Foundational Domestic and Family Violence Skills

How beginner counsellors can recognise patterns

Domestic and family violence is common in counselling work, including when nobody has recognised and named it. For example, a client may book an appointment for anxiety, poor sleep, depression, relationship difficulties, parenting stress or a feeling that they have somehow lost themselves. The violence may emerge gradually, several sessions into the work, through details that initially appear unrelated.

Across my career, I have worked with many hundreds of people experiencing domestic and family violence, including in specialist trauma counselling and crisis work. It’s striking to me how rarely people presented in the way domestic violence is often portrayed in films or television: frightened, highly distressed and clear that they were in danger. They were far more likely to appear flat, confused, overwhelmed, ashamed, and profoundly exhausted. Some spoke about serious danger in a detached and matter-of-fact way while others spent most of the conversation explaining the person using violence and questioning their own judgement.

Beginning counsellors can miss domestic and family violence when they expect a clear disclosure accompanied by obvious fear. Foundational practice requires the counsellor to recognise patterns of coercion, ask behavioural questions, respond helpfully to disclosure, assess immediate concerns and involve specialist services.

Domestic and family violence affects people of all genders, sexualities, cultures and family structures. It remains strongly gendered in its prevalence, severity and consequences, with women and children disproportionately affected by men’s violence (Beckwith et al., 2023). This article focuses mainly on intimate partner violence while recognising that coercive control also occurs in other family and caring relationships.

Look beyond individual incidents

Coercive control is an ongoing pattern through which one person progressively restricts another person’s autonomy, liberty and everyday choices. It can include physical and sexual violence, intimidation, degradation, financial abuse, isolation, monitoring, reproductive coercion, stalking, technology-facilitated abuse, threats involving children or animals, and the use of legal or other systems to continue control.

Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety describes coercive control as an overarching context in which domestic and family violence occurs. Its effects are cumulative; a demand or comment that appears relatively minor in isolation may carry a serious implied consequence within the history of the relationship (Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety [ANROWS], 2021; Beckwith et al., 2023).

An incident-focused conversation can therefore produce a misleading picture. The useful questions concern what happens over time:

• Who is able to say no without being punished?

• Who changes their behaviour to prevent the other person’s reaction?

• Whose relationships, movements, money, clothing, work or communication are being restricted?

• What happens when the client acts independently?

• Has the client’s life gradually become smaller?

• What consequences have been stated, implied or demonstrated previously?

The client may say, “They never stop me from seeing my friends. It just causes such a problem afterwards that I don’t go anymore” or describe behaviour where their partner is consistently rude and unwelcoming to her family and friends so she simply stops inviting them around herself. The absence of an explicit prohibition does not remove the control. Anticipated consequences are already changing your client’s choices.

Confusion deserves attention

Confusion was one of the most consistent presentations I saw in domestic violence crisis work. Clients struggled to reconcile affection with cruelty, apologies with repeated harm, and public charm with private degradation. Many had spent years trying to find a reasonable explanation for behaviour that kept changing according to the needs of the person using violence.

Recent Australian clinical literature describes coercive control as involving repeated patterns of invasion, confusion and isolation. A victim-survivor may become preoccupied with decoding unpredictable kindness and abuse while assuming they must be responsible for the problem (Lynch et al., 2025). Psychological manipulation, denial, blame and contradictory accounts can progressively weaken a person’s confidence in their perception and memory.

Confusion alone cannot establish that domestic violence is occurring. It should prompt further questions about fear, freedom, control and consequences. The counsellor does not need to force the client towards a quick conclusion. A response such as the following creates room to examine the pattern:

You have described some times when your partner is very caring while you have also described organising much of your day around preventing their reaction. Could we look at what happens when you make a decision they don’t like?

This kind of reflection helps the client consider both parts of their experience. It also avoids reproducing another relationship in which somebody else claims authority over what they should think.

Fear is rarely as visible as new counsellors expect

Fear may structure the client’s life without appearing as fear in the counselling room. Chronic threat can produce emotional numbing, dissociation, exhaustion and blunted affect. Research on coercive control has found associations with post-traumatic stress, depression, hypervigilance, affective dysregulation and negative self-concept (Kassing & Collins, 2026; Lohmann et al., 2024a, 2024b).

The counsellor may see the client’s adaptations before the client reports feeling afraid. The client may:

• check their phone and the time repeatedly

• need an exact explanation for where they have been

• avoid receiving texts, emails or voicemail from the service

• conceal appointments or spending

• withdraw a statement immediately after making it

• describe ordinary independence as something that would “cause trouble”

• worry extensively about the consequences for the person using violence

• describe strangulation, stalking or threats in a flat voice that doesn’t reflect the severity of these types of violence

• insist that the person is not dangerous while describing extensive precautions taken around them.

Visible distress is an unreliable measure of danger. A composed client may be dissociating, accustomed to the behaviour, concentrating on practical survival or too depleted to feel much of anything in that moment. It is crucial to risk assess and think through the behaviours, their consequences and take appropriate action.

Flatness, overwhelm, shame and exhaustion

Flatness can be mistaken for indifference or low motivation. In a crisis presentation, flatness may reflect exhaustion, emotional numbing or dissociative responses following prolonged threat. The client may have been monitoring moods, managing children, hiding money, anticipating escalation, sleeping poorly and making constant calculations about safety. By the time they reach a counsellor, the nervous system may have very little left to give.

Overwhelm can produce a “scattered” account, difficulty prioritising and an inability to follow through on plans. The person may be simultaneously dealing with housing, finances, legal proceedings, child safety, work, schooling, injuries, digital security and the emotional impact of betrayal. A referral list containing six phone numbers can become another impossible task.

Shame often sits underneath minimisation. Clients may feel ashamed about what has been done to them, about remaining in the relationship, about still caring about the person using violence, about returning after leaving, or about failing to recognise the abuse earlier. They may fear being regarded as foolish, weak or responsible. People using violence frequently cultivate this shame by telling the victim-survivor that they are unstable, unlovable, incompetent or the real cause of the conflict.

Exhaustion affects memory, concentration, planning and decision-making. It can look like inconsistency or passivity. A counsellor who interprets depleted capacity as resistance may become frustrated and begin pushing harder, adding another source of pressure to the client’s life.

Ask about behaviour and consequences

Broad questions such as “Are you in an abusive relationship?” depend on the client already having language and clarity for their experience. Behavioural questions are usually more useful. They can be introduced as part of routine counselling assessment:

• “What happens when you disagree or say no?”

• “How free do you feel to make ordinary decisions?”

• “Are there things you have stopped doing because of how your partner might react?”

• “Does anyone monitor your phone, location, spending or contact with other people?”

• “Do you ever change your behaviour to prevent their anger or another consequence?”

• “Has anyone threatened you, your children, another family member, themselves or an animal?”

• “Do you ever have sex that you didn’t really want to be having?”

• “What happens if you don’t want sex?”

• “Has anyone restricted contraception, interfered with a pregnancy decision or pressured you to become pregnant?”

• “Has the behaviour become more frequent, severe or unpredictable?”

• “What do you think they are capable of doing?”

• “Do you feel safe going home today?”

Sexual violence within relationships is not always recognised by clients as sexual violence. Some clients will say they have never been forced or assaulted, but when asked more indirectly will describe having sex they did not really want because it felt easier than saying no, because their partner would become angry or withdrawn, because they were repeatedly pressured until they gave in, or because refusing did not feel like a realistic option. Questions such as, “Do you ever have sex that you didn’t really want to be having?” or “What happens if you don’t want sex?” can sometimes reveal more than asking directly about sexual assault. Compliance, resignation or eventually agreeing under pressure is not the same as freely given consent.

Questions must be asked privately. During telehealth, establish whether anybody can hear the conversation and whether the device is safe. Confirm whether it is safe to leave messages, send resources or communicate through a client portal.

Respond in a way that restores agency

The World Health Organization’s LIVES framework offers a sound first response: Listen, Inquire about needs, Validate, Enhance safety and Support (World Health Organization, 2014). Australian research involving 682 women who had experienced coercive control found that survivors wanted practitioners to believe them, recognise non-physical abuse, preserve choice and offer practical assistance. They valued active help with referrals and follow-up, particularly when exhaustion and shame made the first step difficult (Giles et al., 2025).

Helpful language can be simple:

• “Thank you for telling me.”

• “I believe you.”

• “You did not cause this, it’s their choice to behave this way.”

• “Some of the behaviours you have described concern me.”

• “What are you most worried they might do?”

• “What would be most useful from me today?”

• “Would you like us to contact a specialist service together?”

Avoid pressing for details the client is not ready to provide. Do not insist that they use the language of abuse or coercive control. Naming a behaviour can help, especially when the client has been told repeatedly that it is normal. Keep the conversation collaborative.

Assess risk even when the client appears calm

Counsellors cannot infer risk from a client’s affect. A client may report little fear and still describe behaviours associated with serious harm or homicide. Risk assessment should incorporate the victim-survivor’s own assessment, evidence-based risk factors, the pattern and escalation of perpetrator behaviour, risks to children and other people, intersectional circumstances and available information from other services (Backhouse & Toivonen, 2018; Neil et al., 2025).

The victim-survivor usually has detailed knowledge of the person using violence and their capacity for harm. Their assessment remains central. Some people minimise danger after prolonged psychological abuse, normalisation or dissociative coping. A low expression of fear should therefore be considered alongside the behavioural evidence.

Important risk factors include:

• non-fatal strangulation

• threats to kill or seriously harm

• access to or threats involving weapons

• stalking, obsessive monitoring and repeated harassment

• sexual violence

• escalating frequency or severity

• recent or planned separation

• violence during pregnancy

• threats or harm involving children, relatives or animals

• the victim-survivor believing the person could kill them or someone else.

Risk changes over time. Reassessment is needed when circumstances change, particularly around separation, court proceedings, pregnancy, new relationships, loss of employment or other events that the person using violence may experience as a loss of control.

Counsellors should use the risk framework relevant to their state or territory and seek specialist guidance when concerns arise. Recent strangulation or serious injury may require urgent medical assessment even when the client appears well. Imminent danger may require emergency or crisis intervention. Decisions about police involvement should take account of immediate risk, the client’s wishes wherever possible, and any applicable legal, organisational or information-sharing obligations.

Counsellors should also know the limits of confidentiality, child protection requirements and domestic violence information-sharing provisions that apply in their jurisdiction and workplace. These obligations vary across Australia, so uncertainty about disclosure or information sharing should be taken promptly to supervision, the organisation’s DV specialist (if you have one) or appropriate external specialist consultation.

Safety planning is more than advising someone to leave

Leaving can increase danger, especially when separation challenges the perpetrator’s control. Instructions to leave may frighten the client away from counselling or convey that support depends on following the counsellor’s preferred course of action.

Safety planning is specific to the person’s circumstances. It may include safe communication, emergency contacts, transport, access to money and documents, children’s needs, medication, animals, technology, work arrangements and a safe destination. Specialist domestic violence workers have the training and local knowledge to conduct comprehensive safety planning.

A warm referral is usually more helpful than handing over contact details. With consent, the counsellor can call the service with the client, help establish a safe means of contact, or arrange a follow-up appointment to revisit the referral. If the client declines, keep the relationship available and provide information in a form they can access safely.

Avoid couple counselling when coercive control is suspected

Coercive control can resemble a relationship communication problem when the wider pattern has not been explored. Couple counselling can expose disclosures, provide the person using violence with new information to exploit and imply shared responsibility for behaviour that one person is choosing to use. Clinicians can also be drawn into collusion themselves. If a person using violence is intimidating, persuasive or threatening, the counsellor may notice themselves becoming unusually cautious, appeasing or reluctant to challenge their account; a fear-based response in the practitioner can inadvertently reinforce minimisation, blame-shifting or control. Separate, private screening of each partner is important when assessing for domestic and family violence, but screening alone does not make conjoint work safe. Where there is coercive control, fear of retaliation or a significant power imbalance maintained through abuse, couple counselling is generally contraindicated. Early career counsellors should urgently obtain specialist consultation and supervision before considering whether couples work is safe or beneficial where coercive control, fear or retaliation may be present.

The same caution applies when both partners have used physical force. Context remains essential. Violent resistance, self-defence and attempts to escape can be misread when the assessment counts acts without examining their function, impact and relationship to the larger pattern. Australian research has documented the serious consequences of victim-survivors being misidentified as perpetrators (Beckwith et al., 2023).

Document what the client describes

Clinical notes should record specific behaviours and their effects. Phrases such as “relationship conflict” or “toxic relationship” can obscure risk. Useful documentation includes:

• the client’s own words where relevant

• threats, assaults, stalking and controlling behaviours described

• changes in frequency or severity

• injuries and reported symptoms

• children and other people affected

• risk questions asked and the client’s responses

• consultations, referrals, safety actions and follow-up plans

• the counsellor’s observations, clearly distinguished from the client’s report.

Records can later become relevant to legal proceedings. Write accurately, avoid speculative diagnoses of either party and follow organisational policies on privacy, subpoenas and information sharing.

Training and supervision are essential

General counselling training does not always provide enough domestic violence content for safe practice. Counsellors need a working knowledge of coercive control, risk assessment, safety planning, technology-facilitated abuse, sexual and reproductive violence, child safety, perpetrator tactics and local referral pathways. They also need supervision that can examine emotional reactions, rescue impulses, frustration, fear of getting involved and the pull to accept a charming or persuasive perpetrator’s account.

The following free resources provide a useful starting point and can help to build foundational recognition and response skills (they do not replace specialist domestic and family violence training, supervision or consultation for complex or high-risk work):

• DV-alert eLearning provides free training for eligible frontline workers. Its approximately 13-hour Foundations course covers recognising, responding and referring. Nationally recognised eLearning streams include General and Women with Disability. They also provide free two-day programs for eligible frontline workers across Australia.

• The ANROWS National Risk Assessment Principles provide an Australian evidence base for risk assessment and integrated responses.

• ANROWS webinar program provides research and recorded professional learning on domestic, family and sexual violence. I particularly recommend ANROWS: The power in understanding patterns of coercive control about helping women describe patterns of controlling behaviour.

• The Queensland Government coercive control modules are free. The first module covers coercive control and domestic and family violence while the second explains Queensland law.

• Queensland Common Risk and Safety Framework training offers free online risk and safety training for Queensland workers.

• The Emerging Minds family and domestic violence learning pathway provides free courses on children’s experiences, child-aware practice and culturally responsive work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. These courses assume that practitioners obtain separate training in crisis response, risk assessment and safety planning.

• The AIFS webinar on technology-facilitated coercive control includes practical guidance for face-to-face and telehealth work.

• 1800RESPECT professional resources include risk assessment, safety planning, reporting, collaborative practice and work-induced trauma materials.

• The Safe & Together Institute provides free resources on domestic abuse-informed practice, including webinars, publications and practice tools. The Safe & Together Model takes a perpetrator pattern-based approach, with particular attention to identifying patterns of coercive control, partnering with victim-survivors and keeping responsibility for the violence with the person using it.

Use supervision to examine what the work is pulling you towards

Domestic and family violence work can create strong reactions in counsellors, particularly when risk is high and the client is making choices the counsellor would not make themselves. You may feel frightened for the client, angry with the person using violence, frustrated when the client returns to the relationship, or increasingly convinced that you need to persuade them to leave. At other times, you may find yourself minimising what you are hearing because the client is calm, the behaviour is difficult to categorise, or the person using violence appears reasonable and persuasive.

These reactions are clinically important. They can influence what you notice, the questions you ask and how much pressure you place on the client.

Supervision provides somewhere to examine both the risk and your response to it. Useful supervision questions include:

• What pattern of coercion or control am I seeing across the relationship?

• Am I giving too much weight to the client’s presentation rather than the behaviours being described?

• Is my anxiety about the risk making me more directive than is helpful?

• Am I becoming frustrated because the client has stayed, returned or declined a referral?

• Am I treating the client’s ambivalence as a lack of insight rather than information about the complexity of their circumstances?

• Have I started taking responsibility for decisions that properly belong to the client?

• Am I overlooking risk because I like, identify with or feel sorry for the person using violence?

• What specialist consultation, referral or additional information do I need?

Supervision should also examine whether fear, intimidation or the wish to keep the person using violence calm is beginning to shape the counsellor's responses, including becoming more accommodating, less curious or less willing to name responsibility.

Supervision is also important when the counsellor is unsure about risk assessment, information sharing, child safety concerns, documentation, confidentiality or whether conjoint work is appropriate. A supervisor does not replace specialist domestic and family violence expertise. Where the situation is outside the supervisor’s knowledge, good supervision should help the counsellor recognise that limitation and seek specialist consultation rather than trying to reason through a high-risk situation alone.

One of the more difficult parts of this work is tolerating the limits of the counsellor’s role. You can recognise serious risk, discuss it clearly, offer practical assistance and support access to specialist services while the client still makes decisions you find frightening. Supervision can help you remain thoughtful and useful without responding to that discomfort by becoming controlling yourself.

For beginning counsellors in particular, supervision should not be reserved for situations that already feel like emergencies. Bring cases where something seems inconsistent, where you find yourself thinking repeatedly about the client afterwards, where you feel unusually protective or irritated, or where you cannot quite make sense of the relationship. Those reactions do not prove that domestic violence is occurring, but they may tell you that there is more to examine.

Beginner counsellors will not always receive a coherent disclosure or see visible fear. The client may appear flat, confused and exhausted while living with serious danger. Competent practice begins with recognising the pattern, asking concrete questions and involving specialist support when risk emerges.

If someone is in immediate danger, call Triple Zero (000). In Australia, 1800RESPECT provides 24-hour domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support by phone on 1800 737 732, text on 0458 737 732 and online at 1800RESPECT.

We have two groups starting soon, one for Early Career Counsellors and another for DFV, SA and Trauma. Check out all our supervision options here.

References

Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety. (2021). Defining and responding to coercive control: Policy brief (ANROWS Insights, 01/2021). https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/defining-and-responding-to-coercive-control/

Backhouse, C., & Toivonen, C. (2018). National Risk Assessment Principles for domestic and family violence: Companion resource. A summary of the evidence-base supporting the development and implementation of the National Risk Assessment Principles for domestic and family violence (ANROWS Insights, 09/2018). Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety. https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/national-risk-assessment-principles-for-domestic-and-family-violence/read-companion-resource/

Beckwith, S., Lowe, L., Wall, L., Stevens, E., Carson, R., Kaspiew, R., MacDonald, J. B., McEwen, J., Willoughby, M., & Gahan, L. (2023). Coercive control literature review: Final report. Australian Institute of Family Studies. https://aifs.gov.au/all-research/research-reports/coercive-control-literature-review

Giles, F., McKenzie, M., McLindon, E., Tarzia, L., & Hegarty, K. (2025). Women’s preferences for how health practitioners respond to coercive control by a partner: Open-ended survey qualitative analysis. Australian Journal of General Practice, 54(12), 867–873. https://doi.org/10.31128/AJGP-02-25-7571

Kassing, K., & Collins, A. (2026). “Slowly, over time, you completely lose yourself”: Conceptualizing coercive control trauma in intimate partner relationships. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 41(3–4), 662–684. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605251320998

Lohmann, S., Cowlishaw, S., Ney, L., O’Donnell, M., & Felmingham, K. L. (2024a). The trauma and mental health impacts of coercive control: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(1), 630–647. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231162972

Lohmann, S., Felmingham, K., O’Donnell, M., & Cowlishaw, S. (2024b). “It’s like you’re a living hostage, and it never ends”: A qualitative examination of the trauma and mental health impacts of coercive control. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 48(4), 571–588. https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843241269941

Lynch, J. M., Klieve-Longman, J., McLindon, E., Cullen, P., Giles, F., & Hegarty, K. (2025). Coercive control: Recognising relational patterns that affect patient wellbeing. Australian Journal of General Practice, 54(12), 855–859. https://doi.org/10.31128/AJGP-02-25-7576

Neil, J., Giles, F., & Hegarty, K. (2025). What do I do when they disclose? Responding to intimate partner violence and coercive control in primary care. Australian Journal of General Practice, 54(12), 860–866. https://doi.org/10.31128/AJGP-05-25-7673

World Health Organization. (2014). Health care for women subjected to intimate partner violence or sexual violence: A clinical handbook. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-RHR-14.26