Framed: Dr. C on Coercive Control and Family Court Trauma

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Long-time listeners might remember Dr. Christine Cocchiola (aka Dr. C) from Season 5, where she shared how she and her kids survived her ex-husband’s coercive control and psychological abuse. This week, she’s back to dig deeper into the ways coercive control operates like a cult—through gaslighting, mind games, and manipulation—and how it impacts families, especially children.

Dr. C is a social justice advocate, clinical social worker, and educator specializing in coercive control. In this episode, she unpacks how abusers use coercive tactics to maintain power in relationships and how the family court system often enables them. She also discusses her new book, Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld, and the systemic failures that put survivors at risk.

Trigger warning: This episode includes discussions of domestic abuse.

Find Dr. C at:

🌐 www.coercivecontrolconsulting.com

📷 Instagram: @dr.cocchiola_coercivecontrol

Also… let it be known that:

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

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Cult awareness and recovery resources

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CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Amphibian.Media

Writer & Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Associate producers: Amanda Zaremba and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media

Audio production: Red Caiman Studios

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

Transcript

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0:22.8	entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:29.7	This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical,
0:34.0	medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions express do not necessarily reflect
0:37.8	the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion
0:41.7	group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson.
0:56.0	And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames.
0:57.9	And this is A Little Bit Calti.
1:00.7	Cults are commonplace now.
1:02.1	From fandums to fads, we're examining them all.
1:04.5	We look at what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.
1:08.9	Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers
1:12.0	for real culty stories told directly by the people who lived through them, because we want
1:16.7	you to learn a few things that we've had to learn the hard way. For example, if you think you're
1:21.3	too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might be prime recruitment material, and who
1:25.7	knows, you could already be in a cult.
1:28.2	If you're not aware of your programming, you're probably being programmed.
1:31.4	So keep listening to find out.
1:33.2	We'll talk about all sorts of topics on the show, but be aware.
	...

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