Coming Soon: Coercive Control Recovery Group Series

Skills, Creative Writing & Process Group

Location: Online

Frequency: 1.5 hours 3x/month for one 7 month cycle.

For Clients Located In: California, Illinois, Washington & Colorado

Time/Day: TBD

Cost: Full fee $75 ; 2 Sliding Scale spots available

This group is for adults in recovery from coercive control situations, such as high-control groups, cults, spiritual institutions and relationships.

Group members will receive the group curriculum as well as a skills packet prior to the beginning of group.

The curriculum will follow this overarching format:

Months 1 & 2 : Individuating & Claiming Oneself As Separate and Sovereign

Month 3: Addressing The Nervous System & Rest

Month 4: Defining One’s Own Values

Month 5: Defining One’s Own Goals

Month 6: Defining One’s Own Relationships & Exploring Interdependence

Month 7: Being With The Present & Planning Forward

Read More About This Group:

Survivors of coercive control may have commonalities in their recovery needs, such as identifying and validating their own sense of self, reality, self-esteem and self-efficacy; their own sense of values and goals; their own definitions of relationships and health moving forward; and their own sense of interdependence - that is, a sense of being able to trust and relate to themself as well as others in balance.

This group series is a contained skills, creative writing and process group designed to help survivors self-reflect, receive therapeutic support for self-empowerment and validation, disempower abusive messages still left over in their minds and hearts that do not belong to them, and offer a space to connect with other survivors as each survivor moves forward. This group is designed to support each individual in their individuality, with respect and care.

Kat Zwick (she/they) is a Certified Coercive Control Specialist and a member of the International Cultic Studies Association. They are also a Certified Group Psychotherapist and Qualified Supervisor. They specialize in, among other things, Ethics in Group Psychotherapy, challenging “norms” of group therapy that may lead to unintended coercive experiences for group clients, and they also have spent most of their clinical career adapting existing modalities they are trained in to better suit marginalized populations, client integrity and autonomy. Kat is also a poet and creative writer. Her approach for this group is intentionally consent-oriented and person-centered.

All potential group members will have an assessment to determine clinical appropriateness for the group and so they can also get to know Kat, and each person will have the opportunity to meet with Kat at least two times after that prior to joining the group to define their goals for the group and to make sure they feel comfortable moving forward with Kat as the group facilitator.

Read More About Coercive Control :

The end goal of coercive control is power and control over another person and to remove a target’s experience of their own freedom and their own choices; consequences of coercive control are varied, but one consequence can be a target’s* difficulty locating their sense of self and self-determination, their sense of freedom and rights, and their choices.

What is coercive control? Coercive control is a pattern of behaviors, including communication, that psychologically harms another person, often over a period of time, through repeated acts like pressure, manipulation, intimidation, gaslighting and invalidation, threats, humiliation/belittling, possessiveness, systematic isolation from others “outside,” forming and enforcing rules or demands, creating dependency upon an individual and/or group and other harmful behaviors and communication.

Coercive control has been recognized as an illegal form of domestic abuse in some jurisdictions in the United States and in some countries, such as the United Kingdom. It can impact romantic partners, children, siblings, and others in a family.

Coercive control is also a tactic utilized in high-control groups and spiritual institutions, cults and in abusive psychotherapy.

The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control (TM, Steven Hassan) notes that high-control group leaders and individuals will, through many coercive means, define and control “allowable” and disallowed behavior, information, thoughts and even emotions in their targets. Hassan’s online information on this Model can be very helpful in understanding some of the hallmark tactics utilized by high-control group leaders and individuals.

*Why am I using the word “target?” Target can be a helpful word word to use instead of “victim.” “Target” can be a powerful alternative, because it places the emphasis on the harming person’s activity (targeting another person to harm) - rather than emphasizing a presumed state of being for the harmed person (“victim” or “victimhood”). Additionally, the word “victim” often carries the weight of culturally unhelpful concepts like helplessness or weakness. Those who have been targeted by harming people can self-define their own states of being (“survivor” or “person who experienced…” or “person who was targeted by…”) These choices can help empower individuals who wish to tell their own stories, to themselves and others.

All material written on this page, including the format and curriculum of this group, is owned by Katherine Marie Zwick.