what you also have referred to uh when we spoke previously as government-sanctioned chaos.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. In my research paper, my dissertation, I called it systemic coercive control, because it is coercive control happening across all the systems at the same time.

SPEAKER_01:

So I I like that term because it does kind of put things in a neat little package, right, of what exactly what's going on here. And I I say this if listeners take nothing else away from this episode today, if they could understand and do understand the type of environment we're living in right now with this government-sanctioned chaos and understand that as coercive control, then they can certainly make the leap to understand how coercive control is domestic violence.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's if you know how you feel when you hear just the next thing and the next thing, and we're going to talk about media in a minute. If you know how that makes you feel and the confusion and the anger that you feel about how you're being treated by those who, you know, took oath of office to stand by our Constitution and protect you, then you every bit know how it feels to be trapped in a marriage or a relationship with someone who is controlling you in every possible way within the household. So it's just a mini form of what's happening in the government. And as my CEO Jan Langbein likes to say, women will not be safe until they're safe at home.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

And you're exactly right. Americans may not be safe until they're safe at, you know, air quotes home, being the country of the United States of America. So I just want to point out that this should be a good way for people, a good parallel for people to use to understand what it feels like to be in potentially not a physically violent abusive relationship or a situation of physical violence, but what it feels like to be manipulated to the point where you don't know what the truth is, you don't know what your own reality is, and someone is is controlling you, the isolating you to your previous example, and so on. Um, I want to jump ahead to coercive control in the media because I do feel that that is uh today, if not always in the past, but mostly this year in 2025, is really painting a picture that you know either coercive control is not happening or that all of these changes are good for us. But anyway, let me have you answer the questions. You're the expert. How does the media contribute to or perpetuate coercive control and its representation of individuals, groups, or events?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, first of all, because of these hierarchies of power, and because everything in our in the United States at least, and I would imagine most countries are have monetary motivations and power motivations. When the person in power or the group in power begins to make threats, whether those be veiled threats or direct threats, it is very difficult for groups to stand against that when it could mean that they could lose their livelihood. Yes. And that's what I feel like we are watching happen is there are these coercive and controlling threats and intimidation that are being used in all these different arenas, and one of them is the media, and because of that, the media is being forced to either resist the false narrative, or they are perpetuating the mis and disinformation that's being broadcast. And so we are really watching what I what inside of a coercively controlling relationship often looks like the coercive controller attempting to dominate the victim, and the victim attempting to resist that domination, we are watching that on a nationwide scale while we see whether whether the law firms are standing up or not, whether the organizations that lose their funding are fighting back or not. Are we going to resist or are we going to capitulate? And unfortunately, it is causing mass confusion because you can hardly tell what is true anymore, because the media information that's available to us is very contradictory, especially if you are inside of an echo chamber and you only look at the media from the side that you align with. Right. So if you consider yourself on the left, then you're only getting what's being presented on the left. And if you consider yourself on the right, you and you're in that, then what we really need is we need to get back to truth. I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat. I care that the information that's being presented is truthful and accurate and isn't being used to manipulate and deceive so that people can gain more power.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree with that idea. I have no idea how to implement it. And, you know, we are the kind of the media here on a podcast of sorts. Uh we're we're not our own network, of course, but um and so we're here to bring information to listeners for consideration, right? These are our ideas, our opinions, and we can certainly talk about cores of control and other topics in domestic violence and give people opportunities to learn more and to educate themselves on those topics. And that's really what our conversations are about if we were to think of ourselves as media. In your opinion, how can we become more resilient to subtle forms of coercive control as presented in the news and social media?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a real challenge. Um, resilience has a lot to do with us being able to think critically when we analyze the information that we are getting. Unfortunately, that requires a lot of additional effort. And so for me, that looks like limiting the number of emails that I'm getting that are giving me news so that I can dig deeper to see what's below the headline and to look for to look for signs of misinformation and disinformation and to follow up on information that's presented to see if it's being presented accurately and truthfully.

SPEAKER_01:

Kate, can you give us your website again? And we'll also uh want to give our listeners the discount code too for learning about the quicksand model and any other resources you'd like to share for learning about coercive control or getting support if you need it.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. So the website is endcoercifontrolusa.com. And for resources on that website, there's a resources page, and there is a ton of resources on the resources page. There's also a tab for expert witness testimony, and on that tab you can sign up for a free consultation. So if you are going through a custody case with a coercive controller and you need an expert witness, that's the place to go to get a free consult. If you are an organization that needs training on coercive control, you can book a free consultation for that. And then the best place to learn more about coercive control and the quicksand model, in addition to those courses where you can get that 20% discount and you want it free. I do a ton of TikTok videos and Instagram posts on Acusa's Instagram and TikTok. And they're real short. And if you listen to those, you get little bite-sized pieces of it. And over time, what that can do is it can undo the negative patriarchal programming that led you to a position where you may have been vulnerable to coercive control, and it can help you overcome that.

SPEAKER_01:

So what's your handle?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great question. I think on TikTok it's Acusa, E C C U S A. And on Instagram, I think it's my name, Kate Amber, but the logo is Acusa's logo. So if you search for Kate Amber or Acusa or End Coercive Control USA, you should be able to find me. There are also um buttons at the bottom of the page of the website that'll take you to the social media.

SPEAKER_01:

Brilliant. Kate Amber, thank you so much for being here and for all the work you do.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you. It was a huge pleasure.

SPEAKER_01:

Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to give women in abusive situations a way out. We are committed to our mission of providing safety, shelter, and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence, and impact. Join us in creating a societal shift on how people think about domestic violence. You can learn more at GenesisShelter.org and when you follow us on social media, on Facebook and Instagram at Genesis Women's Shelter, and on X at Genesis Shelter. The Genesis Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by call or text at 214 946 HELP. 214 946 4357.