“No voice or vote:” trauma-coerced attachment in victims of sex trafficking

Author: Doychak, Kendra & Raghavan, Chitra

Abstract: Trauma-coerced attachment (TCA)—often referred to as trauma bonding— has been noted and documented across various abusive contexts. TCA involves a powerful emotional dependency on the abusive partner and a shift in world- and self- view, which can result in feelings of gratitude or loyalty toward the abuser and denial or minimization of the coercion and abuse. The current study investigated TCA in a sex-trafficking context. Former victims of sex trafficking (N = 14) were interviewed for approximately 2–4 h using a semi-structured interview guide. An adaptation of grounded theory was utilized to code the interview transcripts for coercive control tactics, intermittent reward and punishment, and self-reported feelings, responses, and resistance/compliance toward the abuser. Coercive control tactics were present in all 14 narratives; intermittent reward and punishment was present in 10; and TCA emerged in varying severities (i.e., a continuum, rather than a dichotomy, of attachment). In addition to these findings, the current work proposes a systematic framework from which to study TCA, separating the processes involved in the formation of the traumatic attachment (i.e., implementation of coercive control tactics) from the outcomes of those tactics (i.e., dependency and adoption of abuser’s worldview).

Keywords: coercive control, prostitution, qualitative, trafficking, trauma bond, trauma-coerced attachment