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How I came to understand subtle abuse

I am a researcher, trainer and speaker on subtle abuse of women of high educational and socio-economic status (HESES) in their intimate heterosexual relationships. My focus on the subtle abuse of women by their intimate partner was prompted by my observations across my nearly 30 years as a psychotherapist, including as Head of Staff Counselling at the University of Cambridge. Intelligent, educated women often in successful careers came to therapy with depression, anxiety and/or low self-esteem, but without history to suggest a cause. For some women our therapeutic work together slowly revealed subtly abusive behaviour by their male partner. 

"By defining subtle abuse, we now have a concept that enables women to say 'yes, that's what's happening to me'."

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Working with abuse as a therapist or health care professional can be challenging. The more subtle the abuse the harder it is for both victims and professionals to identify that abuse is occurring. Those who experience abuse can often feel shame or fear about talking about any abuse. 
Abuse in intimate relationships can be conducted in overt or subtle ways and affect many areas of a victim’s life: physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, social, economic and more. Some victims will experience subtle abuse as part of a range of severities of abuse (Marshall, 1994; Halliwell et al., 2021), but in my therapy sessions with these women there weren’t signs of overt abuse of any kind. Instead, clients spoke of behaviours by their partners that my clients thought of as normal or even helpful. As I listened, I realised that these behaviours were subtly undermining and limiting my clients, as well as leading them to change how they thought about themselves and how they behaved. There has been little study of the phenomena of subtle abuse as the sole form of abuse. My first step in exploring this type of abuse was to carry out a review of the existing academic literature. From the review I developed a definition of subtle abuse (Parkinson et al., 2024): ​​​​​​​​​

Subtle or covert abuse can be defined as undermining, withholding and limiting behaviours enacted in ways that are difficult to detect, leading to an attitude change process in victims which, in turn, leads to emotional and behavioural changes. This behaviour is likely to be underpinned by a societal and/or personal attitude. (Parkinson et al., 2024)

​​​​​​​I then followed this by conducting research with women of high educational and socio-economic status in heterosexual relationships who had started to wonder whether they were in an abusive relationship, despite there being no overt abuse.

My research with them led me to a better understanding of how abuse is conducted solely on a subtle level throughout a relationship. 

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My aim is to help everyone to recognise subtle abuse. You can find out more about subtle abuse by reading my literature review available at: Parkinson et al., 2024, and I am currently writing academic journal articles on the findings of my research. Research into the experience of subtle abuse is in its infancy and as yet my research is the only known research looking at those who experience solely subtle abuse in their intimate relationships. Further research exploring this experience among other population groups is urgently needed.

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While I am not taking on clients for therapy at present please contact me if you are:

  • interested in discussing current and potential research projects

  • would like me to design bespoke training for your team or organisation 

  • would like supervision as a therapist

  • would like me to speak at your conference or other event.

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