Coercive control is a system of abuse that never switches off – even during the ‘good times’. Perpetrators deploy specific techniques, like isolation, blame-shifting, gaslighting, degradation, threats, micro-regulation, rule-setting, and surveillance, in order to entrap and subjugate. Victim -survivors often say that when they hear coercive control explained, it’s like a lightbulb moment – they realise that the abuse was not their fault, and that they were not ‘crazy’. More than just violence, coercive control is a sustained attack on a person’s sense of self, and their dignity.