For someone to recognize that she feels like she is constantly walking on eggs in her relationship with a partner or spouse, or that she’s unable to make decisions about even the most trivial things, like whether to have lunch at noon or at 1 p.m., is for that person to realize she might well be in the grip of coercive control.
The term describes a pervasive — if often unrecognized — form of intimate partner violence in which someone is subjected to a pattern of manipulation, humiliation and intimidation designed to deprive her of her autonomy. Having begun with a love story, it is followed by an insidious taking of power of one person over another.
For Sari Chengberlin, who has years of experience working with victims of intimate partner violence and family violence, coercive control is a familiar concept. To those experiencing it, however, it’s “not always tangible.”
“The concept of coercive control is becoming better known,” she said. “It’s a concept I have been working with for a long time, although the term was not necessarily used. The difference is there is a name for it now — a term that helps us identify it.”
Chengberlin is a clinical activities specialist with a new team at the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal (CCSMTL). The mission of the team, known as the Équipe Violence conjugale et intrafamiliale — Équipe VCI for short — is to offer specialized psycho-social support to people experiencing intimate partner violence or family violence. Coercive control can also be used to dominate a family member.
The five-member Équipe VCI works out of offices in two CLSCs in the CCSMTL territory — CLSC Ste-Catherine and CLSC Verdun: The role of its professionals is to follow up with victims of these forms of violence who live in the territory, a 46-square-kilometre area incorporating the boroughs of Ville-Marie, Sud-Ouest, Verdun, Plateau-Mont-Royal and part of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie.
Access to the team’s services is by referral, from within the CCSMTL or by community organizations in the territory. Although it has been in place only since last fall, there is already a waiting list.
The CCSMTL is one of five CIUSSSes on the island of Montreal. Known in English as integrated university health and social service centres but referred to generally by their French-language acronym CIUSSS, these regional boards are responsible for managing health, social services and community services across specific geographic territories. At least for now, the CCSMTL is the only one with an Équipe VCI.
A client might be someone who “knows she is in a toxic relationship — and now we are a specialized team,” said Chengberlin, who is also resource person in intimate partner violence for the CCSMTL.
Her extensive professional experience includes having worked in a shelter for unhoused people and in a women’s centre and 15 years at Côté Cour, a pioneering psycho-social service launched in 1986 to provide assistance to victims of intimate partner violence and family violence in a unique alliance between Quebec’s health and social services ministry and its criminal justice system.
In 2022, a network of specialized courts was launched under the jurisdiction of the provincial justice ministry to handle only cases of intimate partner violence and sexual violence: Last fall Montreal became the 25th of Quebec’s 36 judicial districts to establish such a court. Côté Cour’s mission and organizational base were redefined and it became part of the health and social service network exclusively as the Équipe VCI: Former Côté Cour workers are part of this new team.
Clients may choose to attend 12 meetings “in which we talk about what they want to,” Chengberlin said. Among topics discussed could be the notion of coercive control, in a bid “to help them to understand that what they are experiencing is violence.
“So workers are in a position to make victims more aware.”
According to a number of measures, intimate partner violence has increased in the past several years: Police-reported cases of this form of violence in Quebec jumped by 28 per cent between 2018 and 2024, according to data from Statistics Canada. The COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for a global surge, with the United Nations referring to the phenomenon as a shadow pandemic. And new arrivals are often more isolated and vulnerable to intimate partner violence.
And technology — think smartphones, computers and connected smart home devices that track and monitor — has made it possible for violence to continue even after a relationship has ended, Chengberlin said.
“It’s a new way for young people to maintain control even if they are not together anymore,” she said. “It is taking place more and more.”
I think of education as the basis of everything. What can we do to reduce intimate partner violence?
Sari Chengberlin
Clinical activities specialist, Équipe VCI
Not having access to services one needs makes a victim more vulnerable, she said, and among the challenges faced by someone wanting to leave an abusive relationship is a shortage of affordable rental accommodations.
Not everyone who leaves a violent situation wants to go to an emergency shelter or use specialized resources — “and, even if they do, it’s hard to find a place,” Chengberlin said. Same issue with second-stage, or transitional, housing — a safe living arrangement designed for individuals and families leaving crisis situations. Waiting lists are ubiquitous, and languishing on a waiting list rarely bodes well.
“If I have to wait several months, I might return to an abusive situation because I don’t have enough money to live on my own or, if I have been on a waiting list for mental health help for months, my situation can get worse,” she said.
Many people already feel a measure of ambivalence about leaving, she said. Advice and support from a professional could be helpful “but if they don’t have access to a professional, it’s hard to stay ambivalent long-term.”
Clients who aren’t prepared to attend 12 meetings or who don’t necessarily consider themselves victims of intimate partner violence can meet a few times with an Équipe VCI member to decide on next steps, she said.
“I think of education as the basis of everything. What can we do to reduce intimate partner violence? The more professionals can screen for it and detect it, the better protected we are. That means knowing to ask questions,” Chengberlin said.
It means being trained to know what questions to ask, as members of the Équipe VCI are, and being alert to the possibility of intimate partner violence and any escalation in potential danger to a client, she said.
“We all want to keep an open door for the people who don’t recognize that they are in a violent relationship — to serve as an entry portal for them.”
People facing intimate partner violence can contact SOS Violence Conjugale 24 hours a day at 1-800-363-9010.
We used typewriters when I started at The Gazette, and heavy black rotary phones. Today’s newsroom looks different but the work – reporting and informing my readers – remains constant and rewarding. I am grateful to my academic adviser at McGill, where I was a neurobiology major, for steering me to journalism. Evidently he realized I wasn’t cut out for neurobiology.
sschwartz@postmedia.com