Coercive Control Field Check / DEG
Category 03
Degradation
Attacks the target's dignity, self-worth, and personhood through insults, public and private shaming, attacks on competence, and body or sexual denigration. Survivors describe death by a thousand insults, and being broken down until they no longer recognize themselves.
Pence & Paymar 1993; Stark 2007; Gampe, Jeffries & Rathus 2025; Kurbatfinski et al. 2025.
DEG-1
Insults and Name-calling
Direct verbal abuse consisting of slurs, epithets, characterological attacks, or repeated pejoratives directed at the target's person rather than a specific disputed fact.
DEG-2
Humiliation and Shaming
Statements or acts designed to embarrass, expose, or produce shame in the target, including public humiliation, weaponized public shaming, and post-separation reputation attacks.
DEG-3
Attacks on Competence in Valued Roles
Messaging that explicitly or implicitly positions the target as a failure in roles that carry personal or social value, most commonly parenting, work, or partnership.
DEG-4
Body and Sexual Shaming
Denigration of the target's body, appearance, attractiveness, or sexual adequacy.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
- Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education groups for men who batter: The Duluth model. Springer.
Forums that enumerate this family
A statute that lists a tactic is not a finding that the tactic is present.
Carlton, C. (2026). Coercive Control Field Check: DEG Degradation. Coercive Control Observatory. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.