Adams, A., Sullivan, C., Bybee, D., & Greeson, M. (2008) | References

What This Research Found

Adrienne Adams and her colleagues' 2008 study represents a watershed moment in domestic violence research: the first rigorous, empirical development of a tool to measure economic abuse. While advocates and survivors had long recognised that abusers use money as a weapon, the academic and legal fields lacked a scientifically validated way to assess this form of control. The Scale of Economic Abuse (SEA) filled this critical gap, transforming how researchers, practitioners, and courts understand financial tactics in abusive relationships.

Economic abuse is a distinct form of intimate partner violence. Through extensive interviews with 103 survivors of domestic violence, the researchers demonstrated that economic abuse is conceptually separate from both physical violence and psychological abuse. While these forms of abuse often co-occur, economic abuse involves specific behaviours targeting the victim's financial resources and autonomy. This distinction matters enormously for intervention: addressing physical violence without addressing economic control leaves victims trapped by poverty rather than fists.

Two dimensions of economic abuse: control and exploitation. Factor analysis revealed that economic abuse operates through two distinct mechanisms. Economic control involves behaviours that prevent victims from acquiring, using, and maintaining resources. This includes interfering with employment or education, controlling access to money, making unilateral financial decisions, and monitoring or restricting spending. Economic exploitation involves behaviours that actively generate costs to the victim. This includes stealing money or property, using credit cards without permission, refusing to contribute to shared expenses while expecting the victim to pay, running up debt in the victim's name, and forcing the victim to work while taking their earnings.

Economic abuse correlates strongly with other forms of abuse but is not reducible to them. The study found significant correlations between economic abuse, physical abuse, and psychological abuse. However, statistical analysis confirmed that economic abuse captures something distinct. Some victims experienced severe economic control with little physical violence; others experienced physical violence with minimal economic abuse. Treating economic tactics as merely a subset of psychological abuse misses the specific, measurable nature of financial coercion.

The Scale of Economic Abuse provides reliable measurement. The resulting 28-item scale demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and construct validity. The scale distinguishes between economic control (12 items) and economic exploitation (16 items), allowing researchers and practitioners to assess both dimensions. This validation means the SEA can be used confidently in research, advocacy, legal proceedings, and clinical assessment.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

Adams' research on economic abuse appears in Narcissus and the Child to illuminate the practical mechanisms that trap victims in narcissistic relationships. In Chapter 16: The Gaslit Self, the study contextualises why leaving an abusive narcissist proves extraordinarily difficult:

"Many narcissists establish financial control early. The victim may be unable to work, lack access to money, have no credit in their own name, or face destitution if they leave. Economic abuse keeps victims trapped as effectively as locked doors."

This passage draws directly on Adams' insight that economic abuse is strategically deployed to prevent escape. The narcissist does not control money accidentally or through personality quirks; financial domination serves the specific function of making departure impossible. When outsiders ask "why doesn't she just leave?" they reveal ignorance of how systematically coercive control manufactures dependence.

In Chapter 21: Breaking the Spell, Adams' research provides statistical grounding for the economic barriers survivors face:

"The average victim suffers an income loss of 37% after leaving an abusive relationship, with many facing devastating poverty that can last decades."

This figure demolishes the fantasy that leaving an abuser leads immediately to freedom and recovery. Economic abuse creates lasting damage: ruined credit, gaps in employment history, depleted savings, debt incurred through exploitation. Survivors do not simply walk away from economic abuse; they carry its consequences for years or decades. Telling someone to "just leave" without addressing economic realities reveals the same callous ignorance that enabled the abuse in the first place.

Why This Matters for Survivors

If you have experienced narcissistic abuse, Adams' research validates what you may have lived through and helps explain why escape felt or feels impossible.

Your financial dependence was manufactured. Narcissists do not accidentally end up controlling all the money. Economic abuse is strategic: they prevented your career advancement, controlled your access to accounts, made you account for every penny, or stole your earnings for their purposes. If you feel trapped by money, you are experiencing the intended outcome of deliberate tactics. You are not bad with money, irresponsible, or incapable. Someone systematically prevented you from having financial autonomy precisely so you could not leave.

Economic abuse is real abuse. Many survivors minimise their experience because it "wasn't violent" or because financial control seems like it should be negotiable between adults. Adams' research proves that economic abuse is a distinct, measurable form of intimate partner violence with its own devastating effects. Courts and advocates increasingly recognise this. You do not need bruises to be a victim of abuse; systematic financial control is abuse.

The "why don't you just leave" question misses the point. Every survivor has been asked this question, often by people who genuinely think they are being helpful. Adams' research explains why this question is so painful: it places responsibility on the victim while ignoring the carefully constructed trap. Leaving requires money for deposits, first month's rent, legal fees, childcare, transportation, and basic necessities. When someone has prevented you from earning, stolen what you did earn, and destroyed your credit, where exactly is this money supposed to come from? The question should be: "Why did he trap you financially?"

Economic recovery is its own journey. Even after physical safety is achieved, economic abuse leaves lasting damage. You may face ruined credit, employment gaps difficult to explain, debt you did not incur, legal battles you cannot afford, and the need to rebuild everything from nothing. This is not a failure of resilience; it is the intended consequence of exploitation. Recovery from economic abuse requires specific interventions: financial advocacy, credit repair, job training, legal assistance, and time. Do not expect yourself to bounce back quickly from deliberate, sustained economic destruction.

Documentation matters. Adams' Scale of Economic Abuse provides language for what you experienced and a framework courts increasingly recognise. Documenting economic abuse, from controlled accounts to sabotaged employment to stolen money, creates evidence that can support legal proceedings, protective orders, and divorce settlements. The research gives weight to claims that might otherwise be dismissed as mere "financial disagreements."

Clinical Implications

For psychiatrists, psychologists, and trauma-informed healthcare providers, Adams' research has direct implications for assessment and treatment of intimate partner violence survivors.

Screen specifically for economic abuse. Standard domestic violence screening focuses heavily on physical violence and may miss the economic control that traps victims. Asking specifically about financial access, employment interference, and resource exploitation reveals patterns that physical violence questions miss. The Scale of Economic Abuse provides validated language for this assessment. Victims may not recognise their experience as abuse until specific behaviours are named.

Understand economic abuse as entrapment, not personality. Clinicians trained to see learned helplessness or passivity as individual pathology may miss how economic abuse manufactures that helplessness. When someone has been prevented from working, denied access to money, and threatened with destitution, their apparent inability to act reflects rational assessment of impossible circumstances, not personality deficits or learned passivity. Validate the trap rather than pathologising the victim's response to it.

Address practical economic needs alongside trauma. Trauma therapy has limited utility for someone currently trapped in economic abuse. Safety planning must include financial dimensions: hidden emergency funds, separate accounts the abuser does not know about, documentation of financial abuse, and connections to economic advocacy services. Treating complex PTSD while the client returns to economic entrapment may even increase danger by increasing her clarity about abuse without providing means of escape.

Recognise post-separation economic abuse. Victims often assume that leaving will end the abuse. Economic exploitation frequently intensifies after separation through hidden assets, refused support payments, endless legal battles, and financial manipulation of children. The narcissist may launch smear campaigns affecting the victim's employment or use hoovering tactics that combine financial promises with attempts to restore control. Clinicians should assess for ongoing economic abuse and understand that the client's financial stress may reflect continued victimisation, not personal financial mismanagement.

Collaborate with financial advocates. Mental health treatment alone cannot address economic abuse. Effective intervention requires collaboration with domestic violence organisations offering financial advocacy, legal aid for divorce and custody, housing programmes, and job training services. Know your local resources and be prepared to coordinate care across systems.

Understanding Economic Control

The first dimension Adams identified involves behaviours that prevent victims from acquiring, using, and maintaining economic resources. Economic control operates through multiple tactics:

Employment interference. Abusers prevent victims from working or advancing in careers through sabotage (hiding car keys, destroying work clothes, calling employers with false concerns), causing scenes that get victims fired, refusing childcare, demanding victims quit jobs, and creating crises on workdays. This form of isolation ensures the victim has no independent income or workplace relationships that might support escape. Even when victims work, abusers may demand they work fewer hours or take lower-paying jobs that do not threaten the power dynamic.

Educational interference. Preventing education blocks long-term earning potential. Abusers may forbid school attendance, create crises during exams, refuse to support childcare needed for classes, or belittle educational aspirations as impractical or selfish.

Financial decision monopoly. One partner makes all significant financial decisions unilaterally: where to live, what to buy, how much to spend, what accounts to have, how to file taxes. The victim's input is neither sought nor accepted. This concentrates all financial power while denying the victim any practice making economic decisions.

Controlled access to money. The abuser may provide an "allowance" while requiring accounting of every penny. They control all bank accounts, credit cards, and cash. The victim must ask permission for any spending and may be denied purchases the abuser considers unnecessary. This creates dependence on the abuser's goodwill for basic necessities.

Information control. Victims may be kept ignorant of the couple's actual financial situation: income, debts, assets, accounts. This form of gaslighting extends to finances: when victims question discrepancies, they are told they are mistaken, paranoid, or bad with numbers. This prevents them from planning escape and leaves them vulnerable during divorce when hidden assets emerge.

Understanding Economic Exploitation

The second dimension involves behaviours that actively generate economic costs to victims:

Theft of money and property. Abusers steal wages, savings, inheritance, or gifts. They may forge signatures to access accounts, cash cheques meant for the victim, or sell the victim's property without permission.

Credit exploitation. Abusers open accounts in the victim's name, run up debt the victim is responsible for, or refuse to pay joint debts while destroying the victim's credit. Victims may discover after separation that they owe tens of thousands in debt they never agreed to.

Forced financial support. While controlling all money, the abuser may refuse to contribute to shared expenses, expecting the victim to cover household costs, children's needs, and even the abuser's personal expenses. The abuser may refuse to work while demanding the victim provide.

Property destruction. Destroying the victim's possessions creates costs and removes resources that might fund escape. Breaking phones prevents communication; destroying vehicles prevents transportation; damaging work clothes prevents employment.

Generating costs through abuse. Medical bills from violence, legal costs from abuser-created crises, lost income from recovery time, and destroyed credit all represent costs generated by the abuser but borne by the victim.

The Entrapment Mechanism

Economic abuse creates entrapment through a predictable mechanism. Early in relationships, abusers often encourage financial merging or dependence that seems romantic: "You don't need to work; I'll provide for you." "Let's combine everything; we're a team." "Don't worry about money; I'll handle it." This mirrors the love-bombing phase of narcissistic relationships, where generosity and care disguise the groundwork being laid for control. Over time, this merging becomes control as the victim loses independent access to resources.

The victim may not recognise economic abuse as it develops because each step seems small or is framed as caring. By the time the pattern becomes clear, the victim has no money, no credit history, no recent employment, and no way to leave. The abuser can now make explicit threats: "Leave and you'll have nothing." "I'll take everything in the divorce." "Good luck supporting yourself after I tell everyone what you're really like." These threats often come during the devaluation phase when the mask slips and the abuser openly expresses contempt.

This trap operates independently of physical violence. Someone can be economically imprisoned without ever being hit. They can also be both physically abused and economically trapped, with the economic control making escape from physical danger impossible. Adams' research shows that we cannot understand domestic violence without understanding the economic dimensions that bind victims to abusers.

Narcissism and Economic Abuse

While Adams' research examined domestic violence broadly, the findings are particularly relevant to narcissistic abuse. Narcissists are highly prone to economic abuse because of their core psychological features:

Entitlement. Narcissists believe they deserve resources regardless of who earned them. Your money is their money; their money is their money. This entitled stance, rooted in grandiose narcissism, makes economic exploitation feel justified: they are simply taking what they deserve.

Need for control. Narcissistic supply depends on having power over others. Economic control ensures the victim cannot leave, cannot develop competing relationships, and remains dependent on the narcissist's goodwill. Money becomes a tool for managing narcissistic supply.

Lack of empathy. Narcissists do not feel the impact of their economic abuse on victims. They do not register that denying money causes suffering, that sabotaged employment creates desperation, or that financial threats generate terror. The victim's experience simply does not enter their calculus.

Image maintenance. Narcissists often spend lavishly on themselves while restricting others' spending because their image matters more than the family's wellbeing. Expensive cars, clothes, and hobbies for them; an accounting of every grocery receipt for you.

Punishment through finances. Money becomes a reward and punishment system. Compliance brings resources; independence brings deprivation. This intermittent reinforcement creates the same trauma bonding seen with emotional and physical abuse.

Broader Implications

Adams' research extends beyond individual relationships to illuminate systemic issues in how society responds to domestic violence.

Legal Recognition

The Scale of Economic Abuse has supported legal recognition of economic abuse as a form of domestic violence. Jurisdictions increasingly include financial control in domestic violence definitions and allow economic abuse evidence in protective orders and divorce proceedings. This represents a significant shift from frameworks that required physical injury to prove abuse.

Policy Development

Research demonstrating the centrality of economic abuse has informed policy: economic advocacy services in domestic violence organisations, financial literacy programmes for survivors, asset-building programmes, and recognition that housing and employment support are essential domestic violence interventions, not peripheral services.

Workplace Implications

Economic abuse often extends into workplaces through abusers who call, show up, make threats, or create crises that affect victims' employment. Employer awareness of economic abuse dynamics supports victim-sensitive policies: recognising that attendance problems may reflect abuse rather than irresponsibility, providing safety planning, and understanding that economic abuse makes employment both more essential and more difficult.

Research Advancement

The SEA enabled research that was previously impossible. Studies using the scale have documented the prevalence of economic abuse (over 90% of domestic violence victims experience some form), its relationship to other forms of abuse, its long-term consequences, and the effectiveness of economic advocacy interventions. This research base supports evidence-based intervention and policy.

Limitations and Considerations

Adams' research, while groundbreaking, has limitations that inform its application.

Sample characteristics. The study drew on women who had accessed domestic violence services and were no longer in abusive relationships. This may not fully represent victims still in relationships, those who never seek services, or men experiencing economic abuse. Subsequent research has worked to expand sample diversity.

Focus on heterosexual relationships. The original research primarily addressed women abused by male partners. Economic abuse occurs across all relationship configurations, though specific dynamics may differ. The scale has since been adapted for broader application.

Cultural context. Economic norms vary across cultures, affecting what constitutes abuse versus acceptable financial arrangements. The scale was developed and validated in American contexts; adaptation for other cultural settings requires attention to local norms and expectations.

Evolution of tactics. Economic abuse tactics evolve with financial technology: cryptocurrency hiding assets, apps tracking spending in real-time, gig economy enabling surveillance of work. Assessment tools must evolve alongside abuser tactics.

Historical Context

Adams' 2008 study built on decades of groundwork while transforming the field's empirical foundation. Early domestic violence research, emerging from the battered women's movement of the 1970s, focused primarily on physical violence because that was what had to be proved to justify intervention and escape. Economic aspects were noted but not systematically measured.

By the 1990s, qualitative research had documented the importance of financial control in abusive relationships. Survivors consistently reported that economic tactics kept them trapped. Evan Stark's 2007 book Coercive Control provided theoretical framework for understanding abuse as a pattern of entrapment rather than discrete violent incidents, with economic control as a central element.

Adams and colleagues provided the empirical tool the field needed: a validated measure that could document economic abuse reliably across research, advocacy, and legal contexts. The Scale of Economic Abuse transformed theoretical understanding into practical assessment capability. It has since been translated into multiple languages and used in dozens of countries, becoming a standard instrument in domestic violence research and practice.

The study also reflected Michigan State University's emergence as a centre for violence against women research, with Cris Sullivan's programme providing institutional support for the kind of sustained, survivor-centred research that produces validated measures rather than quick publications.

Development of the Scale of Economic Abuse

APA Citation