One of the most effective forms of psychological control isn’t what you think. Most people think that it’s screaming, threatening, or in today’s world, constant surveillance via tech. But it isn’t. It’s actually criticism. Because when someone is criticizing you – they’re putting themselves in control of what you think, feel and do. And before you’re even aware of it, they’re controlling you. It’s a tactic that was used in Thought Control camps in Mao’s China, and it can affect ordinary couples today. In this article we’ll make the connection between same tactics used in regimes and mind control in relationships.
Because when it gets to that point, your inner voice is constantly using that person as a reference in every decision you make. So, they don’t even have to monitor you, because you’ll end up monitoring yourself on their behalf. Without exaggeration, this is actual mind control. It starts with criticism and it’s why constant criticism in relationships is actually dangerous, and how you can recognize and recover.
Mind Control in Relationships Starts Earlier Than You Think
In our article on how teen dating violence starts, we explain that abuse rarely begins with obvious domination. And it’s the same in every potentially abusive relationship, which is why it’s so important to recognize the patterns. It begins with the other person calibrating your mind to their opinion about you, instead of relying on your own thinking. It can start out subtly but is always served up with a single goal: to put you down.
The ‘joke’ about your outfit.
“Correcting” your tone.
Subtle eye roll.
The inevitable “you’re too sensitive” comment.
None of these are dramatic in and of themselves. But when someone does this on the regular, they’re training you to stop and think about them before you trust yourself. Doing this slowly chips away at your confidence in yourself. So, by the time you finally recognize the control, your mind has already adjusted to wonder what they’ll think instead of instinctively trusting yourself.
So many people think that this is weakness, especially with women. But it isn’t. It’s grooming. It’s training you to think more of what someone else thinks of you than what you think of yourself. And most women are socialized into it from childhood.
It Interrupts Your Communication with Yourself
To be clear, talking to yourself is not unusual. We all unconsciously carry on conversations with ourselves inside our head. All day, every day. It’s part of who we are as humans. It’s our private self, and we all do it. But mind control is designed to get inside your private self. This has happened in regimes, POW camps – and it also happens every day in abusive relationships. This is literally what they talk about in sports when they try to “get into their opponents head.” It’s deliberate trash talk dialed way up, designed to fuck up your thinking. But the sports opponent doesn’t have privileged access to your thoughts and feelings.
In his book Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton observed that extreme control environments don’t merely regulate behavior. They interrupt that person’s internal dialogue with themselves.
The totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual’s communication with the outside (all that he or she sees and hears, reads and writes, experiences, and expresses), but also—in its penetration of one’s inner life—over what we may speak of as one’s communication with oneself.
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton
Then, over time, the authority figure – whether it’s the state, the captor or the abuser – becomes the interpreter of reality, causing you to doubt your own perception. On the personal relationship level, coercive control researcher Evan Stark reframed domestic abuse as a “liberty” crime — a systematic deprivation of autonomy and identity. So, it isn’t just about violence – it is about control of a person’s daily life and decision-making. I’ve seen this in my own family, observing this pattern played repeatedly over the course of four generations.
Irish researcher Don Hennessy describes what he calls mental colonization: the installation of the abuser’s worldview inside the target woman’s mind – sort of like a mind virus. Like Mao’s Thought Control camps, the type of abuser that Don calls the psychephile doesn’t simply dominate behavior. He actively seeks mind control, ownership of reality and colonization of the target woman’s inner world. (Editor’s note: Although these dynamics can occur in any kind of intimate relationship, Don has observed it most often in heterosexual relationships, with male abusers.)
Translated into plain English? He moves into your head. And once he’s in there, he doesn’t need work as hard. Because you’ll second-guess every single decision you make as though he is right there.
How Intimate Mind Control Takes Hold
In our article on psychological warfare within domestic abuse, we describe coercive control as a cognitive campaign. Not the chaos that everyone thinks, but a deliberate strategy.
Because it’s a custom strategy that looks for your strengths — maybe intelligence, faith, sexuality, professional confidence, motherhood — and criticizes you at exactly the things that the most to you. Then, over time, you internalize that and begin to pre-correct: yourself:
- “I’m overreacting.”
- “Maybe I misunderstood.”
- “It’s not that serious.”
- “I should just let it go.”
It sounds “reasonable” doesn’t it? Well, it’s designed to. Because control can mask itself as maturity, so positioning the victim as “unreasonable”. Sound familiar? But ask yourself: Who benefits when you shrink and defer? It could be more than one person, but is usually the partner in an intimate relationship.
Recovering From Mind Control
Has your mind been hacked? Here’s a quick check: When you stop to wonder what someone else wants you to do, the occupation is complete. Because now the abuser’s opinion feels like your own thinking. And if it feels like “your” thinking, how do you fight against yourself?
You start by asking that basic question: Why do I keep wondering what someone else is thinking about my actions? Does it sound like what you want? Or does it sound like someone who is going to benefit from you doubting your own perception?
Psychological control succeeds when you substitute the someone else’s opinion for your own. Recovery begins when you don’t.