CCChat-Magazine_Issue-16

CCChat
FREE
August 2020
The magazine on & around
coercive control
TWO WOMEN
TWO INTERVIEWS
RACHEL MEYRICK
TERI YUAN
WHAT DOESN'T KILL ME

Contents
Editor's Notes
5 A documentary has Min thinking back to the
time she nearly died and how far she's come
since then.
The CCChat Interview
7 Rachel Meyrick - documentary film-maker
of What Doesn't Kill Me talks to CCChat.
The CCChat Interview
17 Teri Yuan- podcast host and director and
founder of the Engendered Collective
talks to CCChat
Special Screening
27 For Domestic Violence Awareness Month,
there is a special screening of What
Doesn't Kill Me, with a special Q&A
event.
Parental Alienation
28 We look at Richard Gardner, who initially
preoposed the theory of Parental
Alienation.
The Chart of Coercion
31 Albert Biderman's research shows us
similarities between coercive tactics in
prisoner of war camps and the home.
MSc Psychology of Coercive Control
34 This is the only programme of its kind in
the world and is now being offered online
for the academic year 2020-21.
Making The Invisible Visible

Editor's Notes
About The Editor
Min Grob started
Conference on Coercive
Control in June 2015,
following the end of a
relationship that was both
coercive and controlling.
Since then, there have been
several national
conferences as well as
smaller events.
Min’s interest lies in
recognising coercive control
in its initial stages, in
identifying the ‘red flags’ of
a potentially abusive
relationship before a person
becomes too invested in the
relationship, as that is when
it will be much more difficult
to leave, as well as the
challenges faced when
living with and recovering
from trauma.
Min has talked on
identifying covert abuse
and, with the use of
examples from social
media, she identifies a
number of covert tactics that
are commonly used to
manipulate. These tactics
will often be invisible in plain
sight- as the abuser seeks
to remain undetected.
Min is also a public speaker,
and speaks on both her
personal experience of
coercive control, family
courts and the livedexperience
of trauma - as
well as more generally of
abuse that is hidden in plain
sight.
Let's Grow The
Conversation!
To contact Min:
contact@
coercivecontrol.co.uk
Photo by Alex Kilbee
www.museportraits.co.uk
What Hasn't Killed Me
Drives me to Raise Awareness
What many won't know is how close I came to dying. I say this because I
recently watched documentary filmmaker Rachel Meyrick's astonishing
documentary on domestic abuse and the family courts in America.
It is entitled 'What Doesn't Kill Me' so, not altogether unsurprisingly, I have
been thinking of how, on that October evening in 2011, and in the words of
the surgeon that saved my life, I came as close to dying as was possible.
The fact that the event happened in October - during Domestic Abuse
Awareness Month- is not lost on me.
Having spoken to many,many parents who have lived through abuse only
to be retraumatised by an unforgiving and misunderstanding family court, it
seems only natural that this issue of CCChat should be dedicated to the
documentary and to what is happening around the family court - not just in
the UK but globally. The level of misunderstanding - not only of the
dynamics of abuse, especially coercive control - but also the many ways in
which both parties present and the complete lack of understanding around
trauma responses results in a system that does not meet the requirements
of a basic system of justice.
The recent publication of the expert-led review into how the family courts
handle domestic abuse and other serious offences highlighted numerous
significant concerns. It found that the adversarial process often worsened
conflict and retraumatised victims. It will be interesting to see what
develops but, what is clear, is that changes need to be made.
As well as this, the Domestic Abuse Bill, which is making its way through
Parliament at the moment, has recently had it's First Reading in the House
of Lords meaning that there will be a continuing and much needed focus on
domestic abuse and how it is considered in the family courts.
Making The Invisible Visible

The CCChat Interview
RACHEL MEYRICK
Rachel Meyrick has
been a film editor for 20
years. She began in
commercials in Soho,
London alongside
editor, Sam Sneade
(Sexy Beast, The
Favourite) before
moving into features
herself ( LOVE,
HONOUR & OBEY,
CLOUD CUCKOO
LAND) and long form
documentary
(REUNION).
Rachel has completed
her first feature
documentary as
producer/director,
WHAT DOESN’T
KILL ME about
domestic violence and
the battle for child
custody in the US, was
released to great acclaim
in 2017, it has been used
by educators to
influence change in
social policy,
including the UN.
In 2018, she edited A
DEAL WITH THE
UNIVERSE (produced
by Loran Dunn); a
groundbreaking feature
documentary about a
man’s journey to get
pregnant. She has
worked for Britdoc,
More 4, BBC films,
Discovery and BFI
among many
R
achel
Meyrick is a film editor . The
absolutely phenomenal documentary
looking at the family courts in America,
WHAT DOESN'T KILL ME , is her first
feature documentary as a producer/
director.
M: Rachel, thank you so much for agreeing to this
interview. It’s a real pleasure to be able to have the
opportunity to be able to do this. I saw your film last week
and was completely blown away by it. What made you
decide to do it?
R: It started off a long time ago. I am a film editor- that’s
what I normally do and I was editing a promo film for a
shelter in Arkansas, randomly, via a friend of mine who is
from the area, sort of as a favour.
There was a little old lady in the film, a survivor, called
Charlotta Harrison, she was, like 81 or something and had
survived this 60 year marriage and had got away from her
violent husband and it was just a ridiculously amazing
story of bravery and she just really beguiled me. I spoke to
my boss, at the time, who is another editor and I said I
wanted to make a short film about this woman and so he
lent me some money and I went out Oklahoma to meet her
and she was amazing and is amazing and so I shot a film
about her and she suggested I go to the local shelter to see
where she went when she left.
She took me there and I met the person who runs it and
several people who were there and they were telling me
that they advise their clients, when they’re going to court
about custody, to not mention domestic violence in their
court case as it would be detrimental towards them and I
said no, that’s ridiculous, that can’t possibly be true
because it would help. They said no, it doesn’t and I just
couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it. I just could not
believe that that was real. When I was also there, I met a
young woman , Misty, who is in the film, and she was very
pregnant and gave birth whilst I was still there and had
asked me to go and film the birth and so I did that.
Making The Invisible Visible

" they were telling me that they advise their clients, when they’re going to court
about custody, to not mention domestic violence in their court case as it would be
detrimental towards them."
Rachel Meyrick
R: I went back the next day to say goodbye to
the shelter and they told me that Misty had
come back to the shelter and they had taken
the baby away because they had deemed her
not to be a suitable person to be bringing up
a baby because she was in a shelter.
I vomited.I was so outraged. And then I had
to get on a plane and I was just raging all the
way home just thinking what can I do? What
can I do? This was so outrageous. And she
was just the most amazing, incredible strong
woman who had managed to get away from
her abuser. It was so disgusting. I then
decided I was going to use my ability – I have
limited abilities but one of my abilities is to
tell stories with film and so I thought, right,
I’m going to tell the story of what happened
to her and I’m going to find out why this is
happening . So that was how it began.
M: That's just unbelievable, but then it's not.
And it happens more than you'd think.
I hear this a lot, and I’ve certainly
experienced it myself, this idea that you
don’t mention abuse otherwise you might
lose the children. Why do you think,
mainly women are advised that? I’ve
always asked but I’ve never had a decent
answer.
R: I know, that is the problem. I spent 6
years making the film trying to find the
answer to that. There’s such a hugely
diverse amount of answers to that
question. I think the way people look at
survivors of abuse is wrong. I think
they’re looked at as weak and they’re not
valued humans. I don’t think they’re
given the same rights as normal people in
the world. They’re looked at in a different
way with such loaded views they can’t
escape from, no matter what they try to
do to overcome it.
Making The Invisible Visible

R: The children often stay in court until
they’ve aged out. And then they can make
their own choices. Jennifer Collins – her
mother ran away with her and left the
country and claimed asylum from
domestic violence in another country. It
was the first time that asylum had been
given for domestic violence, from another
country. And that was a really crazy thing
to do. Other people had tried to do it but,
for some reason, she was so tenacious
that she succeeded.
The whole film is about this answer, why I
spent 6 years having to go back because I
wasn’t getting the answer to the question
and even though I feel like I answered it,
there’s so many different aspects to it;
judges; sexism and there’s a whole
industry out there that is geared to make
money from people in this situation –
especially in America, which is so litigious
anyway.
If you’ve got money – usually it’s the man
who has the money – you can hire
experts, you can hire all sorts of people
for a price, to come to court and give
evidence against the mother of the
children.
M: I’ve noticed that there are a lot of high
conflict divorce experts in America which
seems to be different from the UK – for
now at least.
R: And if these cases can be kept in court
for as long as possible, everyone stands to
make money, so these decisions aren’t
made quickly because that doesn’t make
enough money.
M: This is something that I definitely see
but, from my understanding, is
something much more prevalent in
America. Admittedly, my knowledge is
limited to my own experience and those
of people I talk to, but it paints a picture
that, as soon as you mention abuse, and if
there’s no criminal conviction, so no,
what is considered as cast iron and
irrefutable evidence, it doesn't get
investigated, you may get a fact finding
hearing where a judge looks at maybe a
maximum of six incidents- and that is if
you are one of the lucky ones. Then a
judge makes a finding based on his or her
understanding of abuse which obviously
has a huge impact on the decision
reached.
Another thing I have come across - and
I'm sure many lawyers will deny it - is
that they tell clients not to mention abuse
and yet I’ve experienced it and so have
many others. It's almost as though the
fear of being accused of parental
alienation outweighs the need to prove
abuse. It's the only reason, I can see, for
why so many lawyers say it, but the
profession, on the whole would deny it?
R: It’s true, why would they say it
outwardly?
M: Are you familiar with the Tsimhoni
case?
R: That was happening when I last was in
America
Making The Invisible Visible

M : It’s the most horrifying case Ive heard
of. The children were put in a- I can’t
remember what it’s called - some
detention type centre because they
wouldn’t see the father. The judge in the
was disciplined, I think. I can’t
remember. She lost it with the children
and likened the eldest, who was only 14,
to Charles Manson.
I keep thinking about the children. I keep
wondering how they are, who they are
with and whether or not they are happy.
Let’s go back, we seem to have got a little
bit side-tracked. How did you decide
which direction to take with the
documentary and how did you come
about choosing who to interview for it?
You interviewed many hugely respected
experts such as Joan Meier, Marianne
Hester and Evan Stark.
R: So the first trip was to see Charlotta
and I met Misty, so I’d been in contact
with Ruth Jones OBE formerly of Bristol
Uni and she was kind of advising me and
she said, you need to speak to Evan Stark,
he is a friend of mine and I can introduce
you to him, how about I come along with
you on your next trip because I’d love to
see how you work and she came with me
to Oklahoma and she met Charlotta, she
met Brian, Charlotta’s son.
The first trip we did was to Galveston in
Texas – for the Texas Conference on
Family Violence so my first major
interview of an expert was Evan and, as
you can imagine, I was petrified. I didn’t
really know what I was supposed to be
asking him because I didn’t really know
my way around the subject yet, because I
didn’t really understand about why the
hell this was happening, so I didn’t have
the questions for him, so, he was my first
major expert and if I had got him at the
end, my God, I’d have asked him
completely different questions. He’s an
incredible person.
Making The Invisible Visible

R: One of the things that someone really
kindly said to me was someone who
works with victims of domestic abuse, she
worked in a shelter. She watched it at a
screening and she put her hand up
afterwards and said that she was really
appreciative of how I had represented the
victims, because she found that on screen
they’re not usually represented very well.
R: That was a real shocker as I didn’t
know what I was doing and it made me
realise I’d come across something so huge
and so complex but of course he gave me
loads of information and he talked about
Marianne in Bristol and that the whole
3-planet model is the essence of the whole
thing.
So, in the film, I was at the Battered
Mothers Custody Conference in New York
and I set my camera up in this corridor
and I was there at the conference for 2
days and the woman running the
conference had announced to everybody
that if anyone would like to tell their
story, there’s a film maker here, she’s
going to be sitting over there. Nobody
came to see me and the, one evening, at
the end of the day, someone came to see
me and so you’ve got to walk down this
corridor and sit in a chair and by the time
you sit in a chair, you're in the focus play
of the image but the rest of the walk is out
of focus, so you have these long walks, of
the women, back and forth and I used
that as an artistic device, if you will.
“I did 6 hours of talking to the women, hearing these horrific stories and then
the last person left and there was just me in this empty corridor in a hotel
and it was just like I’d been hit by a bus”
Rachel Meyrick
R: When I was talking to Marianne in
Bristol, she was describing the 3-planet
model. There’s a small clip in the
documentary, and there’s a little
animation which goes with it that makes
it really clear and it’s really the hub and
the essence of women leaving domestic
violence and why they hide abuse and
cover it up. It’s a hard film to watch
M: But it’s so necessary and it explained it
so well and in such a way that makes
people actually sit up and take notice.
The woman who was talking to me about
this thought it was so empowering for
these women to walk to this chair and sit
down and speak and that they were
honestly portrayed, anyway, so when I
was at the conference, nobody came to
see me until the end of the last day and
there was a queue of people.
I think I did 6 hours of talking to the
women, hearing these horrific stories and
then the last person left and there was
just me in this empty corridor in a hotel
and it was just like I’d been hit by a bus,
you know, and there was no one around -
everyone had gone.
Making The Invisible Visible

"People don’t want to know, they genuinely don’t want to know – it’s too hard to
take in, too hard to believe that this many people are suffering – right next door.
It’s too hard to know that, because then they’d have to take responsibility for it."
Rachel Meyrick
R: I was staying in this hotel and I went
across the road to the Red Lobster and
ordered two margaritas.
M: I can imagine. There’s all this emotion
and what do you do with it? I actually
recognised one of the women and I’m
actually going to be talking to her next
week.
R: How you you feel she was portrayed in
the film?
M: I wanted to cry.
M: Going back to what you said about
how victims of abuse don’t often come
across well on film, I think what tends to
happen, and I’ve seen this with a lot of
documentaries, there are various people
talking about victims of abuse- police,
frontline workers, even people who work
directly with victims and there’s this
othering that goes on. It’s always ‘these
women’ it’s almost like there is a 'them
and us' situation and what I got with your
documentary is that this isn’t about them
and us, this could be any one of us. I
mean, in my case, it actually was but if
circumstances were a little bit different,
this could happen to anyone of us.
R: I really wanted to get that across.
Making The Invisible Visible

R: She’s so alive now. She must have been
subduing her personality.
M: Rachel, for anyone reading this, who
did you talk to in the film?
R: I spoke to Joan Meier, Evan Stark,
Marianne Hester, I spoke to ex-judge
DeAnn Salcido, I spoke to Barry
Goldstein, I spoke to Jennifer Collins, a
surviving child, who is a huge force of a
woman. I spoke to Kathleen Russell, who
is the executive director of the Center for
Judicial Justice, Hope Loudon, she’s
brilliant and she’s a surviving child.
M: And you did it so well.
R: That was really important to me. All
those shots I did, across America, of
driving past people’s houses, I wanted
people to go ‘ Oh, I live in a house like
that’ and what I wanted to happen was to
have the story of Charlotta , the person
who didn’t leave, and the other women
who did leave and then Tammy who takes
us to this place and then suddenly there
are all these women from all over.
M: Without giving too much away, the
part of the documentary that really
touched a nerve was when Charlotta was
talking about the objects he’d used as a
weapon but there were still sentimental
memories attached to the objects even
though they had been used as weapons. It
was just the conflict of emotions she must
have felt.
R: I know, I’ve been to her house and feel
that everything happened in that house
yet she’s still living there and she’s such
an incredible woman, I mean I think
Charlotta is raging against time. She only
divorced him when she was 81, 82 I can’t
remember, then he died a few years later.
If I was to do it all again, I would
concentrate on the surviving children.
The surviving children weren’t party to
the decision making, they seem so
innocent.
M: Speak to the children. That’s exactly
how Jess Hill approaches it. People talk
about parental alienation and false
allegations, but you need to talk to the
children to find out how the decisions
impacted them.
R: That film took so much to make, it was
really hard to do and really taxing and
also, nobody funded me, I crowdfunded
to raise money for flights and hotels but I
certainly didn’t get paid but if someone
were to commission me, I’d totally do it
from the child’s point of view – the
surviving children, the aged-out children
because people don’t want to know, they
genuinely don’t want to know – it’s too
hard to take in, too hard to believe that
this many people are suffering – right
next door. It’s too hard to know that,
because then they’d have to take
responsibility for it. So I think the
children would get more attention. Their
voices are so powerful, so strong.
M: And they lived it, so it can't simply be
reduced to two different versions of what
happened, it’s the experience of the child.
Making The Invisible Visible

R: The kids are used as pawns in this
situation. They’re really used and it’s not
right. The fact that this film could be
made in this country and still can be
made in this country is really important. I
think it’s important to recognise that this
is what’s happening in this country. It’s
not just America.
M: There are certain things that create a
huge fanfare at the time but then fizzle
out to nothing and there are some things
that get under your skin. I mean really get
under your skin and have a lasting
impact. Your documentary was like that
for me. It’s something that will dictate the
direction I take in my awareness raising
work from hereon. Thank you so much
for this interview.
For more on Rachel Meyrick's
documentary 'What Doesn't Kill Me':
www.rachelmeyrick.com
www.whatdoesntkillme.com
Making The Invisible Visible

The CCChat
Interview
Teri Yuan
Making The Invisible Visible

“This, in my opinion, is the largest crisis affecting women
amongst the English speaking world. ”
Teri Yuan
Me: Teri, thank you so much for agreeing
to this interview for CCChat. I’ve been
looking forward to talking to you for a
while but, for whatever reason, haven’t
been able to manage it but, by sheer
coincidence, I was watching a screening
of Rachel Meyrick’s documentary What
Doesn’t Kill Me and saw you in it, so
here we are, finally. So the first question I
have for you is, what made you do the
documentary?
T: I had become very active in the gender
justice community since becoming a
protective mom and I have been
attending the Battered Mothers Custody
Conference since 2008 and Rachel was
actually present at the Conference. To the
extent that we don’t have gag orders, we
are always eager to get the word out and
bring awareness to the community that
this, in my opinion, is the largest
crisis affecting women amongst the
English speaking world.
The laws are very similar in how it is
implemented and its negative impact on
women and children.
M: I remember hearing, and I can’t
remember who exactly, but I think it may
have been Helena Kennedy QC who said
it, that the law was written by men for
men.
T: I think that’s true in all societies all
over the world. Men are dictating who
gets what freedoms and rights and
certainly all over the world they’re still
trying to control women’s bodies.
Making The Invisible Visible

T: I’ve been attending since 2008. I was
first informed by Nancy Erickson, who
has now become a friend. She is a
domestic violence adviser to attorneys
and she was an adviser in my case. She
informed me that there was not just this
conference but there was this battered
women and protective mothers
movement and that there were going to
be survivors, advocates and practitioners
in that space, where I could learn from.
I’ve been going almost every year because
it is the only place where I can, in one
space, access information around what is
happening in the law and what people are
working on to make changes in policy and
to include my voice in that process.
M: I think that even if the intention isn’t
there, it happens by default
T: Yes, reproductive justice is one of the
ways they are doing so and I think this is
just one form of reproductive justice that
is being denied.
M: Could you expand on that?
T: Sure. My definition of reproductive
justice is having the access and freedom
to the healthcare you need, to make
decisions around whether and if and
when you want to become pregnant.
Sexual coercion is something that
happens a lot in intimate partner violence
relationships and to the extent that you
may want to have a child but you don’t
want to parent with your abuser, that’s a
restriction on reproductive justice and
also on the freedoms of both the victims,
survivor and the children because they
are not able to live a life free from power
and control and coercive control.
M: So what made you decide to attend the
conference?
I subscribe to Evan Stark’s definition of
coercive control as a gendered liberty
crime and the idea is that under
patriarchy men use coercive control as a
tactic to maintain their male privilege and
supremacy and engage in tactics that
limit the freedoms of their victims, mainly
women, from exercising agency, so
agency over their bodies, over their daily
lives, over whether or not they can have
joy in the world and certainly one of the
ways they do so is through their children.
I want to add that, for you and I and those
of us in the community who subscribe to
this definition that there is a global
pandemic against violence against
women. It shows up mainly in femicide
but there are a whole host of other ways
in which sexism, exploitation, oppression
and violence show up in our lives and
coercive control is a way to capture all of
the different tactics that de-centre the
physical aspects of the harm and
centralise the liberty – human rights –
aspects, to the point where physical harm
and threats of physical harm are not even
needed.
Victims of coercive control engage in selfpolicing
or self-surveillance tactics
because of the fear or the threat of, not
necessarily physical harm, but other
forms of restrictions on their lives and so
Making The Invisible Visible

it’s very distinct from high conflict
situations that the courts always get
wrong, where they like to conflate these
two experiences.
High conflict is where two parties are
vying for power and coercive control is
where there is one party, normally the
man, who is more prominent.
There is a hierarchy of power and he is
definitely more powerful and has access
to, and uses those set of tactics to
maintain domination over the other –
and so it’s important that we debunk this
term, ‘high conflict’ as being used to
describe coercive control and domestic
abuse.
sides as they don’t have to go to the effort
of investigating who the primary abuser
is-if there is one.
Coercive control is complex and requires
a much greater level of awareness and
professional curiosity. It also suits the
abusive partner to claim it’s both, as a
way of watering down their own actions.
T: I think also there is a lot of cultural
pressure and bias that comes in, that
shows up as gender bias in the decisions
and actions of the courtroom, so that all
of the actors in the space aren’t required
to examine their gender bias, and aren’t
penalised when making decisions that
have harmful consequences because of
that bias and continue because nobody is
“Nobody is challenging them, nobody is creating protocols
that hold them accountable.”
Teri Yuan
A lot of people who are working in this
space, I’m sure you’ve encountered it as
well, but certainly for me in New York
City, there’s a lot of people who get
confused that coercive control and
domestic abuse is not a gendered crime
because they think that , if it happens in
same sex relationships, then we should
de-gender domestic abuse and that is not
the case because the tactics themselves
are enabled under patriarchy to maintain
male domination and power and anybody
can engage in those tactics, like women
can uphold patriarchal values by
supporting people like Donald Trump.
M: You’ve explained that really well. I’ve
never been able to adequately explain
how, even though domestic abuse is
gendered, men can also be victims.
My thoughts on high conflict is that
people are conflating it with coercive
control because it’s easier to blame both
challenging them, nobody is creating
protocols that hold them accountable.
And so, as the documentary says, there is
a whole system of people who continue to
benefit or profit from supporting people
who are empowered – which is the
monied party, which is usually the man -
because of the gender wage gap and
whatnot and also, if you are upholding
the truth and that truth lies in challenging
the system and there are not enough of
you to challenge the system, then you’re
going to be ostracised from the system
and retaliated against- if you’re a player
in the system.
M: I’ve certainly seen that. I know quite a
few lawyers/social workers who will talk
privately about their concerns of the
family court but they would not voice it
publically, for fear of it having a
detrimental impact on their livelihood, on
it having an effect on decision making in
the courtroom.
Making The Invisible Visible

Teri, you are the founder of Engendered
podcast, could you tell me a little more?
T: Yes, I’m the producer and host and I
started that in response to my advocacy
work in New York. I was on a task force
for domestic violence and I started out
being wide eyed and hopeful that this
would be an opportunity for me, as a
survivor voice, to provide my input
around what I knew were the gaps in the
system - what survivors needed and what
interventions needed to be implemented
to help survivors- and I quickly found
that space was not a space for making
systemic change.
And so I started my podcast as a way to
bring awareness to the larger community
hadn’t experienced it, but if I explained it
in terms of what was happening in cults,
it seemed to be much easier for people to
understand why a victim might not be
able to leave.
I don’t know what you’ve found, but in
the UK, there is this belief that coercive
control just happens in a relationship,
when, in fact, it’s everywhere in society.
T: You’ve read Jess Hill’s book. Part of
what I’ve found, and by the way, I think
that book is the best book on domestic
violence and coercive control that exists
and everybody needs to read that book.
Jess talks, in the book, of the chart of
coercion and Albert Biderman comparing
prisoners of war and the tactics used with
"I quickly found that space was not a space for
making systemic change. "
Teri Yuan
about gender based violence, but also
there’s a whole series of episodes, over a
dozen, that have dealt with the family
court crisis. The goal of the podcast is to
build a cultural literacy about abuse and
abusive power rooted in sexism and sexist
oppression because so much of what is
happening in the world, we accept and
name, if it’s outside of the home.
Making those connections is really
important because if you don’t have the
language to name what is happening in
your home, but you’re experiencing the
same things- whether it’s in your home,
your workplace or your politics, it helps
people to be able to stand up, learn how
to be a witness to these experiences and
actively do something about it, not just be
a bystander.
M: I totally agree. The thing I’ve noticed
is that it was actually really difficult to
explain coercive control to someone who
prisoners of war and so anyone who’s
been in the military should understand
that these are the same tactics. I don’t
even think we need to go so far as to even
use the analogy with Trump and all the
authoritarian figures in government.
I interviewed Leta Hong Fincher about
Chinese feminists and in her book
Betraying Big Brother, she basically talks
about coercive control but on a state
level.
To me it’s just amazing because everyone
recognises that China and all these others
governments are engaging in state level
coercive control yet the same exact tactics
are happening in the home and they can’t
recognise it and refuse to confront it, so I
just keep bringing it back to this analogy:
This is happening, in this space, and it’s
the same thing that’s happening in your
home. Now, everybody in the world
Making The Invisible Visible

should be able to recognise control
because we all agree, for the most part,
that Donald Trump is a coercive
controller so if you want to give anyone
an example, you just point to his tactics.
M: To that I’d also add Weinstein,
Epstein, the NXIVM cult and that’s just
last year.
T: There’s a playbook for it
T: I’ve been trying to put out weekly
episodes. (117 episodes at time of
publishing this magazine). I try to cover,
very broadly, the themes, I see the
podcast as a blueprint for understanding
sexism and misogyny in our world and so
every episode is like a piece of the puzzle
in how we can end sexism and misogyny.
It may not deal directly with domestic
violence and coercive control but it deals
with the variables that shape and imprint
our gender roles, culture, society, media
and all of those ways in which women
participate in our own enslavement.
M: Can you also speak a little about the
Engendered Collective?
T: I started the Engendered Collective
because I was very frustrated at
navigating the various spaces of advocacy,
and you and I spoken about this before,
where people who either work for
agencies that serve survivors or are selfidentified
feminists, if they use that term,
or victim advocates, that there’s not this
unifying language around what is the
problem that we’re trying to address and
what is the root cause and what are the
priorities?
Making The Invisible Visible

I was a very voracious reader and
consumer of content with regard to all of
these issues that impacted me in family
court and, going back to Rachel’s film,
I’ve interviewed several of the people in
the film because I know them personally
and from all the years of attending BMCC
(Battered Mothers Custody Conference)
and I feel like I have a set of ideas of how
we can address this.
So I created the Engendered Collective
partly so that there would be a place
where we can look for those solutions and
share those best practices so that people
who are going through similar things can
both be educated about it, because that’s
what they’re experiencing, or because
they want to be an ally and informed
towards increasing accountability for
abuse and abusive power rooted in
sexism, sexist oppression and sexual
exploitation and so domestic violence is
one of them, the family court, issues
around understanding coercive control,
making sure that we are putting together
a template to educate people all around
the world, but also working with other
groups who are trying to criminalise it.
We’re trying to do that in the US as well,
state by state and it’s helpful to come
together with other people who have
experienced it already.
"You’ve already had 5 years of this law to learn
what’s worked and what’s not worked."
Teri Yuan
about how to help with these various
issues, but also because I wanted to
elevate the best practices and people who
are in this space and show who was ‘ safe’
and who was a genuine ally, in my
opinion, because a lot of people who are
working in this space, I don’t perceive as
necessarily a genuine ally and so it’s a way
for me to also help identify who I should
reach out to.
Who are the people putting out the best
solutions and ideas so that globally we
can access it. So it’s not in any way trying
to compete with non-profits and
organisations out there , but it’s sort of
like an aggregator of the best practices
and ideas for people who are prioritising
abuser accountability and that is one of
our main tenets in our theory of change,
it’s that we are working in the advocacy
front ,
You’ve already had 5 years of this law to
learn what’s worked and what’s not
worked, so we can put forward the best
language and to anticipate the kind of
opposition we’re going to get, maybe even
create additional solutions that might not
be in the laws already, so that we can
garner the greatest support.
And the second advocacy effort that I’m
just exploring is working with this
organisation on developing a Court
Watch app which hopefully will be
available not just to litigants in the US but
also globally and the idea would be - there
is no transparency around family court
and Joan Meier’s research only deals with
the US – to collect that kind of data,
similar to the ways in which Black Lives
Matter, as a movement have been able to
use police data around racist policing and
racist policing outcomes to question and
hopefully dismantle qualified immunity
for police officers.
Making The Invisible Visible

harm to the victims and the children it
affects.
So I’m a great believer in having specialist
family courts that deal with domestic
abuse that, not only, understand domestic
abuse but also the connected issues such
as child contact decisions, but also
maintenance payments because, at the
moment, there is not enough joined up
thinking, certainly not around
recognising that witholding child
maintenance is financial abuse as it has
an impact not only on the parent who
should be in receipt of it, but everyone in
that household.
We want to dismantle immunity for
judges and lawyers and mental health
providers who are biased in their
perspective, who come to the table
thinking that survivors make things up,
that women make things up and there’s
no abuse.
All of the different connections around
post separation abuse such as abusers
who claim parental alienation, parents
who are refusing child contact unless it is
on their terms or issues over schooling
and kids clubs , that have a direct impact
on the victim/survivor parent but is often
ignored when it needs to form part of the
greater picture of harms that aggregate
and detrimentally impact a parent’s
ability to parent effectively.
"We want to dismantle immunity for judges and lawyers and mental health
providers who are biased in their perspective, who come to the table
thinking that survivors make things up"
Teri Yuan
So these people should not be working in
these positions and making these
decisions, causing additional harm that
actually ripples through society for
generations and has a huge economic
cost.
M: I think that is a really good idea. I’ve
always thought that there needs to be a
database of judges’ decision making - a
record from which we could, if needed,
identify which judges have a consistently
poor record in this area so the ones that
are identified need to not be hearing these
cases as their decision making is causing
I don’t know what it’s like in the US, by all
accounts it seems to be worse than here in
the UK, but even so, professionals can
have a very entrenched view that they will
not be budged from, so there needs to be
a way of ascertaining a person’s biased
leanings – and not just for someone who
knows which professional to go to, to
obtain a report that is favourable to their
client but there should be an open record
of decision making that shows a track
record of bias, so that people know that
this person is likely to favour a certain
outcome because, despite their stated
neutrality, this is their belief system.
Making The Invisible Visible

T: I certainly don’t think criminalising
coercive control is the only answer. We
need to have a multi-pronged approach,
and part of the legislation should include
creating protocols for accountability, so
that even if someone isn’t trained –
although ideally everyone would be
trained – that the information that is
being shared – if they subscribe to it or
not, they are actually implementing and
using, so there is a protocol for objectively
identifying what are these set of
behaviours, is it credible?
Almost like having an objective check list
where, if you don’t abide by it and you
substitute your judicial discretion, there
is a negative outcome, not necessarily by
the state but by this app where we can say
‘ 90% of the time, this judge has not
believed survivors despite accepting
evidence that there was abuse and
holding the legislators and other people
accountable so if they allow these people
to stay in power, that they are held
responsible for the healthcare and safety
consequences and so, personally, people
have suggested that police should get
liability insurance, and I agree, I think all
these people should get insurance and the
more they are sued, there should be a
point where they can no longer afford to
be in those positions because they just
keep making bad decisions.
Over time, if someone sues you enough,
the cost of staying in that role becomes
too high.
M: The Court Watch app could also
publish reviews.
T: I’d have to investigate the privacy
aspects, but I can imagine that if one
individual, a bad actor, has made lots of
bad decisions and that is somehow
Making The Invisible Visible

able to be transparently shared with the
public, that the people who have been
victimised, can show intent and
potentially go against immunity.
Dismantle the immunity laws and
protection but even if we can’t, we can use
it to create transparency so that, at some
point, the public outrage will supersede
the desire to protect these individuals,
like what you were saying about Harvey
Weinstein.
At some point the enterprise tumbles
down because the people who are
upholding it decide to give up
participating and complicitly keeping it
upright.
in society, we can address coercive
control, we can address poverty and
current social problems that come with
abuse. You don’t have mass shootings in
the UK but you have acid attacks and
stabbings.
In other parts of the world they use
different tactics but sexism and misogyny
shows up, so if you happen to be a
bystander physically present in an
altercation, and you get harmed, so
there’s a cost in human lives.
M: Certainly the social and economic cost
of domestic violence is huge, in the UK it
has been estimated as being £66 billion.
“At some point the enterprise tumbles down because the people who are
upholding it decide to give up participating and complicitly keeping it upright.”
Teri Yuan
M: There needs to be a much greater
understanding of the bystander’s role in
this, because I think the issue is that even
if many people are aware, most won’t
know what to do about it, how to help,
how to report, how to complain.
T: I think for me, one of the ways that
bystanders can help is to be aware that
this is an issue. A lot of people refer to it
as a private matter and I’m beginning to
use the term gendered terrorism. We
need to see these as crimes against
humanity. If half the population is not
free and is enslaved, then you are going to
not be as productive and as healthy as a
society and, because of all the trauma that
survivors and children experience, there
is an actual cost to society.
If we can start shifting the language so
that people realise it does affect them and
that, to the extent that we can address
domestic violence we can address crimes
T: And that isn’t the full cost to society
because it doesn’t include the opportunity
cost of the victim and her children. It
doesn’t include their future ability to
contribute to society.
M: That’s true. It’s not something that’s
really talked about and it needs to be.
Teri Yuan was talking to Min Grob.
Engendered Podcast is available
everywhere podcasts are found.
www.engendered.us
More information on Engendered
Collective can be found here:
www.engenderedcollective.org
Making The Invisible Visible

Focus on:
Richard A. Gardner
T
here are numerous reasons for why a parent might
deliberately disrupt the relationship a child has with
the other parent. Nowadays, these reasons are often
conflated into a catchy phrase: 'parental alienation'
but not many people are aware of the origins of this
term, nor the views of the man who created it.
There has been growing concern of how the term ‘parental alienation’ has
slipped into the everyday parlance of both family court hearings and child
contact arrangements and how this term is being weaponsised by abusive
parents as both a way to threaten a parent from leaving an abusive
relationship but also as a way of counteracting allegations of domestic abuse.
Critics of the term and how it is applied, refer to Richard Gardner's views on
paedophilia and his belief that 90% of mothers lie about abuse, especially
sexual abuse of a father to child.
The term originated from psychiatrist Richard Alan Gardner (1931 -2003)
who graduated from Columbia University in 1952 and, after completing
residencies in both adult and child psychiatry, was certified, in 1966, as a
psychoanalyst.
In his 1990, in his book on false allegations of sexual abuse, Sex Abuse
Hysteria: Salem Witch Trial Revisited Gardner wrote: “One of the steps that
society must take to deal with the present hysteria is to 'come off it' and take a
more realistic attitude toward paedophilic behaviour," He wrote,, in his 1992
book True and False Allegations of Child Sex Abuse : "The child should be
able to pity the father for the curse of having pedophilic tendencies. In other
times and other places, he would be considered normal."
Gardner theorised that any mother who accused her spouse of abusing the
children was lying more or less by definition. He believed that the purpose of
the lies was to "alienate" the children from their father, and that the mother
deserved to lose all custody rights in favour of the father, for her actions in
"programming" the children to repeat her lies.
He believed that mothers alleging abuse were expressing, in disguised form,
their own sexual inclinations towards their own children. He further
suggested that there was nothing wrong with paedophilia, incestuous or not,
that paedophilia "is a widespread and accepted practice among literally
billions of people".
Making The Invisible Visible

Gardner wrote prolifically but the books
he produced from the late 1980s onwards
were all self-published and without the
usual peer review process. In what he
considered to be extreme cases of
alienation, he recommended “Threat
Therapy” whereby the parent he claimed
was “ brainwashing” the children would
be threatened with jail unless the children
agreed to contact with the allegedly
abusive parent. Custody would also be
transferred to the alleged abusive parent
with a period of several months of no
contact between the child and so-called
alienating parent as part of the
'reunification' process. "Threat therapy"
was part of a much broader theory of
Gardner's known in family courts as
"Parental Alienation Syndrome".
Nathan Grieco, aged 16
In a contentious child custody dispute,
the three teenage Grieco brothers begged
a family court judge not to force them to
continue visits to their father because he
was physically abusive towards them.
Rather than believe the boys, the judge
relied on the testimony of an expert
witness retained by the father, a
Columbia University professor of clinical
psychiatry, Richard A. Gardner. Gardner
insisted the boys were lying as a result of
brainwashing by their mother and
recommended "threat therapy".
"In an interview, when asked what a mother should do if the child
disclosed sexual abuse by the father, Gardner responded: “ What would
she day? Don’t you say that about your father. If you do, I’ll beat you.”
Courts deferred to Gardner's academic
credentials and put children in the
custody of their alleged abuser, EVEN in
cases where police records, medical
records and testimony by teachers and
social workers supported the mother's
accusations.
In an interview, when asked what a
mother should do if the child disclosed
sexual abuse by the father, Gardner
responded: “What would she day? Don’t
you say that about your father. If you do,
I’ll beat you.”
Gardner died by suicide in 2003 having
stabbed himself several times in the chest
and neck, before stabbing himself in the
heart. His obituary in the New York
Times was corrected, on 14th June 2003,
to clarify that his position at Columbia
University was misstated and that he was
NOT a professor of child psychiatry but
an unpaid volunteer.
The Grieco boys were told they should be
respectful and obedient on visits to their
father and, if they were not, their mother
would go to jail. “These children need
coercion,”Gardner had said.
Nathan Grieco,who was 16 and the eldest
of the brothers, hanged himself in his
bedroom, leaving behind a diary in which
he wrote that life had become an "endless
torment". Both Gardner and the court
were unrepentant about their decision -
even after the suicide. It was only after an
exposé in the local newspaper that
custody arrangements for the two
surviving boys were changed.
Should we really still be continuing using
the term 'parental alienation', when its
origins have been shown to be so
intensely problematic? I think it's time to
look at identifying disrupted child contact
differently.
Making The Invisible Visible

Albert Biderman's
Chart of Coercion
Biderman's research found that the captors used eight
techniques in order to elicit dependency, debility and dread.
In 1956, Albert D. Biderman, a
psychologist, described the coercive
tactics used by Chinese communists,
who ran the prisoner of war camps in
North Korea.
He charted the tactics used to elicit
'false confessions' from American
prisoners of war who were held during
the Korean War.
These tactics led American prisoners
to being ' brain washed' into confessing
to all manner of war crimes, including
biological warfare against the North
Koreans and Chinese. Biderman
argued that none of it was true. The
American prisoners told their Chinese
interrogators whatever they wanted to
hear to make the torture stop.
Biderman's research found that the
captors used eight techniques in order
to elicit dependency, debility and
dread.
These eight techniques were:
- isolation
- monopolisation of perception
- induced debility or exhaustion
- cultivation of anxiety and despair
- intermittent punishment and reward
- demonstrations of omnipotence
- degradation
- enforcement of trivial demands
Based on Biderman’s research and the
experiences of POWs in the Korean
War, the military set up special
training to teach soldiers to resist such
tactics.
In 1973, Amnesty International
included Biderman's 'Chart of
Coercion' in its 'Report on Torture'
which quotes:
' The most effective way to gain
cooperation is through subversive
manipulation of the mind and feelings
of the victim, who then becomes a
psychological, as well as a physical,
prisoner.'
Making The Invisible Visible

MSc Psychology of
Coercive Control
https://beta.salford.ac.uk/courses/
postgraduate/psychologycoercive-control
Making The Invisible Visible

This is the only programme
of its kind in the world
Learn about the psychology of coercive
control in domestic abuse, families, abusive
groups, trafficking, gangs, and how to help
those affected.
This course provides advanced insights
and knowledge of cutting-edge practice and
research about coercive control and
behaviour and its development and effects on
individuals, families and organisations.
You will receive tailored support from a
highly experienced and qualified team of
psychology and professional staff who are
involved in advancing practice and research
regarding the prevention, effects and
recovery from coercive and controlling
behaviour.
You will be very well placed to advance your
career in a variety of professions where the
government is seeking to develop provision
for the prevention of and recovery from
coercive control and abuse and you will also
be very well prepared to apply for a
professional doctorate and research career
paths in psychology and other relevant
disciplines
The course breakdown is as follows:
MSc
one year F/T or three years P/T
PgDip
eight months F/T or two years P/T
PgCert
four months F/T or nine months P/T
Please note:
From September 2020, this course will be
delivered via distance learning.
You will: Gain a deep appreciation of
contemporary approaches to the
prevention of, and recovery from, coercive
control and abuse in domestic settings, in
trafficking and in organisations more
widely.
Be supported by a highly qualified and
experienced team in professional staff in
advancing your career in a variety of 'in
demand' professions relating to coercion
and abuse or towards a professional
doctorate in psychology or related
disciplines.
Develop an advanced understanding
of the psychology of coercive control and
cutting-edge research and practice in this
area.
Placement options available International
students accepted FAQs information for
students joining us in September 2020
Making The Invisible Visible