E097 · Participation, relationships & agency
Difficulty recognising when a situation or relationship is becoming unsafe or coercive
What might make it difficult for a young person to recognise that a situation, relationship or interaction is becoming unsafe, controlling or coercive — particularly when the change happens gradually?
Phoenix Encyclopaedia
Overview
Unsafe situations do not always look obviously dangerous.
A person may initially appear:
- friendly
- helpful
- protective
- generous
- popular
- authoritative
- romantically interested.
Control or coercion may emerge gradually.
A young person may need to recognise changes such as:
- increasing pressure
- restrictions on who they can see
- demands for secrecy
- monitoring
- threats
- guilt
- humiliation
- unwanted sexual or physical behaviour
- pressure to share images or information
- somebody making important decisions for them
- consequences for saying no.
This differs from E096 Vulnerability when others use pressure, persuasion or manipulation.
E096 focuses on the interpersonal process of influence.
E097 focuses on whether the young person can identify:
“Something about this situation or relationship is no longer safe or okay.”
And critically, recognition does not guarantee that leaving will be easy or safe.
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What this might look like
A young person might:
- describe controlling behaviour as evidence that somebody cares
- struggle to recognise when requests have become unreasonable
- accept monitoring of their phone or location
- believe jealousy proves affection
- remain in situations after becoming uncomfortable
- minimise threatening behaviour
- describe coercive behaviour as normal because peers experience similar things
- struggle to identify when joking has become humiliation
- assume authority means somebody must be safe
- fail to recognise increasingly restrictive rules within a relationship
- disclose individual incidents without recognising the pattern connecting them
- recognise afterwards that something felt wrong but struggle to identify it during the situation
- believe that because they initially agreed to something they cannot later withdraw consent.
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Developmental expression
At this stage
Early childhood
Safety understanding necessarily depends heavily on adults. Simple messages around bodies, trusted adults, secrets, privacy and getting help are appropriate, but adults retain primary responsibility for providing safe environments.
Early childhood
Safety understanding necessarily depends heavily on adults. Simple messages around bodies, trusted adults, secrets, privacy and getting help are appropriate, but adults retain primary responsibility for providing safe environments.
Middle childhood
Friendships, online activity and increased independence introduce more complex situations where unsafe behaviour may come from known people rather than strangers.
Early adolescence
Peer status, romantic relationships, digital communication and belonging create increasingly sophisticated forms of social pressure and control.
Later adolescence
Relationships, employment, travel, money and greater independence increase the variety of power relationships young people must navigate.
Choose each stage to see how the presentation and surrounding expectations may change over time.
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Strengths and differences
Difficulty identifying coercion can coexist with:
- loyalty
- trust
- optimism
- generosity
- willingness to forgive
- commitment to relationships.
These qualities are not problems to remove.
Nor should Phoenix imply that somebody experiencing abuse or exploitation should have recognised it sooner.
People using coercion often deliberately make the situation difficult to recognise.
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Top tips for support
- Teach patterns rather than only lists of prohibited acts.
- Discuss how control can develop gradually.
- Teach that consent can be withdrawn.
- Make explicit that affection and control are not the same thing.
- Explore online and offline relationships.
- Teach that people with authority can still behave wrongly.
- Avoid placing responsibility for preventing abuse entirely on the young person.
- Keep disclosure routes low-shame and accessible.
- Avoid “Why didn't you leave?”
- Support the young person to distinguish disagreement from coercion.
- Take patterns of behaviour seriously, not just isolated incidents.
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Things needing careful planning
Coercive control is relational and systemic.
A major UK systematic review of school-based interventions concerning dating, relationship and gender-based violence argues that prevention should consider the broader norms, relationships and school environments that enable violence rather than focusing solely on changing individual young people. (1)
That is highly compatible with Phoenix.
A safeguarding intervention that simply teaches a young person to spot red flags better while leaving:
- misogyny
- homophobia
- abusive peer cultures
- inaccessible reporting
- unsafe adults
- institutional power
untouched is incomplete.
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Practical support principles
Useful approaches may include:
- relationships and consent education
- teaching coercive-control patterns
- scenario-based discussion
- digital relationship education
- trusted-adult networks
- accessible safeguarding systems
- self-advocacy
- recognising changes in power and control
- clear routes to confidential support
- whole-school work on relationship cultures
- specialist safeguarding support following disclosure.
From understanding to support
Phoenix Atlas connections
Often useful
- safeguarding education
- consent and relationship education
- self-advocacy
- digital-safety approaches
- trusted-adult systems
- whole-school relational culture
Worth considering
- specialist exploitation/domestic-abuse services
- therapeutic support
- advocacy
- individual safety planning.
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Evidence and cautions
Evidence concerning dating and relationship violence consistently places individual behaviour within wider interpersonal, school and societal contexts. The UK STOP-DRV-GBV systematic review specifically includes physical, sexual and emotional violence and coercive control and examines school-level as well as individual mechanisms. (1)
Phoenix should therefore reject the formulation:
“This young person needs to become less vulnerable.”
in favour of:
“What would increase their recognition, agency and routes to protection — and what needs to change around them?”
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Public evidence sources
- School-based prevention of dating, relationship and gender-based violence — systematic review.
Phoenix Encyclopaedia
Possible explanatory lenses
Relevant possibilities include:
- previous relationship experience
- social communication
- desire for belonging
- cultural relationship norms
- power imbalance
- fear of rejection
- learning needs
- previous coercion or abuse
- digital literacy
- limited relationship education
- environmental safeguarding.
About this entry’s source
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