Gaslighting, love bombing, coercive control – what do these terms of abuse mean?

Domestic abuse has a higher rate of repeat offending than any other crime and encompasses a vast range of behaviours.

While society immediately recognises some of these actions as abuse, other types of behaviour are more covert and harder to spot.

This is due to historic ignorance about domestic abuse enabling misconceptions; with many wrongly assuming it is a crime of frenzied romantic passion, and wrongly believing only those who are already vulnerable can fall prey to abusers.

In order to raise awareness and challenge all types of domestic abuse, The Independent has partnered with charity Refuge to raise £300,000 to build a safe space for women and help them find their freedom.

Be a brick, buy a brick and donate here or text BRICK to 70560 to donate £15

To tackle common misunderstandings about domestic abuse and enable victims to better understand what is happening to them, The Independent has sought to define coercive control , love bombing and gaslighting .

Coercive control

While there is nothing new about coercive control, it is an element of domestic abuse which was overlooked for many years – with many only equating domestic abuse with physical violence. This is despite coercive control being at the very core of domestic abuse.

Coercive control is defined as psychological abuse and controlling behaviour in a relationship, with abusive partners isolating their victims from loved ones or controlling their finances.

Controlling and coercive behaviour enables a perpetrator to retain power over their victim – with the government defining the phenomenon as “an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim”.

Examples of coercive control include monitoring your daily activity, controlling which friends, family and colleagues you can see, dictating the clothes you can wear, financial abuse, isolating you from your networks, using technology to keep tabs on you, verbal abuse, issuing both overt and covert threats and extreme jealousy and possessiveness.

Coercive control became a crime in England and Wales under the Serious Crime Act 2015, which introduced the first-ever statutory definition of domestic abuse to include economic abuse as well as controlling and manipulative behaviour that is not physical.

Coercive control often creeps up gradually in relationships which can make it tricky for victims to initially spot what is happening – with them wrongly assuming individual incidents are one-offs rather than joining the dots to see them as part of a wider pattern.

Love bombing

“If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” This is the well-known phrase which aptly sums up love bombing.

Domestic abuse victims often say their relationship began with their partner inundating them with compliments, affection, and gifts soon after meeting them – with these all examples of love bombing.

Common examples of love bombing include a partner doing the following things soon after meeting you – describing you as their soulmate, wanting to move in together, making bold declarations of love and setting the wheels in motion for future plans. It is sometimes wrongly assumed love bombing must involve being lavished with gifts, but it can relate to excessive attention and affection early on in a relationship.

The victim questions the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and experiences confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and doubts concerning their own emotional or mental stability

Situations of domestic abuse often begin with an abuser love bombing their victim to lure them into the relationship and lay the groundwork to later be able to manipulate them. And then when the abusive partner goes on to show their true colours, it can be memories of the honeymoon period of the relationship that keeps a victim trapped.

People who love bomb individuals often cannot draw boundaries with others – overstepping their victim’s boundaries in the initial stages of the relationship and then later when they go on to perpetrate abuse.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is by far the most misunderstood and misused of these three terms. The term refers to manipulating and controlling someone by making them question their very grasp on reality by forcing them to doubt their memories and pushing a false narrative of events.

Examples of gaslighting include questioning an accurate version of events, pretending to misunderstand the point a victim is making, and accusing a victim of misremembering incidents.

Gaslighting was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2022 – with the dictionary describing the process as psychologically manipulating someone “usually over an extended period of time so that the victim questions the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and experiences confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and doubts concerning their own emotional or mental stability”.

The process of gaslighting fuels self-doubt and insecurity within the victim and may make them question the veracity of their thoughts and words.

Please donate now to the Brick by Brick campaign, launched by The Independent and charity Refuge, to help raise £300,000 to build a safe space for women where they can escape domestic abuse, rebuild their lives and make new futures.