Specialized Training in Coercive Control, IPV & Expert Testimony
Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD
Direct Expert-Witness Training in Coercive Control and Intimate Partner Violence
2026
Specialized direct training focused on the role and responsibilities of subject-matter experts and expert witnesses in matters involving coercive control and intimate partner violence.
Conference on Crimes Against Women
Expert Witness Preconference: Justice Through Understanding — Expert Testimony on Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Violence Cases
2026
Advanced training focused specifically on expert testimony in domestic violence and intimate partner violence cases. The 2026 Expert Witness Preconference was approved for 5.75 continuing-education credit hours.
Additional Advanced Training
Coercion, Control, & Technology
Conference on Crimes Against Women, 2026
Training addressing coercion, control, technology, and domestic-violence prevention.
The Phantom Toll: Mental Health Impacts of Stalking
Conference on Crimes Against Women, 2026
Training addressing the mental-health effects of stalking.
Digital Dangers: How to Increase Accountability & Safety in Cyberstalking
Conference on Crimes Against Women, 2026
Training addressing cyberstalking, accountability, and safety.
When Survival Becomes a Crime: How Abusers Turn the Justice System into Their Last Weapon
Conference on Crimes Against Women, 2026
Training addressing the intersection of abuse, survivor responses, and the justice system.
Areas of Expertise
Coercive Control
Patterns of domination that restrict another person’s autonomy through intimidation, manipulation, isolation, surveillance, financial restriction, threats, exploitation, retaliation, or other strategies of control.
Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Dynamics
Psychological and behavioral patterns associated with abusive relationships, including abuse that may occur without repeated physical violence.
Post-Separation Abuse
Continuation or escalation of coercive behavior following separation through financial, legal, reputational, relational, technological, or institutional means.
Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress
Psychological and functional effects associated with prolonged threat, betrayal, coercion, intimidation, and destabilization.
Financial and Occupational Abuse
Restriction, exploitation, sabotage, dependency creation, or interference involving income, employment, professional standing, assets, credit, or financial decision-making.
Stalking and Technology-Facilitated Abuse
Patterns involving surveillance, unwanted contact, cyberstalking, digital monitoring, technological interference, or the use of technology to intimidate or control.
Social Isolation and Support Interference
Patterns that reduce or disrupt access to family, friends, colleagues, professional resources, and other sources of independent support.
Credibility and Reputation Attacks
Behavior intended to undermine another person’s perceived reliability, stability, professional standing, or social credibility.
Trauma-Informed Interpretation of Behavior
Understanding how fear, chronic stress, trauma, and prolonged exposure to coercion may affect disclosure, memory, decision-making, communication, affect, and behavior.
Recovery of Agency
Restoration of autonomy, self-trust, decision-making authority, occupational functioning, social connection, and authorship of one’s life following coercive control.
Pattern Documentation
Identification and organization of events across time to clarify sequence, repetition, dependency, retaliation, consequences, corroboration, and changes in functioning.
Selected Clinical & Professional Experience
Michelle Piper’s clinical and professional background includes:
- Coercive control and abuse recovery
- Intimate partner violence
- Trauma and post-traumatic stress
- Crisis intervention
- Trauma-informed care
- Family systems
- Application of current research on coercive control and intimate partner violence
Professional Focus
Michelle Piper’s professional interests include:
- Coercive control
- Post-separation abuse
- Financial and occupational abuse
- Stalking and technology-facilitated abuse
- Legal and institutional dimensions of abuse
- Social isolation and interference with support
- Credibility and reputation attacks
- Trauma responses that may be misunderstood in legal settings
- Recovery of agency and self-trust
- Documentation of behavioral patterns across time
- Translation of complex abuse dynamics for legal and clinical professionals
