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Recognizing abuse is essential to breaking the cycle of harm. By learning about the different types of abuse, you can better identify red flags, support survivors, and help create safer communities.
Domestic violence (or intimate partner violence) is a pattern of behaviors used by one person to maintain power and control over another person with whom they have a relationship. It can include any physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological action or threats of actions that exploit the other person. Many forms of abuse can be going on at any one time. Physical abuse does not need to be present or threated for the relationship to be abusive.
The Power and Control Wheel, developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP), depicts what many survivors of domestic violence experience throughout an abusive relationship.
Power and control form the center of the wheel, as this is what the abuser is ultimately attempting to achieve over the other person. Eight tactics form the spokes of the wheel. These are typical forms of abuse that many survivors experience. Physical and sexual violence form the rim of the wheel, as these reinforce the other tactics and serve to keep the victim in the relationship.
The Power and Control Wheel is often used to validate survivors’ experiences, provide clarity in evaluating abusive actions, and show the many barriers one faces when attempting to leave an abusive relationship.
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Physical abuse involves the intentional use of force to cause harm, injury, fear, or intimidation. It’s important to understand that physical abuse rarely stays the same— research shows it almost always escalates over time, becoming more frequent and severe without intervention.
Physical abuse can include:
Emotional abuse involves non-physical actions intended to control, harm, or intimidate someone. Over time, these behaviors can erode a person’s sense of self-worth, diminish confidence, and make them more reliant on the abusive person.
Using emotional abuse can look like:
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Economic and financial abuse is a common and powerful form of domestic violence. It is estimated that close to 98% of abusive relationships involve an economic component. Economic abuse occurs when an abuser restricts a partner’s access to money, resources, or financial independence, creating control and dependency. Economic abuse can be subtle, hidden, and hard to identify, especially by someone outside the relationship.
Using economic abuse can look like:
Coercive control is a pattern of behaviors used by abusers to dominate, manipulate, and restrict their partners. Unlike physical violence, it works subtly and persistently, undermining autonomy and freedom through psychological and emotional tactics.
Using coercion and threats can look like:
Intimidation is a deliberate tactic of abuse. Abusers use fear, threats, and psychological pressure to exert control over their partners—often without resorting to physical violence.
Using intimidation can look like:
Privilege can play a significant role in maintaining control within abusive relationships. For example, male privilege has long contributed to violence against women and is a major factor in domestic abuse. It helps shape social norms and cultural expectations that give one partner more power, making it easier to justify, excuse, or reinforce controlling behavior.
Abusers may exploit privilege or ability to dominate their partners in ways such as:
Isolation is a powerful tactic of abuse and often looked back on by survivors as one of the earliest signs of abuse. Abusers deliberately cut survivors off from friends, family, work, and even healthcare to gain control and create dependency. By limiting support systems and access to resources, isolation makes it harder for survivors to seek help or maintain independence.
Using isolation can look like:
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A growing concern in Domestic Violence situations is digital abuse, or what many call “technology-facilitated violence/abuse”, which better reflects how technology can enable harm, both online and offline. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, technology-facilitated abuse is the use of technology, image-based sexual abuse (IBSA), sextortion, intimate partner surveillance, Internet of Things abuse, and online spaces (e.g. social media) to bully, harass, stalk, intimidate, or control a partner. This behavior is often a form of verbal or emotional abuse conducted online but could include financial abuse in terms of controlling or accessing bank accounts or stalking by location tracking. An abusive relationship could develop entirely online without the persons involved ever meeting in person.
Some examples of technology-facilitated abuse can look like:
There is no justification for any kind of abuse; it is the fault and responsibility of the person doing harm. Each survivor must evaluate their own situation, but these are some things a survivor may do to help limit technology-facilitated abuse:
Minimizing, denying, and blaming are common tactics abusers use to maintain control and avoid accountability. DARVO has become a popular term as Domestic Violence has gained more of a spotlight in mainstream media. DARVO stands for "Deny Abuse, Reverse Victim and Offender" a tactic used by many abusers to avoid responsibility for their actions and confuse the survivor about abuse they are experiencing. By downplaying the harm, denying responsibility, or shifting blame, abusers obstruct change and prevent the development of a healthy relationship.
Survivors may also minimize abuse—often as a coping mechanism to reduce stress or because of fear, guilt, or hope that their partner still loves them. While this response is understandable, it can make it harder to seek help.
Minimizing, denying, and blaming can look like:
Domestic violence becomes even more complex when children are involved. Abusers may use children as a tool of control—by manipulating parenting roles, threatening custody, or using them to relay messages. Children can be deeply affected whether they witness abuse or experience it directly. This tactic is a form of emotional abuse and reinforces power and control in the relationship.
Using children can look like:
