18 ICSA TODAY
What Is Coercive Control?
As my obsessive research continues, I often say to my
cohorts and friends, “…abuse is abuse. The dynamics are the
same, wherever, whatever, whenever.” In December 2018, I
joined professionals across fields—academic, mental health,
legal, and advocacy—at ICSA’s Domestic Abuse and Coercive
Control conference in Philadelphia, PA. Professors Linda
and Rod Dubrow-Marshall brought participants from cultic
studies and sexual-identity studies, and domestic-violence
advocates, immigration experts, researchers, and mental-
health clinicians together to discuss coercive control, share
knowledge and resources, and seek solutions.
I heard the name Evan Stark, the Rutger’s professor, for the
first time that day. I have since learned that, in 2007, while
I was entrenched in the cultic group, Stark published his
book Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal
Life (Stark, 2007). In the book, he reframed domestic
violence as a crime against freedom, also called a “liberty
crime”—behavior that violates personhood, the basic civil
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Amazon.
com’s website frames this book as showing how “domestic
violence is … a pattern of controlling behaviors more akin
to terrorism and hostage-taking” [Amazon.com (n.d.)]. Stark
used court records, interviews, and FBI statistics to detail
control that includes food logs, micromanagement of
dress, speech, sexual activity, and work. The Association of
American Publishers granted Stark its Excellence Award for
the book.
When I left the group in 2011, I soon recognized that my
mind had been hijacked and locked into an ideology—a
psychological prison. Similar to such depictions in Stark’s
book (2007)—terrorism, hostage taking, cults, human
trafficking, extremist groups, domestic abusers—whatever
the context, abusers use a template. Specific behaviors play
out through stages of relationship development. The intent
behind the behavior is always to strip the victim of agency,
freedom, and independence, through a cycle of seduction
followed by cruelty, a progression that rinses and repeats.
Over the course of my obsessive odyssey, I had come up
with the phrase, cultic social engineering: “unique group”
offers “exclusive help” to those seeking betterment employs
love bombing isolates members from nonmembers fosters
dependence increases demands through the you owe us and
we own you doctrine to eventually deploy for selfish gain.
At the conference, I learned about the cycle of coercion:
bait, seduce, foster dependence, isolate, switch, attack, rinse
out with kindness, and repeat. I was also reminded that
domestic violence experts have boiled the abusive strategies
down to a three-part cycle: honeymoon, tension building,
and explosion and then a recycling back to the honeymoon
stage, also known as hearts and flowers. I’m confident that
extremist groups and human traffickers have their own take
on the template.
The 2018 conference was the first time that I had seen
professionals across fields come together to bridge gaps
between areas of study and specifically address the
template.
Societal Implications
Evidence indicates a growing interest in the phenomenon of
coercive control. A July 2016 blog post in The New York Times,
entitled “With Coercive Control the Abuse Is Psychological,”
defined coercive control as “an abusive relationship in which
the abuser applies an ongoing and multipronged strategy,
with tactics that include manipulation, humiliation, isolation,
financial abuse, stalking, gaslighting and sometimes
physical or sexual abuse” (Ellin, 2016). Blog author Abby Ellin
noted that, in 2015, both England and Wales criminalized
“coercive and controlling behavior in an intimate or family
relationship” (Ellin, 2016). She reported that “at least four
men” had been sentenced (Ellin, 2016).
Numerous fictional TV series and programs have centered
their plotlines on social control and chaos: The Leftovers
(2014–2017), Wild Wild Country (2018–present), The Path
(2016–2018), and, of course, The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–
present). Leah Remini’s series, Scientology and the Aftermath
(2016–2019), is now pointing the spotlight at Jehovah’s
Witnesses. Additionally, the 2010 documentary film Power
and Control depicted one woman’s struggle to leave her
abusive marriage, with her three children.
On the one hand, it can be depressing to recognize
the pervasive presence of abusive relationships. At the
Coercive Control conference, a good portion of the day
addressed coercion through the courts. Andrea Silverstone,
the Executive Director of Sagesse, a Canadian nonprofit
tackling domestic violence, pointed out that a savvy enough
perpetrator can play federal courts against provincial
courts. On the other hand, it was heartening to see others
recognize, name, and openly address the template that I
When I left the group in
2011, I soon recognized
that my mind had been
hijacked and locked
into an ideology—a
psychological prison.
19 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 1 |2020
have been recognizing more and more over time—the
one that abusers worldwide employ. It wasn’t that long
ago that such secrecy prevailed victim blame was so
prevalent that most people preferred to stay silent in the
face of abuse.
Solutions
At the Coercive Control conference, it was also exciting to
engage in an open discussion that proposed solutions:
best practices when working with specific populations
such as immigrant communities, persons struggling
with sexuality and gender identity, and victims of
abusive partners, and with societal mechanisms such as
those that establish case law regarding coercive control
through civil courts and educational programs for police.
Professor Rod Dubrow-Marshall presented on the
United Kingdom’s Serious Crime Act (2015), which
specifically includes psychological control and
coercion. He contended that legislators are sending a
clear message: Psychological badgering constitutes a
serious crime: Threats, isolation, and financial control
are criminal offenses, akin to physical violence and rape.
This perspective gives me hope that humanity is tipping
the scales of social acceptance toward those who have
experienced such treatment and said no to abuse.
If efforts to collaborate across professions and fields
of study continue, I feel confident that a myriad of
innovative solutions will follow. It’s exciting to see those
connections starting to happen. Community within the
social-service, policy-making, legal, public-safety, and
education professions could provide an answer to my
question, “Will abusive relationships ever be eradicated,
or at least reduced to rare incidents, unaccepted by
the world at large, prosecuted, or, better yet, treated as
an illness?” I’m happy to say that I remain hopeful that
these outcomes are possible, and that maybe that trend
was launched, in part, by this day-long conference that
unfolded in Philadelphia in December of 2018. n
References
Amazon.com. (n.d.). Online book review. Available online at https://
smile.amazon.com/Coercive-Control-Personal-Interpersonal-Violence/
dp/0195384040/
Ellin, A. (2016). With coercive control the abuse is psychological. The
New York Times, Well Blog, July 11. Available online at https://well.
blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/with-coercive-control-the-abuse-is-
psychological/
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
About the Author
Esther Ruth Friedman, MA, LMHC, is a
former cult member, expressive arts therapist,
and licensed mental health counselor with
a Master’s degree from Lesley University.
She designed and opened a Boston-area
therapy practice specifically for former cult
members: The Gentle Souls Revolution—Healing Arts. She
recovered from her experience through writing, songwriting,
music, and performance. Today she works with former
members, family members, and current members who
reach out for support while exiting. In 2014, she interviewed
defendants threatened by cultic litigation for an ICSA study
on how litigious cults corrode free speech. She wrote a
report and presented her findings in 2015 at ICSA’s biannual
Santa Fe conference. As part of that study, she interviewed
attorney Peter Skolnik, the lawyer for Rick Ross of the Cult
Education Institute. ICSA Today published the interview in its
February 2017 issue. She considers free speech to be integral
to recovery as reclamation of self through the exercise of
authentic voice, personal narrative, and self-empowerment.
Her mission is to raise awareness, educate, and facilitate
healing. Contact information: (781) 951-4433, esther@
gsrhealingarts.com, or estherfriedman@hushmail.com n
If efforts to collaborate
across professions and
fields of study continue,
I feel confident that a
myriad of innovative
solutions will follow.

18
Book Reviews
Leaving the Witness:
Exiting a Religion and
Finding a Life
By Amber Scorah
Viking (Penguin Random House), New York, NY. 2019. ISBN-
10: 0735222541 $15.49 hardcover $14.99 Kindle (Amazon.com).
ISBN-13: 978-0735222540 288 pages.
Reviewed by Doug Duncan
One of the best ways to learn about and understand cultic
groups is by reading the stories of those who have left those
groups. An excellent example of such a story is Leaving the
Witness…, by Amber Scorah, in which she chronicles her life,
departure, and early recovery from her time as a Jehovah’s
Witness (JW).
Scorah and her husband were missionaries for the JW’s in the
city of Shanghai, inside communist China. She opens the book
with a description of some of her first impressions upon her
arrival inside this strange (to her) culture. Then, she skillfully
weaves her story back and forth, telling about her background
and how she grew up in the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) in
Vancouver, Canada, in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic
father.
Scorah does well as a Canadian ex-patriate living in China
because she becomes skilled in the language—perhaps even
more so than her husband and some of the other JWs living
there. She eventually has a podcast for English speakers who
are trying to learn the Chinese language and culture, but that
comes later in her time there. One suspects that Scorah’s natural
intelligence and curiosity have helped her along this path,
though she has little formal education, and she is probably
not even aware of how gifted she is. However, it is clear to any
reader of this well-written book that she is quite talented.
In the process of telling her story, Scorah has some interesting
reflections on how, as a JW, she was an outsider in her own
culture back in Canada, and how that standing relates to being
a Westerner living in China. Because their missionary activity in
China is illegal, the JWs there have to keep a very low profile.
Thus, they are not able to meet as often as they would in a
free country such as the United States or Canada, and that has
the ironic effect of loosening the level of control Scorah was
subjected to by the JWs. That circumstance left her with more
time to think and reflect about what she was doing there and
why. As she started to consider her life and mission in China,
the author began to question why God would have ignored a
people such as the Chinese, who have a history extending back
thousands of years with a culture, philosophy, and profound
religious thinking that rival those of the West.
Late in her time in-country, Scorah develops a transocean
email relationship with an American man, which affords her
an opportunity to begin to explore her doubts and misgivings
about her life and beliefs in the Witnesses. They have to be
careful in what they say because they assume their emails are
being monitored by the Chinese government so they come
up with euphemisms so they do not have to use words such as
Jehovah or Bible. I found Scorah’s descriptions of her life at this
time to be very interesting—and relatable for those of us who
have been through similar experiences in the process of leaving
cults—because, while she is busy exploring her doubts about
her faith and the loveless marriage in which she was trapped,
she is still teaching the Bible to several Chinese nationals and
indoctrinating them into the JWs.
Inevitably, her life eventually blows up as she decides to leave
the Witnesses, and she and her husband split. Of course, all
of her Witness friends shun her, and she is left all alone in a
foreign country. Nevertheless, she manages to survive and after
another year in China, she moves to the United States.
She well describes her struggles entering a culture that she was
estranged from, both by distance while she lived in China the
previous few years, and also by being part of an insular cultic
subculture for her entire life. She takes up residence in New York
City, where some incredibly sad and tragic things happen to
her. But the book is ultimately a tale about the triumph of the
human spirit, the inspiring tale of one courageous woman who
manages to overcome tremendous odds to embrace a life of
freedom. I enthusiastically recommend it, not just to former JWs,
but to former members of other cultic groups, as well. n
About the Reviewer
Doug Duncan, MS, LPC, was a member of an
aberrant religious group for more than twenty
years. After defying the cult leader and marrying
Wendy, they eventually left the cult and Doug
began the task of rebuilding his life. He enrolled
in a master’s program in counseling and earned a
degree and license to practice therapy. After working on their cult
recovery issues by reading all the available cult literature, attending
conferences, and becoming involved with ICSA, Doug and Wendy
started a ministry to increase others’ awareness and understanding
of cults. They are frequent presenters at churches, civic groups,
and conferences, and also facilitators of a support group for former
members of cults and high-demand groups. Additionally, Doug
offers individual counseling to former members. n
...the book is ultimately
a tale about the triumph of
the human spirit...
ICSA TODAY
I Will Disentangle Myself
… and Leave
By Bob Williston
LitFire Publishing, Atlanta, GA. 2018. ISBN-13: 978-1641514255
ISBN-10: 1641514256 $36.25 hardcover $16.76 paperback
(Amazon.com). 345 pages.
Reviewed by Joe Szimhart
In his introduction to I Will Disentangle Myself…, Bob Williston
lets us know that he is not writing a scholarly account rather,
his intent is to honestly clarify his defection from a relatively
obscure new religious movement when he “lost” his faith at
age 56 after four decades of devotion. The author has been
a teacher and a historian, so he was fully capable of writing
a scholarly account—indeed, he dips deep into scholarship
in later chapters—but he opts for reflection and self-analysis,
much like a diarist. The early chapters explore the intimate
interactions he and his family experienced with his religious
group that led to his decision to challenge the leadership
and risk excommunication. His story reads more like a careful
conversation at the kitchen table than a polished lecture.
Williston defected from a fundamentalist style of Christianity
variously known as “the Tramps,” Go-Preachers, Two-By-Twos, the
Truth, the Cooneyites, the Workers, and the Friends. His former
group claims to continue the true, primitive fellowship that Jesus
and his Apostles set in motion 2,000 years ago. Scotsman William
Irvine founded the Truth around 1897, after he had a born-again
experience in 1895 listening to a Presbyterian preacher, Rev.
John McNeill. Irvine joined Faith Mission in 1895 but got kicked
out for not properly following its disciplines. Irvine was inspired
by Matthew, Chapter 10 in the Gospel to restore true Christianity
by sending his converts two-by-two and without funds to spread
his new message. His converts were known as Friends, while
leaders were Workers. Friends and Workers held Truth meetings
in their homes. In line with most Fundamentalist denominations,
Irvine taught that “learning could prove a hindrance to truth”
(p. 128).
Wealth came into the movement through Irvine’s exhortation
for converts to sell everything they owned to be preachers
or Workers. The Friends were expected to support the
Workers. Managing money proved to be as problematic as
it would be in any church or cult. Factions developed over
subtle doctrinal conflicts early in the movement, with Eddie
Cooney’s followers forming one branch around 1928 thus, the
Cooneyites. Although the movement eschewed a priesthood
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