Freedom Finder

Speakers & Learning Objectives

5 NBCC clock hours across three presentations.

Christine M. Cocchiola, DSW, LCSW — Coercive Control: Preventable Harm

• Define coercive control and distinguish it from physical violence as the defining characteristic of domestic abuse, tracing its theoretical foundations from Biderman's coercion chart through Evan Stark's framework.
• Identify the signs and mechanisms of post-separation abuse, including how tactics such as DARVO and parental alienation claims are used to regain power and control through litigation and custody proceedings after a relationship ends.
• Recognize the impact of coercive control on child victims, including trauma bonding, disrupted attachment, and the ways children become co-victims rather than bystanders to domestic abuse.
• Assess systemic and institutional responses to coercive control, including patterns of institutional betrayal in family courts, and apply key assessment questions to distinguish coercive control cases from high-conflict divorce.

Catherine Barrett

• Explain the relevance of historical context in assessing insidious risk within post-separation abuse and domestic violence cases.
• Evaluate the role and use of psychological evaluators and experts in cases involving domestic violence, coercive control, and trauma.
• Identify competency standards for multidisciplinary team members, including guardians ad litem, minors' counsel, and co-parenting therapists, working with post-separation abuse and domestic violence cases.

Ramani Durvasula

• Identify patterns of narcissistic behavior and describe how they function within emotionally abusive, coercive, and controlling relationships.
• Explain why narcissistic abuse is frequently overlooked or minimized in clinical assessment, and why identifying the recurring behavioral pattern is more clinically meaningful than evaluating isolated incidents.
• Describe the cumulative and long-term psychological impact of narcissistic abuse on survivors, including effects on self-trust, decision-making, and psychological safety.
• Apply greater recognition of narcissistic and coercive patterns to support more accurate, trauma-informed, survivor-centered clinical assessment.