Abusers often employ a variety of tactics in their quest to control their targets, including physical abuse (e.g., pushing, hitting, choking), sexual abuse (e.g., forced sexual activities), emotional abuse (e.g., name - calling, insults, public or private humiliation),
economic abuse (e.g., controlling finances, preventing the partner from having a job), coercion and threats (e.g.,
threatening to
harm or leave the partner), intimidation (e.g., destroying the partner's property,
harming the partner's pet), social isolation (e.g., monitoring or limiting the partner's social contacts and outside activities), and denial (e.g., denying or minimizing the abuse, blaming the partner for the abuse)(see Hines, Brown, & Dunning, 2007; National Domestic Violence Hotline, 2015; Pence & Paymar, 1993; U.S. Department of Justice, 2008, 2014).