Patterns of Control is a complete, practical guide to recognising coercive control and psychological abuse with a step-by-step method for seeing it in your own relationship. Author, Dee Donaldson, is a Clinical Psychologist and former police officer with more than two decades of experience across law enforcement, victim advocacy, and clinical practice supporting women who have experienced abuse and trauma . She also brings the voice of lived-experience as a survivor of coercive control herself. Dee has written the book she once needed, and the one her clients have asked for.
Inside, you will find:
* Why it happens - the beliefs that drive a partner to control, and why your confusion, your staying, and your trying harder all make sense.
* What it looks like - ten behaviour types, from isolation and surveillance to financial control, threats, reality distortion and sexual coercion, and the ten ways they harm your mind, your body, your finances, and your freedom to make your own choices.
* How it escalates - the patterns and warning signs that matter most, including the heightened risk that surrounds leaving.
What to do with what you see - a structured method for tracking the pattern yourself, until what has been kept blurred, by design, becomes something you can name and evidence.
Coercive control works by keeping you uncertain. This book hands the certainty back to you, so that whatever you decide, you decide it with the full picture in front of you, in your own time and on your terms.
***** Amazon Reviews
"Real, Relatable & Evidence-Based. Written with a genuine tone of understanding and respect, drawing on professional expertise and lived experience to provide deeper understanding, insight and empowerment." NK
"Pragmatic and empowering. This book should be mandatory reading for anyone in an intimate relationship." AR
"Excellent Book, as a retired Clinical Psychologist, this is the best book I have read on control and coercion in relationships." MT
