Video Learning // The Power and Control Wheel

TFC’s Eric Parsons goes over the Power and Control Wheel, a tool covering common tactics and behaviors abusers use to maintain power and control over their victims.

For this installment of our video learning series, TFC Education Coordinator Eric Parsons walks us through a tool known as the Power and Control Wheel.

This tool is one of several widely used resources in our field developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP) in Duluth, Minnesota. Advocates with victim services programs like The Friendship Center refer to the Power and Control Wheel often to give survivors insight and validation for what they're experiencing and help plan strategies and steps for staying safe. The wheel is also a great resource for educators like Eric, who can use it to introduce the common signs of abuse to those who might be in a position to support survivors.

As Eric points out, the wheel is particularly useful for highlighting that when we refer to domestic violence, we're not talking about one particular action or behavior, but an overall pattern of coercive and controlling behavior that may not involve any physical violence. The tactics can take on several forms, but they are all in service of allowing an abuser to maintain power and control over their victim.

Eric's breakdown of the Power and Control Wheel covers the following tactics:

• Isolation

  Isolation can be physical or geographic, but we're most concerned about social isolation. Offending partners can use social isolation strategically to ensure they're the only influence in the life of their victim and prevent them from seeking support outside of the relationship.

• Emotional abuse

  Emotional abuse (aka psychological or verbal abuse) is a tactic abusers employ to make victims feel like they don't deserve to be treated well. Gaslighting, mind games, and putdowns are common forms of emotional abuse.

• Coercion, intimidation, and threats This looks like the offender making or carrying out threats to harm their victim, someone they care about (i.e., a family member or pet), or their personal property. It can also manifest as coercing the victim to do immoral or illegal things because they're afraid of their partner.

• Economic/financial abuse This type of abuse can take various forms, but most basically, it's intended to prevent victims from accessing needed resources to live independently (i.e., safe housing, money, transportation to work or school, childcare) or intentionally sabotaging a victim's credit or ability to maintain employment.

• Using children Offending partners might use children as pawns to threaten and harass their victims or withhold access to children as a means of coercion.

• Using privilege An offender might use their status, privilege, or comparatively greater access to resources to seize control of all important decisions in a relationship and not treat their partner as an equal. Often, they may also leverage financial and social resources to keep a victim isolated, or discredit anything they might disclose about the abuse they're experiencing.

• Minimizing, denying, and blaming Offenders often cause harm, deny that they did anything wrong, and/or blame someone else (often the victim) for their behavior. This is a telltale tactic in a pattern of coercive behavior because it points to a fundamental difference from healthy relationships where a partner will take responsibility for harm they have done and try to do better.

Eric closes by acknowledging that while most of us will never see the full picture of what a victim is experiencing, we are often able to recognize when somebody we know and care about is being harmed. To that end, Eric offers guidance on the best ways to show support or concern, always with deference to what the victim/survivor says they need and a willingness to continue offering support, knowing that it may (and likely will) take several attempts if they choose to exit the relationship.

---

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, The Friendship Center can help. Check out our services page to learn about our free, confidential, 24/7 services and visit our domestic violence resource page to explore resources for victims and advocates.

If you find this video helpful, be sure to check out all of our short educational videos. We add new ones on different topics on an ongoing basis and we’d love to hear from you if there’s a topic that you’d like us to cover that you don’t see a video for. For a deeper dive on any of these topics, consider checking out our education page to see some of the popular presentations we offer and learn how you can get in touch with us for more info about our education offerings.