I am so glad to bring Dr. Emma Katz back to the show. She is a senior lecturer in criminology at Edgehill University and one of the world’s leading experts on coercive control. She is the author of Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives and writes the Substack Decoding Coercive Control, where she makes this research clear to process and digest for anyone navigating it in real life.

Today we are focused on children and their lived experience of coercive control, and what actually supports them when one parent is trying to protect them inside constrained systems.

In this conversation we explore what children are actually experiencing as co-victims and co-survivors of coercive control, both inside the home and after separation, when the tactics don’t stop, they just shift. We get into what protective mothers can actually do to support their kids, why your own survival is already a road map, and how to talk to your children about what is happening in a way that helps them make sense of it without putting them in more danger. We also go deep on family court and why court-ordered systemic therapy in a coercive control situation is, in Emma’s words, a match made in hell.

What you’ll hear about in this episode:

• How coercive control intensifies for children after separation, and what they are experiencing when they move between homes (2:34)
• How to talk to your children about abuse in a way that is ongoing, depersonalized, and actually safe (27:06)
• Family court and systemic therapy: how to navigate it strategically when you have no choice (35:36)
• The changes Emma is seeing in family court in the UK, why the US is moving in the opposite direction, and what that means for protective mothers (44:20)
• Final advice for protective mothers on building the anti-coercive control environment in your own home, and why even when you cannot fix what is happening, making your child feel heard is already so much (50:42)

✨ If you’d like to watch the video version of this episode, you can find it here.

Learn more about Dr. Emma Katz

Dr Emma Katz is Associate Professor at Durham University. She is an award-winning expert in domestic abuse and coercive control, whose work has influenced policy and professional practice in the UK and globally.

Dr Katz’s book, Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives (published in 2022 by Oxford University Press) is described by Professor Evan Stark as a ‘pioneering work that will change how we understand and respond to children’s experience of domestic abuse’.

Follow Dr Katz on Substack to receive her popular blog Decoding Coercive Control with Dr Emma Katz.

Resources & Links:

Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!
Seven Step Mindset Reset for Divorce 

Connect with Dr. Katz:
Dr. Katz’s Substack: Decoding Coercive Control 
Dr. Katz on Instagram
Dr. Katz on LinkedIn
Dr. Katz on Facebook
Dr. Katz on YouTube

Books Mentioned:
Floss and the Boss
Luna Little Legs
Talking to My Mum: A Picture Workbook Workers, Mothers, Children Affected by Domestic Abuse
Talking About Domestic Abuse: A Photo Activity Workbook to Develop Communication Between Mothers and Young People

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back. I am joined today by Dr. Emma Katz, who has been on the show before and who is an amazing wealth of information. She’s associate professor at Durham University, an award-winning expert in domestic abuse and coercive control. Who’s. Work has influenced policy and professional practice in the UK and globally.

We need a little bit more over here on this side of the pond. Emma is the author of Coercive Control in Children’s and Mother’s Lives. It is a book that was described by Professor Evan Stark who is. Another leading researcher on all of this as a pioneering work that will change how we understand and respond to children’s experience of domestic abuse.

Emma also writes the Substack decoding Coercive Control with Dr. Emma Katz, which you guys. All need to subscribe to pay for the paid version so you get all of this information [00:01:00] in her substack. Emma really brings a lot of clarity to how coercive control operates in families systems, and in children’s lives.

Today we’re gonna focus on children and their lived experiences of coercive control and what actually supports them when one parent is trying to protect them. Inside of Constrained Systems. Emma, thank you so much for being here. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Thanks so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to talking about all of this and I should just give a shout out actually to my new employer because I’m no longer at Durham.

I’m now a senior lecturer in criminology at Edgehill University. 

Kate Anthony: Wonderful. Your work remains as just seminal and important, and I wanna start. Here in your work, you are clear that children are not just affected by coercive control, they’re actively navigating it. You call them co [00:02:00] victims.

How do children, how are they impacted as co victims as opposed to being witnesses just experiencing this? How do you see that and frame it? 

Dr. Emma Katz: Sure. So they’re definitely co victims in the sense that they’re being harmed by exactly the same behaviors that their mom is being harmed by. The behaviors coming from the perpetrating father, and I also call them co survivors because like their moms, they are trying to figure out ways to survive this situation, whether it’s pre-separation or post-separation and.

They’re trying to be survivors, like their mums are examples, so if a mum is isolated, then it’s gonna mean that her children are likely to be isolated too, because who is it that takes children to all of their events? Who drives them in the car? Who, walks them there. If it’s a route that can be done on, with walking.

It’s the mum. It’s usually the mum. And if they’re if they’re at an age where they still need to be taken from place to place and supervised in those places who is gonna be doing that? It’s the mum. [00:03:00] But if the dad won’t let her do that, because he monitors her time, he’s, always accusing her of having an affair wherever she goes, anywhere where she might meet a male.

Like a children’s birthday party, for example, or picking them up from an after school event a sports practice, that sort of thing. Then she’s not going to be able to take them, therefore, they’re not going if if the perpetrating dad is isolating them mum from her own family.

The kids are probably not going to be seeing the mom’s side of the family. ’cause if she can’t take them, the dad’s probably not gonna take them. So they’re probably not going to be seeing their grandparents. Yeah. So already we can see just from looking at isolation, how children are being directly impacted and not just witnessing it.

But then. If the perpetrator is like always being critical of the mom in front of the children and like belittling her, degrading her, then the children are going to be affected by that as well because their opinion of their mom and their attitude towards her is going to start to be impacted by that, and they might lose some respect for her and that can happen even as [00:04:00] they are worried about her and love her.

Also start to lose respect for her and not see that they have to speak to her in a respectful way. Those two things can be true at the same time. I’ve seen that in my research where mothers described how their children did love them, but lost a lot of respect for them. So again, the child, their own relationship with the most important person in their childhood, their primary carer, their mom that’s being.

Damaged by the perpetrator’s actions. So again, they’re directly experiencing it, right? If the perpetrator stalks the mum, he often uses the children as an agent of stalking, getting them to report on where she’s been and what she’s been doing, and who she talked to and that can be the case, pre or even post-separation like.

When they go off to see their dad, like after separation, they go to a different house to see him and spend time with him, he could be interrogating them about what their mom’s doing, who’s she’s speaking to, where’s she going? Does she have a new man in her life? Children, they are having to navigate all the time.

What do I say [00:05:00] here? Because say, if I tell them, oh she has. Being friendly with a man, even if the child isn’t sure if that’s romantic or not, right? But they say they’ll, they’ve seen her talk to a man and say, if they report that it could make their father go ballistic. And then they’re going to be stuck possibly alone with this really scary behaving person.

If they don’t report it and then he finds out some other way, then he’s gonna be mad at them for not. Disclosing to him so that they’re in this damn, if they do, damn, if they don’t position with it. And that’s just so terrifying. So there’s so many different ways that children are being made direct victims of the father’s behavior.

I could give examples of this all day, really, but I think those three just help to illustrate it. I must say before I move on from this particular. Committed the subject. This is never the victim’s survivor’s fault that the children are being impacted. I know victim survivors can feel so guilty that their children were impacted, but it’s not their fault.

It was never their fault. Perpetrators create these situations where they [00:07:00] basically forward and steal and gather up all of the power in the relationship again, whether it’s pre or post separation. And they do that by being willing to behave. Absolutely outrageously if they’re displeased. They have these huge reactions to being displeased where they can be extremely cruel, possibly violent, very destructive, very harmful. And then that just means that they hold all the power because suddenly everyone is terrified to upset them and everyone tiptoes around them trying to, walking on eggshells, trying to.

To keep them calm. So by, by being willing to react in this hugely disproportionate way whenever they’re displeased, they have all the power. And then the victim survivor mom, she has so little power left to, to do anything about this. And the systems around the family are probably not going to protect the children.

Occasionally they do, but very often. The child is going to keep being sent to the father, so therefore there’s no escape for the child. [00:08:00] The mom has very little power and the systems around her are usually contributing to that rather than helping her. So she’s doing the best she can in this situation, but because she doesn’t have much power, through no fault of her own, she never signed up for this.

She never consented to it. When she got together with this man, he didn’t seem to be like this. So that, she never consented to be in this situation to be a mom in this situation. She didn’t know. So it’s not her fault at all. And if she feels like it’s her fault, and if anyone who’s listening to me now feels you have these feelings that it’s your fault and you should have done something different, and the harm that came to your children was because of you, please, no, it was not, no, you did not have the power in this situation.

You never consented to it and you were doing. Best that you could, and you probably have done a lot of good for your children through the attempts you’ve made to keep them, as safe and as okay as you could. Even if you didn’t have much power to do it. You’ll have tried and you should be really proud of yourself for the trying, but this is just an impossible situation, coercive control even in states and in countries [00:09:00] where it’s not recognized yet as a crime.

I believe it’s a major crime and it’s a crime that perpetrators commit every single day. Of crimes, they’re only committed over a period of a few minutes, but coercive control is a crime that is committed. Thousands of days. So for thousands of days, thousands and thousands of days, the victim survivor was dealing with being being the victim of a crime constantly.

So that’s an enormously difficult situation that most people, it’s beyond most people’s comprehension what that is like. Yeah, I just, I wanna say to anyone listening, please be as gentle and kind to yourself and give yourself as much forgiveness as you can. And it was not your fault anything that happened to the children.

Kate Anthony: Absolutely. Yeah I second that and co-sign it and stress it in all of the things because 

Dr. Emma Katz: Put it in a postal on the wall. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly. Exactly. Really. And then we are put in this position of being protective parents, where we’re trying to navigate [00:10:00] either, pre or post-separation equally difficult, I think.

When you’re in it and you before, if you haven’t left, and you’re trying to protect your children from this crime that is occurring on a daily basis, hourly basis, but you’re all still in it, but you’re also trying to protect your children while also trying to keep yourself safe. That is just. An imposs, as you say, impossible situation, but post-separation.

When you’re not there, when they are going to the other parent, you know that there, this crime is being perpetrated against your children on a daily basis, but you are not there to protect them. But you also know that being away from the perpetrator gives them at least this safe container half of the time if that it is an impossible.

Situation either way. And, you do talk about what it is that moms can do. Like how can we help our children [00:12:00] either pre separation, post-separation, like what are some things that we can do to support our children when the reality is this is their other parent and as much as you and I would like them to have far fewer rights.

They don’t. 

Dr. Emma Katz: No. There’s good news and there’s bad news to this. Obviously it’s really bad news that the children are affected by coercive control in very similar ways to their moms and that they are victim survivors too. And every loving parent would wish that wasn’t true. But it’s also a little bit of good news in the sense that the victim survivor probably already has some idea of what helps.

Somebody who’s going through coercive control because they know what’s helped them. Because they, they have gone through it too. So what’s happening to their children isn’t like mysterious or difficult to understand because they already have their own expertise in it from what they have been through.

One thing that I was, that I’ve been thinking about and I wrote about in one of my recent [00:13:00] substack on my substack decoding coercive control is I suggested that moms they start asking themselves questions like, like how did you become less isolated? If you got cut off from a lot of people, how did you become.

Less isolated again, what helped you to reconnect with people after years of suppressing your voice? How did you learn to use your voice again, like in circumstances where you could, where it was safe to do how did you start getting back in touch with your voice and after years of not being able to make choices or express preferences, how did you start to be able to do that again?

And it was probably really hard and scary. But what got you through that, and it’s probably still a work in progress, but what helped you to start, how did you start to feel positive about who you were again and have a strong sense of identity? To feel as though you knew who you were and what you wanted.

Again, because coercive control takes that away so much. What helped you to stop believing the [00:14:00] twisted and distorted things that your ex used to say? Because at one point, maybe you believe some of those things, but probably now you don’t. How did you stop? What helped you to see that those things were not real?

And how did you tap into your own perspective again, rather than seeing the world through his eyes. And because victims often have to do that, in order to try and anticipate his reaction, they have to try and see everything through his eyes. If I do that, how will he react? If that happens, how will he react?

And then we start living through his eyes. But how did you tap into your own perspective again and start seeing the world through, through your lens, and then. If you can find that out yourself and maybe even write it down. ’cause then you’ve got something real and tangible on paper. And then maybe ask two or three other people who’ve been through coercive control, like maybe you know them from a support group, or maybe they’re your friends or your sister, or, try and find a couple of other people who’ve been through this too.

And you could talk to them online or, on the telephone or in [00:15:00] person. It might just be like a friend you have over the internet some. People, somebody that you don’t know, like in your, you don’t see them in person, you, you have a friendship with them online.

Try and write out from a couple more people what helped them. Because not every, obviously what helps people is not always the same. People can be helped by different things and then you’ve got a big long list of things that help. And then I would start trying to think. How might some of this apply to your kids?

How could you get some of that helped you and helped a couple of other people into their lives? And just try and think of it quite strategically like a plan and then that, and then it’s not easy because you can’t fix everything. But 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Dr. Emma Katz: But victim, survivor, moms do have, they do have some power, if they have the children with them some of the time, and they are.

A big force in the child’s life. They have a big presence in the child’s life. They matter a lot to the child. Even if the child seems quite angry with them, they do still matter a lot to the child. So they do have [00:16:00] some influence. And I would say just try and use that to the absolute maximum.

That you can, so then if you found doing volunteer work, helped you to feel like a person who was capable and effective, again, could you arrange for your child to have similar opportunities if you found therapy useful? Maybe you can’t get your child access to therapy right now because like maybe the cost is a barrier or maybe the father won’t give permission for it.

But can you get them into any kind of. Similar situation to therapy. Is there a really good and wise person you can find for them to talk to, even if it’s not official therapy, that would give them some of the benefits of therapy without it having to be known about or approved off by the father.

If you could find some really wise person for them to talk to, if you found experimenting with your appearance, help you to. To start feeling like yourself again. And you’ve got a child who is feeling very down and depressed because they, what’s happening to them whenever they go and see their father?

Could you give them some opportunities to have fun with their appearance? Put wigs [00:17:00] on put crazy clothes on that they don’t normally put on and just express themselves and things like that. Just, 

Kate Anthony: that’s all wonderful. That’s such good advice, Emma. I know that for, with my son, his godfather is my best friend.

I just had this very strong instinct when he was born that he was gonna need him in his life and having a different model of manhood. Yeah, because I was raising a boy right? Having a different model of manhood who was, completely different in, in all, in many ways. Was he my best friend?

Is happens to be a gay black man, right? My, my son is not, and he’s a Buddhist. He provided my son with this model of manhood that is so grounded. Wow. Very spiritual, very open-hearted, right? All of the things that one would want. And so we really made sure that he was around a lot as my son was growing up and they [00:19:00] now they continue.

My son is is almost. He’s 20 and a half and they go off and they do things together. They are so close, and I really think that it’s one of the things that was really impactful for my son, just having those outside people and then when he’s struggling, I will say to him, Hey, call your godfather.

Call Uncle Ray. Ray, you don’t wanna talk to me, you don’t wanna talk to your dad, talk to him. And he does. And it helps. So I can confirm. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah, totally. Yeah. And Lisa, it shows that even having one trustworthy adult besides your parent 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Dr. Emma Katz: In your life like. Whether it’s a grandparent or godparent or just like a friend of your parents or somebody you’ve met through your school or, just having one trustworthy, reliable, like nurturing, obviously non-abusive adult right in your 

Kate Anthony: That’s right.

Dr. Emma Katz: Is an enormous protective factor. It, it [00:20:00] really helps. And it buffers children against some of the worst impacts of their abusive parents’ behavior. 

Kate Anthony: Absolutely. Absolutely. Just somebody else to talk to. ’cause it, it be can, it can be so hard for kids when they do feel, especially within the system, that they feel pitted between the two parents.

And I can’t talk to mom about it because she might, get really upset or, we. As the protective parent have a hard time, or there might be a consequence that, the child feels that they don’t want, that they’re frightened of or whatever. And they don’t wanna talk to the coercive controller because they’re not safe.

Like where do they go somewhere else? Like we have to be okay with it just being, if we can’t get them into therapy, it’s gotta be somebody. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah. And if there’s somebody who’s really helped you, but that person doesn’t have a lot of relationship with your child try and build that relationship, if you can do, yeah.

And if you feel comfortable, take, go on trips with the child and them and try and build that relationship, get that person [00:21:00] into their life if that’s something you can do. 

Kate Anthony: Yep. Absolutely. After separation, a lot of the coercive control can intensify for the child. Because now the target.

Which was, possibly the mom was more of the target is out of the way. And I think your research shows that it can intensify after separation. What, from the child’s perspective, what, what is changing in this dynamic and what are they experiencing at, in, in separation? 

Dr. Emma Katz: I guess it depends on, it’s a child who.

A parent who is quite and manipulative have who’s. Very obviously hostile. ‘Cause I think the children who have a parent who’s very obviously hostile, then they’re more afraid and they’re more in dread and they’re more fearful. And they might be the [00:22:00] children who are, desperately don’t want to go but may have to go because of a court order to go see their father.

If you have a child who’s, whose parent is more subtle and manipulative and who tries to get the child on their side, then it can be quite a different experience for the child. And they may want to see their other parent, but not want to. There may be a lot of different and complex and mixed feelings about it.

So it’s hard to, it’s hard to give like a, an answer that would apply to all kids ’cause they do quite different experiences. So say if the child was quite scared of their father then when they’re with their father, they’re probably going to be trying to keep their head down, not provoke him, be quite like small and mousey and compliant and probably going to be under a lot of stress.

They’re probably going to have a tummy ache and a headache and feel sick from all the anxiety that they feel in, in, in the father’s presence. They have, if it’s a child whose father likes to get the children on his side, they may have to like, try and do that and [00:20:00] please him and inhabit his perspective and like really do things that will keep him like entertained and satisfied.

And so they may start to lose touch with themselves and they may, get really lost in being the child that keeps their dad happy. And they may start to have to. A in a mean way towards their mom, because that’s what dad wants and they’ll be very conflicted about this, but they may feel like they have to do that to keep dad happy and to, to feel safe themselves.

Because he’s got all, he’s got so much power and he, and when he’s angry, it can be so bad. Yeah. So it can really affect their behavior towards their mom. And some children, like they can start to feel very lost. Just like a, an adult does when they’re being coercively controlled.

They’re not sure who they are. They’re not sure what their voice is and they, they don’t feel able to use their voice. They might be scared to express preferences even when they’re like in their safe place with their mom. They can’t switch off all the negative impacts that, that their dad has on [00:25:00] them when they’re with him.

So a lot of them may continue to happen when they’re with their mom, if their dad doesn’t give ’em a lot of choices and just makes them do whatever he says, then they may not stop expressing choices around their mom as well. And stop saying, I wanna do this. I don’t wanna do that.

I like this, I don’t like that. And then they may just switch off. There are preferences with her as well, and that can be really hard for her to see ’cause she can see that they’re struggling and that they’re really down and low and suffering. That’s just absolute torture and I do think that post-separation, a lot of the time, what perpetrators do is.

Is if they don’t have access to the mum anymore, they just start to use all of the coercive control tactics that they are so skillful and practiced in. They have this big kind of toolbox, full of coercive control tactics that they really know how to use. And I think a lot of the time they just start using them all on the child.

Yeah, because they know that for the mom just. Knowing that’s happening and seeing the impacts on the child, that’s gonna be torture for her. So it’s a way of continuing to torture her [00:26:00] from a distance, even if they can’t get her, get at her directly. Like even if they only speak to her through some app or only have contact through their solicitors.

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Coercively controlling the child well. And then that child goes back to the mum and she can see that’s what’s happening to them. It’s gonna torture her. So it’s so difficult. And like anyone who’s going through this, I really think that I really think that it is a really it’s a form of torture.

Like this is legitimately a form of torture. There should be, un reports about it, it’s yeah, it should be being treated like other torture situations. It’s awful. And 

Kate Anthony: yet. 

Dr. Emma Katz: And yet. 

Kate Anthony: And yet. 

Dr. Emma Katz: And yet. I know. 

Kate Anthony: And even if there, and even if there are, it doesn’t matter. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah, indeed.

And indeed it’s in, in 2023, the the UN special reporter on violence Against Women and Girls, did a report on family court and presented it to to the UN and, so there has indeed been a report on it, but on the ground, how has that changed the reality, for these children being [00:27:00] sent off to dads every weekend.

Kate Anthony: Exactly. Exactly. It is torture. So what can we do? Like how I know that, we talked about how to support our children in these moments, right? How do we talk to them about this, right? When, if the child is, first of all, I think some of these children. Like they don’t have words for this. They don’t have context.

Like we have context and we have words and we have research and we can log on to Substack and read your substack and understand what’s happening. But our children just don’t have those. They don’t have that available to them, and they don’t, again, they don’t have context, they don’t have words for it.

How do we help them? Put words to it so that they can start to make sense of what’s happening to them in a way that doesn’t actually put them in more danger. Because we’re not gonna go back to dad and be like, you’re actually coercive controlling. You need to stop. But 

Dr. Emma Katz: Right. 

Kate Anthony: But yet we also wanna help our children [00:28:00] understand what’s happening to them and that it’s not their fault.

Dr. Emma Katz: Oh yeah. Totally. Have talk. How abuse is never the victim’s fault. You don’t have to talk about domestic abuse particularly. You can talk about all different kinds of abuse. So talk to children about abuse. Explain how perpetrators misuse their power. They make other people scared, and this is never the victim’s fault and the victim doesn’t deserve this, and it’s never about anything the victim’s done.

It’s about the perpetrator having like faulty thinking, which leads to faulty behavior. You don’t have to mention their dad. But just try and give them general talks about abuse. I would say that’s one thing that would be helpful. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Dr. Emma Katz: And not just one off talks, but it’s something that should be talked about pretty regularly.

Kate Anthony: Sure. 

Dr. Emma Katz: And just worked into conversations, so it can freak children out if you sit down with them and have a very serious talk with them. But try and just talk to them when you are walking along. [00:30:00] Like when you’re doing, like when you’re putting groceries in the fridge when you’re doing something else, often it helps the, to talk about sensitive things with children if you’re not looking directly at them, because that can that, that can be a bit intimidating.

So if they’re in the car with you just to. Time. The car. 

Kate Anthony: It’s always the car. And bedtime. 

Dr. Emma Katz: I don’t have a car and I grew up without a car because in, in England we don’t have as many cars. And if you live in a place with fairly good transport, like if you’re not in the middle of the countryside, you can actually get around on buses and stuff and trains really.

Really quite easily. So I, so yeah, it is, it’s always about the car, but I didn’t, that wasn’t the first thing I said because I didn’t have a car, so No, 

Kate Anthony: I get it. Not everyone has that. Not everyone has that opportunity, but Yeah. Yeah. I grew up without cars ’cause I grew up in New York City, so I but I raised my son in Los Angeles, so we were always in the car.

And then those, that’s where the conversations happened, or at night in bed when I was putting him to sleep. As soon as I turned off the light. If you like, just, when [00:31:00] he would say, stay with me till I fall asleep. And then that’s when things would start bubbling up. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Of course. Yeah. In the 

Kate Anthony: dark.

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah. That’s another great time to do it. But like I say, it’s not a one-off conversation. It has to be ongoing. Maybe even a couple of times a month to, to bring these things up and let the conversation evolve. But try keep it depersonalized so it’s not about their dad.

So you don’t end up being told off in, in court, or, or facing any kind of consequence for it. I would say that if you do have to call out a particular abusive behavior that their dad has done and you feel like you have to say something about it for the sake of the child’s, like sanity and understanding of what’s happened, then you can say, it was wrong for him to behave this way.

This behavior was not okay. This. And a parent doing this to a child was not okay. And that shouldn’t have happened. But try not to steer into comments on his general character or what he’s, what, how he treated you. Just I wish that moms could talk about this, but so often they’ve got the threat of the family court repercussions if they [00:32:00] do.

Right now, not all moms are in family core and so some people who are listening to this. This family court may not be an issue for them. And if that’s the case, there’s some good books which you can order on Amazon. I dunno if they’re available from amazon com, but I know they are from amazon.co uk and you can order them in from the uk.

Kate Anthony: Wow. 

Dr. Emma Katz: So there’s a few different books I’d recommend not by me, but by wonderful colleagues of mine for young children who are like under five. There’s a couple of books, floss and the Boss. 

Kate Anthony: Which 

Dr. Emma Katz: is about a family of dogs and lunar little legs, which is about a family of cats. And both of these are stories about coercive control, but they’re told in a very simple way through dogs and cats.

So it would just give some sort of language and context to a very young child about this. The children who are maybe like somewhere around seven to 12, that sort of age. There’s a workbook called Talking to My Mom, a Picture Workbook for workers, mothers and children [00:33:00] affected by domestic abuse.

And this would give children who had, the, who wanted to talk about domestic abuse. It’s a wonderful workbook. It’s and moms and children can go through it together, and it gives children an outlet and a language to, to start talking. And then for teenagers, there’s there’s a companion book and it’s called Talking about Domestic Abuse, a Photo Activity Workbook to develop communication between mothers and young people.

I would recommend all of those. I, they’ve been around for ages now like the the last two I just mentioned, they’re 20 years old, but Oh wow. They were developed by a team of researchers working with moms and children in refuges. So the moms and children had a lot of input into what was in the books and what would help.

And it’s really great resources. So if you can show your child that your book and you won’t get into trouble in Family court for it, go for it.

Kate Anthony: We also have some very clear examples of a lot [00:34:00] of this behavior in the world today, for example, right? So you can also talk about, naming things if you’re. If you know you’re watching the news and your kid sees like these behaviors playing out, you can, I would name them. You know that yes.

There’s this pattern that is showing up on the political stage right now and you can talk, talk about the president all you want, but the behaviors are similar. The impacts are similar. So you can name these we’ve got plenty of examples out in the world right now where, you can, subjects to discuss.

Around that aren’t naming 

Dr. Emma Katz: absolutely 

Kate Anthony: their parents. 

Dr. Emma Katz: That aren’t their parent. Yeah. And also just general, any kind of TV show or book or movie where there’s like examples of people behaving in an abusive way maybe towards their friends or towards their boyfriend or girlfriend. Or their husband and wife.

You can try and strike up a conversation with your child about that behavior and how it’s, and get [00:35:00] them to start thinking about it. Why is that behavior wrong? What’s the context for this? How does the person who’s experiencing the behavior react? And how would they feel and why might they be doing the things that they’re doing?

And you can, u use, use just the media that’s on, like in the background, like in your living room as prompts to get them talking about this again, without ever mentioning the other parent. Or even song lyrics. Like song lyrics are often a good prompt for talking about abuse.

Kate Anthony: Oh yeah. There are plenty of examples, sadly. I wanna just touch on family court and systemic therapy. There’s something that, that you wrote that I think is just so wonderful talking about this is I’m gonna quote from your substack talking about the psychological and psychiatric professionals and the family court and how they can be very harmful.

You say that. Families who are in therapy due to family court may be required to take part in [00:31:00] systemic or family therapy. And then you define each of those and you say that family therapy is one type of systemic therapy. Systemic therapy focuses on the interactions and relationships between groups to help ’em address any problems and move on.

The principle of systemic therapy is that if there is if a part of the system is broken, then the whole system is broken. So using family therapy. Using that model for family therapy, right? Is that the idea is to help families solve their problems? Family therapy views the family as a system, meaning that changes in one member can affect the whole family, so everybody needs to be involved.

And then you go on to talk about like why this is not very good, why this is not appropriate 

Dr. Emma Katz: is why one family member’s abusive. It’s not appropriate. Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Yes. Sometimes it’s court ordered, right? And we have to be in this, first of all, the idea of any therapeutic intervention being any kind of family therapy with [00:38:00] someone that you’re actually like separating from, I think is insane, but it’s also very harmful for these reasons.

So can you talk a little bit about that? Before I just read the rest of yourself. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Oh no, I’ve got it up myself and I’m tempted to just read it all myself. But, so that substack, by the way, if anyone’s wanting to find it, it’s called coercive control, family Court, and Systemic and Family Therapy. A Match Made in Hell 

Kate Anthony: Yes.

Dr. Emma Katz: Which about sums it up so sums.

This kind of therapy, it is useful in situations where family members are doing harmful things unintentionally without malice, all the family members are contributing to the difficulties faced by the family. All the family members recognize the human rights and the personhood of the other family members.

Kate Anthony: Uhhuh. 

Dr. Emma Katz: All the family members who are going to the therapy are willing to be held accountable and have a [00:40:00] genuine willingness to change and grow. Now, hopefully we can all hear how this is not going to apply where there’s a coercive controller, because coercive controllers have a malicious pursuit of domination and control.

They believe that their behavior is justified. They have a strong resistance to change. They’re very manipulative, and they’re probably going to end up manipulating the therapist. They’re very, like dangerous people to be revealing any kind of inner thoughts or vulnerabilities to. And of course, they don’t recognize the human rights or the personhood of their partner, their ex-partner, their children.

So we know that they don’t. For example to quote from a piece of research that I mentioned in this substack that partner, abusive fathers often show a limited ability to take the child’s perspective and may use their awareness of the children’s vulnerable emotions to punish or intimidate them.

So you don’t want your child to be in therapy with a coercive controller. The courts are sending [00:41:00] families into this kind of situation and it’s very detri, it can be very detrimental because victim survivors, they’re supposed to play their role in, in the therapy is that they are expected to become friendlier towards their abuser.

That is why that is what family therapy wants. It wants everyone to become friendlier towards each other. And in a family where, like I say, people are causing harm without meaning to, that could work. But in a situation where one party is maliciously pursuing domination, it’s never going to work.

But the victim survivor is going to be under enormous pressure to become friendlier towards the abuser. The children are going to be under enormous pressure to become friendlier towards their abuser. The family therapist will see that as the successful end result. So the victim’s survivor will not be allowed to stay angry with the abuser.

The child will not be allowed to stay angry or fearful towards the abuser. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Dr. Emma Katz: And so this is just going to be a disaster because fear and anger are entirely appropriate [00:42:00] towards coercive controllers. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. I just wanna just interject here too, is that very often the coercive controller. Is masquerading by saying, oh no, I just want us all to get along.

Like I,

Dr. Emma Katz: of course 

Kate Anthony: I’m here for collaboration. Like I’m here please open yourself up to me, let’s solve this problem. But that’s all. Bullshit, right? 

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah, absolutely. 

Kate Anthony: That’s a tactic. And so they look like the reasonable ones. And so then the therapist will then turn to the victims and say he’s here.

He is wanting to be open. And so if you are closed off, you are the problem. 

Dr. Emma Katz: I know. And it is so easy for perpetrators to do that because they hold all the power. So they can, like you say, just do this bullshit narrative of, I want to solve the problems. I’m here to fix this, and it, and they don’t lose anything by lying like that.

In fact, they gain a great deal from it, but they [00:43:00] don’t have to stick to a word of it because as soon as they’re out the door, they can carry on with their usual like patterns of malicious domination. And. They can get away with that. They have all the power, the victim, survivor they can’t go into the court just like saying, my ex is so wonderful and I love him and I want him to spend all the time with the children that he can.

They can’t lie like that because they have to try to protect the children. They know that the children are not safe psychologically or perhaps physically with. The perpetrator, so they can’t pose as a friendly parent the way that the perpetrator can just totally lie and pose that they’re friendly.

It’s yeah, that is so difficult and I’m so glad you brought that up. There’s not much the victim survivors can do about this when they’re in a room with a therapist who just does not want to hear. Abuse and will only see their talking about abuse as, them being troublemakers and just will not hear them.

It’s not, so sometimes the only thing we can do in these situations is know what the game is that is [00:44:00] being played here and know. What is going on here and why the therapist is behaving this way? That they’re applying a completely inappropriate paradigm to like a completely inappropriate model of family therapy to the situation that should never have been applied.

Yeah, but understanding where the therapist is coming from is they want to see everybody being friendly towards each other. They do not want to hear about the abuse. So at least to know what is happening so you’re not blindsided by it and try to perhaps strategically. Play the game as much as you can so that you can, so that the outcome is not quite as terrible as it could be.

’cause if you’re blindsided by it and you don’t quite know what’s happening it can turn out worse than if you do have some idea of, if I say this is probably what’s going to happen If I, if. Perhaps say something that I don’t entirely believe in order to satisfy the therapist, but maybe I don’t have to go through with it later.

I, it just gets me out of this room and makes me seem like I’m being sufficiently cooperative, maybe to do that, just to get out of the situation [00:45:00] without being like bit to pieces. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. So much of this right, is about regulating our nervous systems to. Be able to be in very activating situations and circumstances so that we can be strategic in them.

Yeah, which is like a Herculean task. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah. It’s crazy. So hard. 

Kate Anthony: But that’s until the system changes, which we’re working really hard to do and. Not making a whole lot. We’re making some progress, but not as much or as quickly as we would like until the system changes, we have to learn how to operate within it.

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Emma, what changes are you seeing? Just. You’re, you’ve got the f your finger on the pulse of all of this research. I know in the UK you guys are miles ahead of us here in the US. What are you seeing in terms of change? 

Dr. Emma Katz: Not [00:47:00] tons, to be honest. I still get desperately sad emails from victim survivors, all over the world, like every week.

And most of the time it’s about family and just the worst things. It’s heartbreaking what people say, and unfortunately I don’t have the power to do anything about it. I’m just a I’m someone who teaches at university and writes about this stuff, but I wish I could swoop in my superhero kind of outfit and save people, but I really don’t have that power.

And that’s really, that’s. My, my reality. But what so one good thing that’s happened in the UK is that about 15 years ago, the government ha wrote into law a presumption of contact in the family courts. And that led to a lot of difficulty because the courts was starting from the point of view that there is going to be contact and then victim survivors would have to try and swim against the tide to, to have that.

Turned around. But usually they couldn’t succeed. In the UK and family courts, very few cases end in a, in an order [00:48:00] for no contact. So most of the time contact is being ordered, but it sometimes it might be like quite minimal contact. So I guess that’s the best. Outcome that sometimes can be got.

But anyway, so recently the government has said that they are going to repeal the presumption of contact so that they will no longer, the courts will no longer be told. Your starting point is the contact has to happen. So starting from a more neutral place that, maybe contact happens, maybe it doesn’t 

Kate Anthony: contact being like custody.

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah. We have a kind of different language around it. No. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. I 

Dr. Emma Katz: just wanted 

Kate Anthony: to double check. 

Dr. Emma Katz: So if the child if their pri, if their primary carer is their mom, are they going to be sent off to see their dad and have contact time with him? You would probably call that custody. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s basically is the child gonna end up like at his house or not? 

Kate Anthony: Yes. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah that’s the gist of it. So that’s a good piece of progress. And that’s been the result of a lot of lobbying and work, from people who care deeply about this, trying to push the government for these sorts of changes.

I can’t remember the details of the law, [00:49:00] but I think that we’ve, we’re starting to say that fathers or indeed mothers, it’s usually fathers with certain criminal convictions. Shouldn’t be seeing their children, but it needs to be a lot wider than it is I think at the moment.

It’s a pretty narrow list of things that mean that you’re not seeing a child. And of course most perpetrators are never convicted for anything because it’s so difficult to get any kind of conviction in, in, in these systems. So it. It’s only going to affect a handful of families where there have been convictions.

And then, but but before, we were in situations where the father was like a convicted child molester, and he and the courts were still sending the children to go visit him. So 

Kate Anthony: they do that here. They do that here because he didn’t he didn’t molest his kids, so they should be fine.

That’s the presumption. And in the US we are moving in the opposite direction. In this custodial thing, there’s a, they did a study in Kentucky where they discovered that when they moved to the presumption of 50 50, equal shared parenting time, [00:50:00] divorce rates dropped. So they decided that was a really good thing.

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah, 

Kate Anthony: presuming shared parenting. Because victims don’t want to leave their children with their abusers, so they would rather stay in their marriage. So we’re moving. And so other states are looking at this research that like, oh, divorce rates dropped. When the presumption is 50 50, we should adopt that. 

Dr. Emma Katz: I know and the presumption of 50 50 is, we know in the domestic abuse sector in the domestic violence like sector Yeah.

That the presumption of 50 50 is a really disastrous policy for victim survivors. And of course the family court is full of victim survivors. They’re not a minority in the family court. They’re the majority. Researchers showed in the UK that perhaps something like 85% of family court cases feature domestic abuse.

This is exactly what is going on in the court. It’s not an unusual thing. It’s not like most families are in the family court ’cause they’re just a bit conflicted and co conflicted and can’t get along. No. Most of them are in the family court because of [00:52:00] domestic abuse. You have a victim survivor trying to keep the children safe, and you have a perpetrator trying to maintain their control by keeping the child in their grasp.

Kate Anthony: And yet. They’re in a system that has no interest in actually being educated about or learning about or working within that dynamic. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Most of the time. Yeah. Absolutely. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Yeah. Family court is often called like the great, the one last completely unreformed system. Say since the 1960s perhaps there’s been some progress with social work.

Say for example, in the 1960s, if a wife said my husband is beating me, the social worker might have said to them what are you doing to displease him? Why didn’t you tidy the house more and try and be a better wife, 

Kate Anthony: have more sex? 

Dr. Emma Katz: More sex. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe, hopefully some social workers would not say that anymore and would see that is not an appropriate thing to say.

Maybe yes. Compared to the 1960s. But in family court where has the change been? I know that there are [00:53:00] pockets of good practice, and there are some really well-meaning judges and there are some judges who do produce positive outcomes for victim survivors. So I’m certainly not like.

Scamming everybody and tying everyone with the same brush sort of thing. But for the most part, the system, is still just disastrous for victim survivors and it’s like the biggest obstacle to actually being free from your perpetrator because how can a mom get free if a child cannot get free with her?

Kate Anthony: To close out on a hopefully more. Positive note, what advice can you give protective mothers who wanna protect their children and make sure that they have the best outcomes? Some final words of encouragement, love, and wisdom. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Ah, I feel like the pig responsibility to say something.

Protective moms do have some power, especially post-separation if they do have the child under their roof and away from the perpetrator for at least some of the time. And that does give them some power. [00:54:00] And, they are a big presence in the child’s life. A child will always will always have a, want to have a good relationship with a parent, where that’s at all possible.

And like even if a child. Their behavior becomes really bad towards the mum at times. There’s gonna be like a natural pull back to, there’s gonna be opportunities to try and remedy that. The child is gonna want somewhere in their heart’s gonna, they’re gonna want to try to have a relationship with their mum.

Hopefully at some point, like even if not in their teens, they may come back in their twenties. If relationships really broke down in their teens because of the perpetrator sabotaging everything, they may come back. There’s gonna be, hopefully there’ll be more chances. Just use whatever scraps of power that you have.

And like one thing I talked about in, in one of my Substack recently was in your own home with your child and in your own behavior, try to create the antique coercive control regime. So everything that the perpetrator does creates a regime of [00:56:00] coercive control, like this ongoing day-to-day stuff that happens that keeps the coercive control up and running.

So the mum can try to create an antique coercive control regime which is the ab, the absolute opposite of. What the perpetrator does and if she can get the help to, as you say to try and regulate her nervous system. Which is so tough, that’s such a big thing to do, but it’s such a gift for the child if she can manage to do that, because then she can react so differently from the perpetrator, where he gets so agitated about things.

She can show them calm, she can keep calm even when things are really. A really tough for them. And then that opens up so many possibilities in their world. If they have someone, who’s in their corner, who is calm, and who can who they can confide in without worry about how they’re going to be act.

A lot of the time, kids don’t want to say things to their victim survivor parent because they’re afraid of hurting them, upsetting them, making them cry. So if they, if the [00:57:00] victim, survivor parent can prove to the child through their behavior and their actions, that they can stay calm in those moments, which is really tough and probably need a lot of help to do that because, that’s like a super human thing to be doing.

Then the child may feel more able to confide in them and rely on them and just feel safer. You know how sometimes. When you are, when you’ve got a big problem, you know that your friend can’t fix your problem, but it just helps to tell them all about it and feel like they understand. 

Kate Anthony: Yes, 

Dr. Emma Katz: we often have that, don’t we?

Yes. We just, we wanna be heard. They just wanna be heard, right? Yeah. Even if the mom cannot fix the child’s problem, they can make them feel heard. They can make them feel seen, understood, treasured. So sometimes that is so much. That is already so much, that’s already so psychologically helpful.

And I know it’s not enough because the mom desperately wants to be able to fix the problem, but if the courts won’t let her, then she can’t. But remember how much it does help to be heard and, be able to be able to do that for your child is already really helpful them. 

Kate Anthony: [00:58:00] Thank you, Emma.

Thank you so much for this conversation. It’s so hard and important. And Rich, it’s so nuanced and your work is so important. So seriously, everybody decoding coercive control over on Substack Subscribe, become a subscriber because Dr. Katz is doing the hard, the heavy lifting for us and breaking it down, and it’s really just tremendous body of work.

Thank you so much for every, everything that you do. 

Dr. Emma Katz: Oh thank you so much. And I’m just, I’m really, I’m so lucky to have the opportunity to have a, to be able to get my, what goes on in my brain and what I know out to the public, yeah. So it’s not just trapped in here, but it’s, it gets out there.

And, a lot of like people who work at universities, colleges they mainly just speak to other academics. I’ve never wanted to do that. I’ve always wanted to be able to get what I know and what I, what. My 15 years of research and reading have taught me out to the public. So [00:59:00] I’m just really so privileged that I have the opportunity to do that.

And there is an audience there wanting to hear from me 

Kate Anthony: for sure. A lot. There’s a big audience. There’s a big audience. Bigger, even bigger than mine, but a big audience who is needing to hear all of this. So thank you again, Emma. Anything anywhere else that people should find you other than your substack?

Dr. Emma Katz: I’m on Instagram, I’m on LinkedIn, so you can find me there as well, and I’m sure our audiences enormously overlap, so yeah, it’s such a pleasure to have the chance to talk to you. 

Kate Anthony: Great. Thank you so much.

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