There are many different forms of abuse, from physical and verbal to financial and technological. Psychological abuse can be uniquely damaging because it messes with victims’ minds. “I think, therefore I am,” according to Descartes. But what happens when one can no longer be sure that their thoughts are their own? In a severe system of coercive control and manipulation, abusers target victims’ knowledge, opinions, and very identities with the specific and insidious abuse tactic of “perspecticide”.
What is Perspecticide?
Perspecticide is defined most basically as “the abuse-related incapacity to know what you know”. The term, and this definition of it, was first used in a domestic violence context by well-known researcher and professor Evan Stark in his 2007 book Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. It was expanded on extensively in an article by Lisa Aronson Fontes, Ph.D., author of Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship, a book DVSN uses in our Volunteer Advocate Training. Perspecticide is a manipulative strategy of coercive control where, over time, abusers strip victims of their own viewpoints, desires, and opinions, replacing them with those of the abuser or those the abuser wants the victim to have. It is a slow erasure of the victim’s very identity and sense of self. Akin to brainwashing and gaslighting, perspecticide is also often associated with cults and sects, and is a particularly insidious and devastating form of psychological abuse.
Perspecticide vs. Percepticide
When referring to perspecticide in his book, Stark cited a 1990 research essay by Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco on responses to “political terror” in Latin American countries affected by “dirty wars” in the 1970s and 1980s. Notably, this essay uses the very similar but different term “percepticide” in reference to many citizens’ coping strategy of “practicing denial… and rationalization on a large scale” about “the extent of atrocities committed in their country”. So percepticide boils down to refusing to believe what one knows, deep down, to be true. Stark modified the term to perspecticide and tied it specifically to abuse. While percepticide is about awareness of situations, or what one “perceives”, perspecticide is about losing personal agency and the ability to think and decide for oneself, or one’s “perspective”. Percepticide is about denying and rationalizing events in order to feel safer (whether or not one actually is), while perspecticide is the result of deliberate manipulation designed to control victims down to their very thoughts. Percepticide deals with the external world around the victim, and perspecticide deals with the victim’s personal “inner world”. Both are psychological responses to the trauma of horrific circumstances. (LoveFraud)
Techniques Used to Cultivate Perspecticide
Abusers may use a variety of tactics to try to confuse and destabilize their victims. These may be physical and/or psychological, but either way they are designed to increase the abuser’s control and decrease the victim’s agency and sense of self. Over time, this builds into perspecticide.
Isolation
Isolation is a common abuse tactic. In fact, it is one of the eight most universal tactics identified on the standard Power and Control Wheel, a well-known model of abuse. Isolation involves separating the victim from their friends, family, and community by controlling who they can talk to and spend time with. This may be done physically, for example by removing victims’ access to communication devices and transportation, or psychologically, such as manipulating the victim to self-isolate in the hope of avoiding the abuser’s angry or jealous reactions to their interactions with others. Among other things, systematically limiting the victim’s experiences outside of the relationship makes them more compliant to the abuser’s desires. It is easier for victims to lose perspective on their own thoughts and feelings when they are overwhelmed by only the abuser’s point of view.
Controlling Time & Information
Similarly to isolating victims from friends and family, abusers further reduce their victims’ ability to form their own opinions by controlling how they spend their time and their access to information. This may involve techniques such as insisting they always do what the abuser wants so that the victim begins to forget about their own hobbies and interests, or not allowing the victim to leave the house for anything unless the abuser is with them so that the victim starts to feel they actually prefer to stay at home because going out is such an ordeal. Abusers may limit victims’ ability to inform themselves by monitoring or controlling their access to the internet and reading material so that victims cannot, or even feel they no longer want to, look into anything of which the abuser may not approve. This further narrows victims’ worlds to just what the abuser wants them to know and do.
Micromanaging
Some abusers may go even further than generally controlling victims’ time by micromanaging every tiny detail of their lives and every minute of their days. This micromanaging can involve tactics such as setting and monitoring expectations of what victims must accomplish each day, what they should eat, how they should dress, when they should sleep, etc. Non-complicity results in consequences that force the victim to submit to these rules and regulations. Over time, victims internalize this acute level of control, begin to see it as normal, and forget how to make their own choices about even the most basic and personal of things.
Setting Relationship Terms
A more interpersonal facet of this control and micromanaging is when abusers set expectations and make demands for how the victim interacts with them as an intimate partner, with no possibility of compromise. They may require the victim to constantly “prove their love” in intense or extreme ways that the victim is not comfortable with. This often involves a lack of privacy, pushing the victim to share passwords, leave the bathroom door open so the abuser can always see them in personal moments, and tell the abuser their deepest secrets. Abusers may demand more frequent, one-sided, unpleasant, and/or unwelcome sexual encounters with their victims, insisting it is their “duty” as a partner, coercing them with threats or violence, or not respecting consent in other ways. When abusers set relationship terms in this manner, victims’ extremely personal and private opinions are disregarded and their choices are removed, further chipping away at their agency and sense of self, “making room” for their abuser’s desires.
Setting Relationship Terms
A more interpersonal facet of this control and micromanaging is when abusers set expectations and make demands for how the victim interacts with them as an intimate partner, with no possibility of compromise. They may require the victim to constantly “prove their love” in intense or extreme ways that the victim is not comfortable with. This often involves a lack of privacy, pushing the victim to share passwords, leave the bathroom door open so the abuser can always see them in personal moments, and tell the abuser their deepest secrets. Abusers may demand more frequent, one-sided, unpleasant, and/or unwelcome sexual encounters with their victims, insisting it is their “duty” as a partner, coercing them with threats or violence, or not respecting consent in other ways. When abusers set relationship terms in this manner, victims’ extremely personal and private opinions are disregarded and their choices are removed, further chipping away at their agency and sense of self, “making room” for their abuser’s desires.
The Subtle Manipulation of “Good Intentions”
While some of these techniques may involve violence, aggression, threats, or other tactics that are more easily identifiable as abuse, oftentimes perspecticide can be achieved through subtle control without the victim realizing what is happening to them. Abusers frequently mask their manipulation under “good intentions”. They may claim they are just trying to protect the victim from friends who are “using them”, for example, or family who never looks out for them. This makes the victim doubt their ability to properly assess and manage other relationships, isolating them from loved ones and causing them to look to the abuser for who is “safe” and “good for them” to interact with, how, and when.
Similarly, abusers may say that monitoring their activities and controlling what they wear, eat, etc. is just an attempt to help the victim be more productive, give a good impression, or create beneficial habits to improve their health and wellbeing. This sort of regulation has the double whammy of both allowing the abuser to impose their own desires and opinions on the victim, superseding the victim’s own, and of lowering their self-esteem, making the victim feel their own wants and perspectives are wrong or that they are somehow lacking for being unable to do these things “right” without the abuser directing them. It is often very difficult to recognize an abuser’s actions and how much of the victim’s agency and identity has been stripped away when such manipulation is masked by these “good intentions”.
Potential Warning Signs of Perspecticide
While the subtlety of this type of abuse makes it difficult to identify, there are some signs that victims (or perhaps their friends and family) may be able to pick up on that could indicate an abuser is attempting perspecticide. Victims of perspecticide may feel increasingly unsure or guilty about decisions, seek out the opinions of only one person in order to make decisions, and adopt more and more of that same person’s opinions as their own or as the truth. They may feel incapable of doing other things for themselves or by themselves, depending on that person to help them or accompany them. Perspecticide victims may feel like they are losing reference points or doubt deeply rooted convictions because they do not correspond to those of the other person. They may start to give themselves negative labels based on comments by the other person or even not recognize themselves anymore as so much about themselves has changed since that person came into their life. These are not definitive signs of perspecticide nor are they the only possible signs. It should also be noted that people may feel any of these things for a variety of other reasons, but if they are specifically associated with one person, it may be a warning sign that that person is trying to manipulate and control their perceptions. (EYM, Psych Spot)
Impact on Victims
Victims of perspecticide often feel disoriented and confused, anxious and uncertain. They frequently experience serious mental health issues (Turner), which can lead to anxiety, depression, phobias, substance abuse, and self-harm (VeryWellMind). For those who are able to leave their abuser safely, ripple effects of perspecticide continue. It can be difficult to figure out exactly what is wrong or how the abuser has affected their identity. They may blame themselves for letting themselves be manipulated, despair that they won’t be able to remember what thoughts and beliefs were theirs versus their abuser’s, or feel hopeless that they will ever regain their former autonomy, confidence, and self-esteem (Fontes). Victims may feel alone, without support, and have trouble rebuilding relationships that the abuser limited or ruined. They may feel that they lack or can’t rely on their knowledge and ability enough to handle everyday life tasks they previously could, such as holding a job, dealing with finances, or caring for children.
Rebuilding Identity
Dr. Fontes created the acronym “R.E.C.O.V.E.R.Y.” to compile some suggested activities that can particularly help victims of coercive control and non-violent forms of abuse, such as perspecticide, begin to feel well again and more like themselves. “R” is for reclaiming activities the abuser limited or forbade, so victims can get a sense of liberation and a return to something they previously enjoyed. “E” is for “embodying” or getting back in touch with their physical selves that they may have felt alienated from due to the abuser’s control of their bodies. Physical activity and eating well improve general health and mood, and taking care of and making decisions about their bodies on their own terms can help victims feel more connected to their physical selves and rejuvenate their vitality. “C” is for connecting with family, friends, and supportive professionals, such as therapists, many of whom abusers likely isolated victims from. Connecting with a social circle can help survivors feel supported and more like themselves. Therapists and other such professionals can help them understand their experiences and provide suggestions for ways to regain their perspective.
“O” is for organizing time and physical space. Organization and routine can help victims feel less overwhelmed, more settled, and orderly in their environment and emotions. “V” is for verbalizing. Speaking about their experience with trusted friends, family, and community professionals (or even writing about them in a journal) can be empowering, help victims process their feelings, and assist others to better understand how to help them. The second “E” is for expressing oneself creatively in whatever form that may take, from painting to singing, knitting to gardening. Creative expression is another great way to process emotions, feel better about one’s abilities, and cultivate enjoyment. The second “R” is for remembering. Thinking through and perhaps listing/recording ways their abuser controlled them or incidents they experienced can help victims realize more fully what they went through and feel proud of the strength and courage it took to get out of that situation. And finally, the “Y” is for “you”, a reminder to victims of the worth of their own opinions, desires, perspectives, and agency, to listen to their own voice and not their abuser’s (even if it is now just an echo in their heads), and to be kind to themselves on their journey to RECOVERY.
Perspecticide is a very extreme and devious form of manipulation and psychological abuse where abusers attempt to control their victims’ knowledge, opinions, and identity. It can be very scary and very personal, difficult to recognize and recover from. Naming it and educating people about it can help victims better realize what they are experiencing, minimize effects, halt further manipulation, and get the knowledgeable support they need to reclaim their agency and themselves.
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