Episode 7
Episode 7: Inside Look into FRAMED with Dr. Cocchiola & Amy Polacko
This is your go-to Podcast, where we help parents navigate the complexities of family life. Hosted by Ali Kessler of Greyson’s Choice, we’ll cover everything from understanding domestic violence to navigating the legal system, finding the right therapists, life hacks, family law, mental health, custody battles, and how to protect children in dangerous situations.
The Hidden Epidemic of Coercive Control in Family Courts:
Get an inside look into the new must-read book, “FRAMED.” Host Ali Kessler welcomes Dr. Christine Cocchiola, an expert on coercive control, and Amy Polacko, founder and CEO of Freedom Warrior Divorce Coaching, to discuss their new book 'Framed'. The guests share their experiences and insights on the dangers of coercive control in abusive relationships and the family court system. They highlight the need for better legislation and judicial training to protect children and supportive parents from abusive dynamics. The conversation also touches on various forms of abuse, including financial and emotional abuse, and emphasizes the importance of awareness and systemic change.
Get her new book, “FRAMED” at: www.narcfreepress.com
Barnes & Noble: https://lnkd.in/dmTjiHhY?
Amazon: https://lnkd.in/dydtjtiA
About Dr. Christine Cocchiola:
Dr. Christine Marie Cocchiola, DSW, LCSW, is a Coercive Control Educator, Researcher, and survivor. She has been a tenured college professor teaching social work for the last twenty years and has been a social justice advocate since the age of 19, volunteering for a local domestic violence/sexual assault agency.
She supports protective parents in strategizing how best to navigate the family court system, including divorce proceedings and custody arrangements. Our family court system is often set up to harm further and betray adult victims-survivors and their children, unacknowledged child abuse victims.
Most importantly, Dr. Cocchiola is a protective parent. Through her own clinical expertise, research, and personal experiences, she understands the impact that coercive control has on children. She coaches victims and survivors as they navigate parenting their harmed children. She has created programming to educate Allies, including protective parents, clinicians, coaches, and court professionals, on the experiences of children victims of the coercive controller.
Dr. Cocchiola is a Founding Member of the International Coercive Control Conference and a National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Board Member. She has actively supported codifying coercive control, writing numerous policy briefs supporting these efforts.
Contact: https://www.coercivecontrolconsulting.com/
Instagram: @dr.cocchiola_coercivecontrol
About Amy Polacko:
Amy Polacko is a Freedom Warrior committed to helping women live on their own terms during/after a toxic relationship or divorce. As a divorced single mom, she is passionate about coaching women one-on-one and founded the empowerment group Strong Savvy Women to support, inspire, and guide single women. Amy is an award-winning journalist who sheds light on women's issues, including divorce, domestic abuse, coercive control, and singlehood. She also works as a public relations consultant for small to medium-sized companies, helping to create PR strategies, maximize branding, leverage media relations, and improve social media.
Her recent journalistic work has appeared in The Washington Post, HuffPost, Ms. Magazine, Newsweek, NBC News THINK, and Observer. After graduating from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Amy was a newspaper reporter for Newsday and was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team covering the TWA Flight 800 crash. She then transitioned to television journalism as a writer and producer in New York City. Amy was an award-winning on-air reporter in Fargo, ND, where she traveled to Kosovo for a series on the North Dakota National Guard, and in Philadelphia, where she covered the national D.C. Sniper story. She also headed up an investigative reporting unit in Albany, NY, where she uncovered consumer scams, crime, and government corruption as part of her I-Team Investigations -- one of which exposed a loophole in the state's sex offender registry.
About Ali Kessler
Ali Kessler is a writer, marketing professional, passionate parent advocate, and founder of Greyson’s Choice, a 501(c)(3) created to raise awareness about the risk of domestic abuse on children. Greyson’s Choice was founded by Ali Kessler in memory of her sweet, vibrant, and fearless 4.5-year-old son, Greyson, who was murdered by his biological father in a murder-suicide during an unsupervised, court-approved visit in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, in 2021. This came just hours after her petition for a domestic violence injunction was denied by a Broward County judge, citing that the “petitioner has failed to allege any overt acts by the respondent which would constitute domestic violence under Florida Statute.”
Ali’s advocacy efforts culminated in successfully passing Greyson’s Law during the 2023 legislative session. This bill now requires the court to consider threats against ex-partners or spouses when making child visitation and custody determinations in the court, expanding to include the following factors: evidence of domestic violence, whether a parent in the past or currently has reasonable cause to believe that they or a minor child is, or has been in imminent danger of becoming the victim of domestic/sexual violence by the other parent, even if no other legal action has been brought or is currently pending in court.
Contact Ali:
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Transcript
Transcript:
FRAMED with Amy Polacko and Dr. Cocchiola
[:[00:00:40] Amy Polacko: Sure. First of all, thank you for having us. I appreciate all the work you do, and this podcast is part of it. So I started my business after going through divorce, not once, but twice, learned a lot, went into the family court system, like a babe in the woods, I always say, and thought I have to help women through this. I made mistakes. I really strive to help my clients avoid those mistakes and to take their power back in this situation before, during, and after divorce.
So I have women thinking about divorce. I have some in the process, and some after, and then part of my healing has been getting back to journalism. I used to be a full- time TV reporter and. Use those skills to shine a light on some of these issues writing for national publications like Ms. and HuffPost and NBC News and other places, because I really feel that women have been kept in the dark a lot about this.
So that's one of the reasons we wrote the book as well.
[:[00:01:44] Amy Polacko: Yeah, I work with clients primarily, and I do help them manage their relationship with their attorney. I would say, I think that people often think, well, how can I afford a divorce coach if I have to get an attorney?
But in reality, we save you money because we help you with many tricks and strategies for using less of that attorney's time. And I always say that you've got to be the CEO of your own divorce.
[:[00:02:11] Amy Polacko: Right? You can't rely on your attorney.
[:[00:02:24] Dr. Cocchiola: Go ahead, Christine. Sure, I'll go, and I'll just do a brief introduction because I know maybe some of your listeners know me, but there might be new people listening today. Right? Yeah, so my name is Dr. Christine Cociola and I have been doing this work since the age of 19. Domestic abuse, child abuse.
Advocate and had no idea I was with an abuser since the age of 16 and actually educate on this topic every single semester as a social work professor. And that's how insidious course of control can be. You don't even know what's happening to you and so I ended up getting my doctor in clinical social work and pursuing course of control and researching it so that I could really elevate this conversation about how abuse doesn't have to be physical, but that there's so many.
Signs that are there beforehand, and we're not protecting our children in the way that we should be protecting our children. So thank you so much for having us on and we're so grateful to be here.
[:So tell me how it. Came about.
[:We just heard about that story out in Colorado this. Past a couple of weeks ago where the mom was stripped of her custody because she was saying that she did not want her children to go to repair therapy with someone who was convicted, had convictions and was wearing an ankle bracelet and had sexually assaulted their child.
One, at least one or two of their children. And, we have a story in here that's similar to that. These stories are not an anomaly, it's an epidemic, but we really just want, like, for young people and old to begin to educate themselves on what abuse can look like because abuse doesn't look like abuse.
Initially it just doesn't know. And so how do we really empower people with these, we decided we'll ask people at the beginning of their relationship was what the middle was when they started to have clues and then now where they are now. And these mothers are still embroiled. Many of them in this process with family court, but relationship in the beginning, Didn't start off bad.
It really didn't for many of these people. And so we hope this is a warning for protective mothers. As a matter of fact, Tina Swithin, who wrote our epilogue, yes, this book should be a prerequisite for all women. All women. That's great. It should be read before marriage, but definitely before divorce or child custody proceedings.
And for me, that just speaks in volumes, right? This is not just for if you're going to be getting a divorce or if you're in a divorce, this is, guess what? This is a warning sign before you get in a relationship.
[:[00:05:34] Amy Polacko: Well, we've known each other for a while and we've worked side by side. We've shared stories of clients confidentially, of course, not names or details. And I think we're both motivated from our own experiences to make a change. And I think Christine had the idea of putting the stories together.
I've been writing, trying to shine a light on this issue. But I think in many cases, we'd have a big story like Colorado or Catherine Kassenoff, if you know that case, and think it was going to be a turning point. Right. And it's, we've had more of the same. And so we thought, okay, Got to shock the world with this.
And that's why I think there are really three reasons we did it. One is to validate for the women going through it. You're not crazy. You're not alone. You are not an anomaly, right? Also, like Dr. C said, we want to warn women and educate them. Before it's too late. Lastly, we hope that people get ticked off when they read this book.
It's not an easy read. We say, no, it's not a beach read, but it's a must read. And we hope that the masses will read this and be shocked by what's going on behind courtroom doors enough to get involved in this social justice movement because that's really what it is.
[:[00:06:56] Dr. Cocchiola: We have 22 stories. And we could have had a gazillion stories. I'm sure. Again, it's not an anomaly there. I mean, since the book has come out, Amy and I have been asked, would you write about our story? Would you write about our story? Because, and Amy gets that, asked that all the time as a journalist, right?
People want to expose their stories. The people in our book identifying information, it has been removed except for one particular story that is Kayden's story. Right. And so I'm sure you, right.
[:[00:07:24] Dr. Cocchiola: I'm sure you do. So, you know, but they are just heartbreaking.
And I think that these moms who have experienced this and people ask us, like, why are we're getting asked these questions, women in the family core underworld? Well, the reality is, that women in particular are mistreated and their children are very much mistreated in the system. And if we can help Women and children.
Oh my gosh. Then anybody who's been mistreated, that can widen. But right now, let's start with the most vulnerable.
[:[00:07:54] Dr. Cocchiola: And the most vulnerable is that we have a patriarchal system that oppresses over and over and over again, a mother's desire to protect her children.
Right. Yeah. So how did you choose your 22?
[:I think each story has a little bit of a twist to it Right, like one is spiritual abuse and the husband use the church against, her, our contributor, we have one that's Ivy League scandal that involves Ivy League admissions process. And in some of the cases, women have lost custody of their kids and some they have not.
I mean, those are horrific cases. We also have. Women who've gone through devastating financial destruction in this court system just wanting to get a divorce. Right. So I think we try to really represent a cross section. The women, we should say, come from four countries. Okay. The U. S., the U. K., and Australia.
So we're also making a point. It's not just here. Right. Other places too.
Sure. It's globally.
[:I think that's the part of the problem, right. Is a lot of our conversations are siloed,
[:[00:09:35] Dr. Cocchiola: To Amy's point, we need a movement where this is like, hashtag me too. Like literally like really front and center because that's how horrifying it is yet we are up against a huge system to do that and a powerful system.
[:[00:10:17] Amy Polacko: right? And we've seen that with this Colorado case, right? The Rachel Pickrell Hawkins, Dr. C. And I actually wrote a piece for Ms. Magazine that was published last week on this. And I think that story took off. It went nationally, some international outlets. And we said, think this is an anomaly. Think again,
[:[00:10:40] Amy Polacko: Right, exactly. Exactly.
[:[00:10:57] Dr. Cocchiola: It's called HIMPATHY. So Kate Mann, came up with this word and she says that in our society men have more rights, that we have sympathy for a man who shows up as a decent human being and if you apply that to family court, the moment that a father expresses interest in his children, and we know these abusers are going to express interest only to hurt.
The adult victim that's they don't really have an interest, but the moment that they do that for some reason, not for some reason, for patriarchal reasons, judges are looking through the lens of, then I need to give him as much time instead of saying, wait a minute, what's the history here? Like how, so we have judges, woman, female judges, and male judges who are making decisions not based on the best psychological and physical well being of children. I mean, it's just happening over and over again. It seems like there is just a lack of, well, I would say there's ignorance. So let's just say I'm not educated, but it also is lack of true care for the well being of children.
[:And then when the men's rights movements really took off, this shifted to the best interest of the child. But we know that idea presupposes that. The child should be with both parents no matter what, and it often trumps, for lack of a better word, abuse claims and evidence that we see in so many of these cases in our book and these that we're talking about, there's evidence of this, this isn't just a lie, though we know that the woman is framed, right?
And she's accused of lying.
[:[00:12:55] Ali Kessler: Right. I mean, I, I saw that in my, all in my own story, so, you know, I get it, it's, it's just crazy the stories that I hear. I don't know why they're giving them that much power when if they're saying it's the child's best interest, I'm not sure why parental rights trumps that, as you said.
I went through that myself because what was in my son's best interest was to be with me. So yeah, yeah, go ahead.
[:It's just, it's just the nature of it. There's very few in the mammal world that it's any different yet. Yet, when a mother does try to protect her children, she's seen as pathological or alienating. Which is kind of pathological, you know, she's seen as crazy dramatic and when actually that is how we are built, so there's just truly level of arrogance for sure.
[:And what? I wanted, he let me be the kid and the teenager that I'm supposed to be and didn't just exercise his rights saying, no, you have to come to my house. And, you know, I just wish more parents in general would be that way. Would be understanding of. You know, not only the child, but their relationships and who they're going to be in life.
[:So your dad was a healthy dad, maybe they didn't divorce for great reasons, or I don't know the circumstances, but he did not try to control you or his ex wife by using you. The pathology of abusers is really misunderstood in the family support system or ignored. It sure is.
[:I don't know if you want to share, certain specifics. The floor is yours.
[:Yes. We have not criminalized it like they have in the UK and in other countries, but we have, what we have done is, we, what we have done is we've codified it in seven states. But what that means is that there's 43 states that still do not recognize that coercive control is a form of domestic abuse, basically, which is hugely problematic because that means if you don't have a bruise, you haven't suffered abuse, which is not what people will see in these stories.
The first story is called fairy tale gone wrong, and it's like this story When you get to the end, you're like, Oh my gosh, she was abused, but it's not this blatant punching someone, which is what we are looking through the violent incident model. And so then what we're trying to do, right.
With violence against women in Kayden's law, right. Is to create child safety measures, right. You know, on the backside of this, I've been working with, policymakers discussing this piece of legislation. And the reality is that judicial has to agree to be trained by
[:Last time we spoke that when I initially tried to get Greyson's Law passed the first year, it had a lot to do with coercive control and changing the definition because that's what I went through. And the Florida Bar made us take it out and it didn't pass. And it passed the second year because the family court section of the Florida Bar helped write it. And of course they left all of that out.
[:That's a big concern. So I thought I'd read a little bit from our, the, we have a call to action section. Okay. And I thought I'd read a little bit cause I thought it kind of applies to What you have already already done in Florida, which is fantastic, important policy initiatives you can get behind the impetus of child safety legislation is in direct response to the number of children who are murdered during custodial time with an abusive parent.
Prior to:Protective parents know that failure to follow through with court orders may be seen as an obstruction of these court orders. It's a tightrope. No protective parent should be forced to walk. Perpetrators know what matters most to the protective parent, the physical and psychological safety of the children.
The coercive control or narcissistic abusers need to exert power and control. Coercive control over the adult targeted victim often is limitless, using systems to further inflict harm, and wielding family court to gain more custodial time as retaliation. The intent is to harm the adult victim. Children become the casualties of this revenge tactic.
Sadly, all too often, filicide, The murder of children is the end result and case after case, protected parents beg court professionals to heed their warnings about their children being unsafe with an abusive parent. They're please falling on deaf ears.
[:[00:19:56] Dr. Cocchiola: Yeah. Unbelievable. And so, I mean, there's no words for the loss that you and other protective mothers have suffered.
Yeah. And I have spoken to quite a few of them. I actually met Kathy. She invited me to a golf tournament for Kayden's Korner and I spoke about my story. And then we went to Washington DC together last year and toured the Capitol to try to get some more federal laws passed in each state, which is, as you said, probably begin at the hardest part.
I know I'm trying to get Kayden's law somehow incorporated maybe into Greyson's law, just because of that same training. And like you said, part of the problem is Executing, even with Greyson's law, yes, it's a law, but what does that mean? Are the judges learning what that is? Are the lawyers learning what that is or how to use it and how to apply it?
No. I hear that all the time that the judge has no idea what it is and throws it out. I've also heard that it was cited and it saved their child's life. So it's, that's the hard part.
What else you got for us?
[:Talks about this complex. It is
[:[00:21:28] Amy Polacko: It's a divorce industrial complex, right? And that's what we're up against is that we can pass these laws. Like in Connecticut, we have Jennifer's law, right? But are we being implemented? The judges don't want to be trained, right? So there has to be accountability. I think what worked in the Colorado case we were talking about is there was accountability, right?
Public public shame, right? Yeah, right. That that worked really well. And the embarrassment, I think
[:[00:21:58] Amy Polacko: So this is from Kathy Sherlock's and hers is the last story in the book. We're so grateful. Obviously, we could share her name on, like, the other contributors and it's called who was protecting Kayden.
So she says, "parental rights supersede children's rights in our family courts, and this is backwards. Some people are evil and shouldn't have kids or be around kids or even humans. He wouldn't have been able to adopt and have a dog because of his violent history, but humans were fine, according to family law.
on custody bill as that of HB:I should say, this was part of her testimony in the state of Pennsylvania. It would make it worse than it already is. Kids safety and actual best interests should be the number one priority in all custody cases. Number one priority, the end. There shouldn't even be a discussion about it. It should be the norm.
Again, it's not. Protective parents are viewed as alienators. The courts take this bogus theory written by a dead pedophile apologist, Richard Gardner, which abusers use to challenge real abuse claims or safety risks for the child over anything else. Over the child's best interest. You hear the word alienation, like Jeff claimed against me, her mom trying to protect her.
And all of a sudden, all other information or testimony, witnesses and experts, and all of that is dismissed or ignored by the courts. Claiming alienation works for dangerous parents. And we see that over and over again. We know that they're trained to kind of be on alert for an alienator, right? From the get go.
So, it's already stacked against women when they enter family court.
[:[00:24:32] Amy Polacko: I think part of it is there is a deep seated misogyny. It's something I've written about for Ms. The Hysterical Woman Bent on Revenge.
Right. I mean, our society has programmed people to think. Oh, she's mad. He's moved on with somebody else or she's lying. Right. Instead of he's a danger. And I think those systems are working all the time where they're pre programmed. I mean, I know you want to add something to this, Dr. C.
[:It's a deep seated misogyny, right? I mean, and we have research that actually we've interviewed judges and we have research that affirms that this is exactly what they think. They think mothers lie about abuse over and over again. They think that mothers are hysterical, that the child is okay. If the father abused the mother, it's okay.
If that doesn't put the child at risk, and then again I always go back to much of the research we have out there, right? Like virtually all of it when it comes to child abuse, domestic abuse is looking through the violent incident model. So even this research, when we research judges and ask them the questions, what do you think about mothers?
They are their responses. Well, if he didn't, even if he hit her. The children are safe. What they're not thinking about is that his intent is to control her. What's the pathology of the abuser? Abusers don't just hit, abusers control and eventually hit or harm someone in the family system. Right. And so that whole, in my perfect world, I would be able to give a training to everyone on the pathology of abusers because it would expose exactly why they behave the way they do.
But also I think problematic. Is that when children grow up in these family systems, they actually are being treated in much the way the abuser, the abuser is treating them, not the protective parent, but the abuser is treating them in much the same way that abuser was treated. And what that does is that diminishes a child's own value of themselves and it can.
We create a victim of abuse and or a perpetrator of abuse. And so we have intergenerational trauma that's totally preventable.
[:But I will say to what you were just referring to, in my case, the judge denied my injunction because they said the harm was to me and not my child. And I always just think that is the most asinine thinking I have ever heard. And the fact that it's not common sense that if a human being is harming a human being in any way, I don't care who it is, they are not fit to take care of a child.
I always use this analogy so Hitler slaughtered the Jews, but he'd be a good dad. I mean, it just doesn't make sense at all, which is why Greyson's law changed that here in Florida, that if one parent is harming another parent, or if there's fear of imminent danger that a judge can step in.
But it takes literally the death of a four year old to get these common sense laws to get passed and to get heard. And I think that's what infuriates me because this was so, it could have been so easy or a lot easier, I should say.
[:[00:28:05] Amy Polacko: I think it's amazing what you've done, Ali, obviously, and you're protecting so many children with everything you've accomplished.
But I think, you hit the nail on the head earlier when you said most people wouldn't believe this unless it happens to them, right? That's why we wrote FRAMED, right? Hoping in a small way, they can empathize with these contributors. They can, You know, starting at the beginning of the story and then see and be shocked.
Right. And be like, that
[:[00:28:31] Amy Polacko: Right, right. I always say, like, if I went out on the street and interviewed like 100 people in New York City, they'd all say, agree with you. That is crazy. That's insane and if people think they're not affected by this. Think again. It could be you next week or next month.
It could, it's probably someone, a family member or friend. Right. And when we talk about the intergenerational trauma, who do you think's paying for all this? These long drawn out court battles. Like if people only care about their pocketbook, well, guess what? You still have to care about this issue because all of the services that families need as a result of these horrific situations.
I mean, all taxpayers are paying for that.
[:[00:29:26] Dr. Cocchiola: We actually have a section in the book that actually details like what you can do if you or a loved one is experiencing this because we really warning signs and how you can help because we know that this book might be triggering for people. And as Amy said, we all know someone, we just may not know.
Right. You know, they may not have a bruise and they may not have told anybody yet, but the reality is we all know someone. So we have a section after our action steps for advocates. We have warning signs and how you can help because we really wanted people to have guidelines on what they can do in these circumstances.
The reality, I'm sure you would agree, Ali, and I know Amy agrees. It's like victims end up escaping, right? And then they end up thinking. I should have just stayed. Like if I had just stayed, this is the problem, right? A woman is safer in an alley than she is in her own home.
And if she's not safe, her children are not safe. That's the reality. And so of course women stay. And how do we, How do we support people and not judge them for staying, and that's, I find a lot of my work as a protective parenting coach and custody support coach, like I'm actually like saying to people, you have to decide, is it safer for you to leave now? Or is it safer for you to wait? And by the way, neither place is safe.
[:[00:30:49] Dr. Cocchiola: Well, you know, Amy and I talk about that in our workshop, The Abuser's Playbook. Like you, you do actually have to, like, I call it, I have a podcast called Perfect Prey and I call it the 10, 000 foot view.
And as soon as you, Dr. Ramani and I agree, like you have this radical acceptance. Okay. I know who that person is. Right. Now I know. Right. Now, how am I going to navigate this relationship in a way where I don't give myself away because the moment I do, that person is going to retaliate, right? But how do I navigate the relationship in a way that I can see everything that's going on?
I can predict it and I can better protect myself, which is super challenging.
[:And so that's what I did I anytime he texted me something, that was Not nice and disparaging and humiliating. I just tried my best to breathe and let it roll off my shoulder and do not respond. Now, in hindsight, I always have these what ifs and what I could have done differently, and I'm just like, well, maybe I should have responded and maybe I should have played along with him and given him, you know, some of that power.
So he didn't feel. like he needed to attack. But again, you can't do those what ifs through everything?
[:Right. Sometimes it emboldens them. Sometimes it calms them down. I think it really depends on the level of pathology.
[:[00:32:37] Dr. Cocchiola: Right. Some people, they can actually. Like it actually, they'll move on to someone else or get their supply from someone else. But if they are really about controlling you, they're going to become hyper focused on you.
And, there's no way of predicting that though. And that's, that's really challenging.
[:[00:32:58] Dr. Cocchiola: Yeah. So the pathology of abusers that my theory that I mean, not my theory, but the theory I believe in is that we're all born a little more ego compromised or ego resilient.
And then we're born into family systems that either fortify that compromise, meaning making us more compromised and filling us with shame. And then devaluing. And so then I think there's what I guess what I'm trying to say is there's genetic predictors for sure. And then in that, and then that the family system can either make it or break it for every, I'm sure Amy would agree for every person who's suffered abuse, you can almost see the writing on the wall of how the abuser became in the family, like who their mother was, who their father was.
[:[00:34:09] Amy Polacko: I think that's one of them. I think financial abuse is it is a huge one that in our beginning stories, I would say, like the one Dr C mentioned, fairy tale gone wrong and hell in paradise are the first to there are some real devastating consequences, financial, emotional, physical, right?
Abuse of people, and I think that's 1, you don't see, right? You don't see the bruise of financial abuse per se, but. That can range from being cut off from money, we've had people, their credit's been ruined, they've lost everything, they have no money to leave. I mean, we tell victims to leave, but then they have no access to the money to leave because they've been financially abused for so long.
And they could. Be a stay at home mom, or they could be someone who works and is forced to put their whole paycheck into the family pot. Right? So they're losing that agency and their financial freedom. So, I think some of those stories will be eye opening for people as it progresses to what maybe what some people would traditionally think of as domestic violence.
I know we like to say domestic abuse, because. It covers all abuse, right?
[:And I'm like, yep, we do. So we have. We have the mother being accused of an alienator as an alienator, children being forced to reunification camp. We have mothers who have been accused of Munchausen by proxy, which is child medical neglect. We have a mom who was basically her children. She has three, we have several stories like this, but I'm thinking of one in particular where there's three children, two she has custody of, but her oldest is living with the abuser and totally quote unquote alienated and indoctrinated against her.
So there's a variety of variations in the stories. But as Amy said earlier today, we were on a call. There is a thread. That links them all because it's all coercion and control that is not only on the adult victim, but it is within the family system, oppressing everybody in that family,
[:When you think about it, what was, what was the best part about writing this book?
[:[00:36:37] Amy Polacko: know, we have moments where we feel powerless and upset about these situations. And I think, for us, it's like, we're doing something about this, right. And, and it has been heartwarming.
We have a framed book launch group on Facebook to see we have. 550 some members at this point, people needed this book, right? Right. It's speaking to them, sharing it. And so I think that has been a good feeling when we're all of us are up against this Goliath of a system, right? And I don't know, what would you say, Dr.
C, would you agree?
[:Right. And so our hope is that this is on every lawyer's desk. This is in like, we would love for like law students to have to read this social work and psychology students. All these guardian ad litems and forensic evaluators. Now, frankly, the people who need to read it, won't read it.
[:[00:37:51] Dr. Cocchiola: This is. And it happened, but the more that it's on a coffee table and people are talking about it, the better off it is, we just, yeah, we hope that the word is spread and that people realize, I think a lot of people cannot imagine that we have an underworld in family court. But I, say to people often, you know, we have a mafia,
[:[00:38:14] Dr. Cocchiola: know, we, there are dark underworlds we have sex trafficking and by the way, sex trafficking is course of control.
And we have had there are stories of children being trafficked simply for sex in these coercively controlling relationships. So I, I think the rose colored glasses need to kind of be taken off.
[:They don't believe it. I'm just a regular girl. I went to University of Florida. Who am I? This doesn't happen to someone like me. Until it does. And that's why I always talk about it and I will always share. I actually will be speaking at the woman in distress organization here in Fort Lauderdale.
They're having a golf tournament in November. So I'm going to be sharing my story there because a lot of their victims in woman in distress suffer coercive control and a different type of abuse than physical that are, is not recognized. So I'm really excited to share that with Women in Distress and all the other women that might need help.
[:It starts off in this coercion and this attempt to gain control. As Amy said, the stripping of the autonomy of someone, right. And then it progresses.
[:[00:39:57] Dr. Cocchiola: Absolutely.
[:[00:40:03] Dr. Cocchiola: Books are sold. And what we would really love, if at all possible for your listeners, is if they've been able to read the book and get through a few chapters, if they could write a review on their booksellers. It just keeps the book out there. The book is actually doing relatively well in, divorce and separation category and self help abuse category.
So we really just want to keep the word, keep propelling the word. So,
[:So, well, thank you ladies. I thoroughly appreciate you talking with me about all of this. I'm in awe of what you do and I'm so glad you do it because we need women like you.
[:[00:41:07] Ali Kessler: That's true. And hopefully if they're raised correctly, they will.
[:[00:41:14] Ali Kessler: All right. Well more till next time and we'll talk soon.
Thank you.
