Is it coercive control? / PATH

Category 14

Pathologizing

The abuser converts the target's normal responses to abuse, past trauma, or mental-health struggles into proof that the target is the problem. Directed at the target, and to third parties. Distinct from gaslighting, which rewrites reality.

Cooper & Sweet 2025; Freyd 1997; Smith & Freyd 2014; Stark 2007; Sweet 2019.

• PATH-1

  Mental-health weaponization directed at the target

  The abuser uses mental-health labels, trauma histories, or diagnostic language directly toward the target to destroy credibility, portray the target as unstable, untrustworthy, and unworthy of consideration, and elevate the abuser's own position as the sane, reliable, stable party. The tactic simultaneously attacks the target's internal sense of validation and works to cut off belonging within the relationship and community itself. Real traumatic events or mental-health struggles may be referenced ("you tried to commit suicide," "even your father sued you") yet are deployed as weapons rather than as shared concerns.

• PATH-2

  Pathologizing the target to third parties

  The abuser presents the target to third parties (family, friends, therapists, attorneys, custody evaluators, police, clinicians) as unstable, untrustworthy, or mentally ill in order to destroy the target's credibility with those parties, isolate the target from support and belonging, and elevate the abuser's standing as the credible, concerned party. In litigation-active cases or institutional settings, the abuser may actively recruit or manipulate therapists, attorneys, evaluators, and other professionals. Real traumatic events or mental-health facts may be disclosed selectively ("she tried to commit suicide," "even her father hates her and sued her") to paint the target as the problem.