New Coercive Control Laws: Smoke or Fire?

On 1 July 2024 there will new laws introduced in NSW dealing with psychological control and abuse in intimate partner relationships. Intimate partner relationships are any relationships that are close such as a marriage, de-facto relationship, living together, being family or care relationships such as when one person is cared for because of their disability.

The new laws have not yet been tested in the courts and laws enforcement agents are fearing their implementation because of the difficulty proving an offence has occurred. Considering the surge of domestic violence recently in NSW these laws are not coming soon enough but will they be creating more smoke and not enough fire?

The new laws will state that it is illegal to:

• Control who a person sees, what they wear and where they go.

• Monitor or track a person.

• To control everyday needs, such as finances, medication, food or exercise.

• Regularly criticise, manipulate or blame a person so they doubt themselves and their experiences (gaslighting).

• Force someone to have sex or do sexual things they do not want to do.

• Stop a person from practicing their religion or cultural.

• Threatening to harm a person, their children, pets, family or friends.

• Manipulating co-parenting arrangements or child support payments after separation.

For it to be an offence coercive control involves repeated behaviour (more than two instances) that scares, hurts, isolates, humiliates, harasses or monitors a person so that their freedom, liberty and day-to-day activities are restricted or impeded. Therefore, any behaviour that results in you feeling that you are walking on eggshells, makes it difficult for you to say you disagree, makes it difficult for you to say no and makes you doubt your own experiences will be against the law.

Sometimes signs of coercive control can be hard to spot because perpetrators can be good at hiding it from others and the abuse can be subtle and targeted. The new laws also state that their needs to be at least two episodes that occurred since the 1 July 2024. So make sure that you keep a diary of the recurrent behaviours to help jolt your memory if you need to report to the police.

I have seen several women in my practice this month that, due to the news coverage, have become aware that they are in coercively controlled relationships. This has come as a shock and a relief as many of them report to me that they have known something is wrong in their relationships but that it often was so subtle that they have had difficulty pinpointing what it was. Many have not been the victims of physical or sexual violence but have experienced regular gaslighting, criticism, been the brunt of social jokes or have been made to believe that their experiences were not real or valid.  

When treating these women (and men), I have started by first making them aware of what the behaviour looks like and sharing the examples I gave here above. We then went into discriminate the differences between love and control and that tis sort of controlling behaviour is not love. Hereafter I share the cycle of abuse with them so that the pattern of the behaviour becomes obvious, and they can slowly start seeing the dance play out before their eyes. This helps them to become slightly removed from the emotional entrapment that the coercion is designed for and with this objectivity they come to see that unfortunately there is only one solution for these relationships and that is to leave.

I have also started sharing the statistics on therapies that could change the coercive behaviours in the perpetrator because many of them keep on clinging to hope that if their partners can only learn strategies to control their anger, they will have the ideal relationship. In this regard I share the research indicating that the only therapy that has a mild chance of success is attending men’s behaviour groups where they must take responsibility for their own behaviour. Here they will learn that they are completely to blame for their controlling behaviour, not stress, financial difficulties, work pressure, child rearing difficulties or even their partner having had an affair, but they themselves. Giving up the control is often too overwhelming for them and consequently the majority continue to offend.

I am now exploring the chances of success of loving relationships what the women may have if they have the courage to leave. I will write more of this in my next blog.  Watch this space….