Get clarity on how to create a new, safe relationship and commit to it
Psychological abuse can leave deep and lasting scars, affecting all aspects of a person’s life. Healing from such toxic relationships requires resilience, support, and effective strategies. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kim Peirano, DACM, LAc, CHt from Courage to Transform Coaching & Hypnotherapy.
Kim Peirano, DACM, LAc, CHt, is a Transformational Coach and Hypnotherapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works with clients in person and online who are navigating major life changes, grief, loss, chronic pain and illness, and those recovering from spiritual and religious trauma or cultic and relationship abuse. Her commitment is to help foster her clients’ growth through a trauma-informed lens and individually guided sessions that encourage authenticity and transformation in a safe container.
Thank you so much for joining us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
This is always a tough question because my backstory bobs and weaves through many different experiences and iterations of my life. I have spent the past 15 years working in the wellness space as a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, Transformational Coach, and Hypnotherapist, and it’s through my personal life experience that my practice has shifted and changed over the years. Through my experience spending eight years in a new-age spiritual cult and leaving it, I gained an immense amount of clarity for how my unique life experiences could help people, and I have transitioned my practice to do just that. Earlier in my life, I was also in a psychologically and emotionally abusive relationship, which, through the lens of coercive control, is a type of 2-person cult. A big part of my healing process from these experiences involved becoming curious about why this type of abuse takes place and how I can become more knowledgeable about it to help others. I’ve since trained with cult expert Steven Hassan, PhD, and been a presenter at the International Cultic Studies Association annual conference in 2024, where I presented on the ‘cult of wellness’, looking at alternative wellness and its potential pitfalls and manipulation as an industry.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
It’s hard to choose just one, but my flexibility in changing my career over and over again might count. I’ve been a nightclub DJ, rave producer, TV news associate producer, artist, jeweler, acupuncturist, teacher, non-profit founder and director, permanent makeup artist, coach, and hypnotherapist. At first glance, my background might make someone say, ‘Wow, this person cannot make up their mind!’ But I think it’s more a story of a person with varied interests and talents who has listened to their inner voice for direction. As a coach, my background helps my practice thrive because I work primarily with people trying to make sense of the unsensible. Having this background that seems all over the place is just the surface, but how I’ve managed to make it all gel together and become a career I still enjoy and find interesting is the deeper, arguably more important aspect. My main takeaway is that this variation directly reflects my talent to make sense of the unsensible, bridge together many different worlds, and see how they interplay and overlap. As a coach, that is an essential skill and unique offering to have because when you’re dealing with things that don’t make sense, you want the person who knows how to make sense of nonsense guiding you along the way.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Resilience, reflection, and adaptability.
Resilience is required for anything in life, especially when we want to create or change things. I don’t think of resilience as simply pushing through tough times; it is more about being able to manage ourselves through tough times and, of course, to forge ahead even when things are difficult or unpleasant. My experience leaving the new-age cult is a story of resilience. A lot of the beliefs and dogma of the cult were that leaving meant you wouldn’t be safe in life, and would ‘call in’ negative experiences. Those beliefs and phobias were implanted over years of subtle coercion and exploitation of hypnotic states, a very subtle type of mind control. When I realized I needed to leave, I realized that the leader and leadership of the group were engaging in a lot of spiritual bypassing and refusing to acknowledge and take responsibility for the harm they were causing. I knew this group wasn’t right for me, I hadn’t realized it was a cult yet, but I knew I needed to leave. It took about a year of planning and educating myself to break through the very loud voices of the group dogma and to trust myself that leaving was my best option. I faced a lot of discomfort, the loss of close friends, the loss of my spiritual belief system, and losing a support network I thought I could rely on. My resilience kept me going; I faced those difficult realities and didn’t look back. It was hard, uncomfortable, and difficult, but I am so much better off being on this side of that experience than I ever was on the inside.
One of the ways we can grow the most is through our self-reflection. This one is hard for me as I struggle with imposter syndrome and an increased sensitivity to criticism, but it is required. We have to look back on what we did, how we did it, and how it impacted others in order to become the people we want to be. This quality comes up most often in my close personal relationships. Instead of trying to pretend something isn’t happening or that I’m not feeling the way I am, I use my powers of reflection to clarify how I feel and how I can communicate that to others to find a productive bridge forward. Using reflection helps me continuously check up on myself and make sure I’m adhering to my own internal code of ethics and integrity and having the impact that I want to have in the world.
I’d like to say adaptability is my middle name; as someone with ADHD, I think we strive in a multi-faceted environment much of the time. Seeing where things work and where they don’t is the first step in adaptability, but the most important step comes after that — action. This year I closed my non-profit, The Integrative Healing Institute; we offered continuing education courses to acupuncturists and other healthcare providers. After a few years, it became clear to me that not only did I no longer have the bandwidth or energy to put into the business to make it what it needed to be, but I was also no longer motivated or interested in our work. I took a long, hard look at the numbers, which were barely breaking even, and made the call to close the business. It was a bittersweet ending indeed, but a much-needed one. I chose to let go and adapt to what I was facing in that business and my overall career.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that might help people?
I am! I’m writing my first book! Its working title is Beyond Limitations: An Essential Guide for Changing Your Life When Your Life Can’t Change, it’s on track to be out in the Spring of 2025, presale to come soon on my website. It’s the culmination of all of my life’s work and experience formatted as a book/workbook to give you practical tools and exercises to work through things like major life changes, loss, grief, chronic illness, chronic pain, and terminal illness. I think that we often focus too much on trying to ‘cure’ our issues by spending a lot of effort attempting to make things go away, but the reality is that sometimes things won’t or can’t change. We can’t bring our loved ones back from the dead, we can’t cure an incurable disease, we can’t change the past and our experiences, trauma, and harm we’ve experienced. We can, however, sometimes, shift how we move forward and how we experience the reality we have at this moment. This book aims to help you do just that, and of course, it has my personal nihilistic and mystic atheist lens, so it’s not a super ‘woo-woo’ book. It acknowledges the limitations we have personally and as a society to help you live in the middle ground of acknowledging that some stuff won’t ever change, but some things we can change, even if it’s just our internal world.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s start with a simple definition so that we are all on the same page. How would you define a Toxic Relationship?
I look at toxic relationships through the lens of coercive control. Coercive control is a sort of catch-all phrase that describes mind control, cults, and toxic relationships of all shapes and sizes and can be understood as a pattern of behaviors and strategies used by one partner (or leader) to dominate, manipulate, and maintain power over the other. A toxic relationship is any relationship of any dynamic or size that effectively operates in an authoritarian way. There is a leader (abuser) and their victim(s); the leader comes into power in this dynamic by way of manipulation, mind control tactics, and control through abusive practices that can be physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual.
Unlike overt violence, coercive control often involves subtle, persistent, and insidious tactics that erode the victim’s autonomy, sense of self, and freedom over time; it’s this subtlety that I think makes this model an excellent way to understand toxic relationships. Overtly violent and physically abusive relationships are toxic and fall under the jurisdiction of coercive control. Still, the subtleties of psychological abuse are more difficult to recognize, which is why I use this lens to understand and explain toxic relationships. It’s also through this lens we can forge a path toward healing. By understanding how coercive control works, we can prevent ourselves from falling victim to it again, which is an unfortunate reality for many people — repeating the same pattern of toxic relationships over and over again. As a friend or close family member of a victim of a toxic relationship, understanding coercive control will also give you a better framework to understand what your loved one is going through and how to help them.
What are the common signs of emotional, financial, and/or psychological abuse in various types of relationships (e.g., romantic, familial, professional)? How can individuals recognize and address these forms of abuse effectively?
There are many models to explain coercive control, but Steven Hassan’s BITE model is pretty appropriate to help us understand a toxic relationship. BITE stands for Behavior, Information, Thoughts, and Emotions and refers to the act of control over each element. When assessing if a relationship is toxic, we can break down our experience through this model to see how it might fit. It’s also important to note that control through these aspects can range from mild to severe, and even if something seems mild, it can still have a severe impact.
Behavior Control can include controlling how someone dresses, how they speak, what they are allowed to say or not, who they can spend time with, how they wear their hair, etc. The way control is implemented is generally not by blatant command but by subtle manipulation. “I prefer my girlfriends to have long hair, and it would make me question our relationship if you cut yours off.” is a moderately subtle cue for control of how their partner wears their hair. Behavior may also include financial control — hiding finances or requiring access to a partner’s finances, requiring permission for decision making and where you live. Sexual control is often prominent in toxic relationships, which can include any aspect of control of how sex is approached within the relationship, forcing someone to be on birth control or not, a sex schedule, and in extreme instances, rape, incest, and sexual assault. The controlling partner might offer rewards for ‘good’ behavior and punishment for negative behavior. Punishment can be as severe as physical assault but is more often in the form of subtle threats, restrictions on affection, and other subtle punishments that don’t look harmful but produce lasting psychological or emotional damage.
Information Control is controlling the information a person is able to access. In the extreme version, this is keeping someone illiterate and restricts their access to outside information in all forms. Lying, deception, and omissions are a big part of information control; withholding information or distorting information through subtle lies impacts the quality of information that a person receives. Minimizing or belittling information sources or ideas that don’t line up with the abusive partner’s point of view is another form of information control. Keeping tabs on phone records and texts, having access to your email account, and keeping you so busy or confused that you don’t have time or the bandwidth to think clearly about the situation can all control information. Information control is not only how information is controlled to the victim but also how it is controlled to ‘outsiders’ of the relationship. This is putting on a perfect image, curating an Instagram feed, or telling family members that everything is absolutely perfect when it is not. An abusive partner may control information by getting outside forces, friends, etc, to spy on their partner, tracking behavior and interactions through third parties. Finally, one last aspect of information control is an unethical use of confession, requiring a partner to ‘own up’ or confess when they have betrayed the abuser or not followed their requests and demands. They might require this confession and then withhold forgiveness, and of course, gaslighting will be prominent in this dynamic as well, manipulating memories, denying reality, and making the victim feel confused and inhuman.
Thought Control is one of the most interesting dynamics of toxic relationships. We never think that we would ever be in a situation where we would allow someone to control our thoughts, and yet it happens, often because this type of control is extremely subtle and slowly implemented over time. The essence of thought control is making the victim take on the abuser’s thoughts, beliefs, and dogma as their own. The victim adopts the abuser’s ‘map of reality’ and black-and-white/all-or-nothing thinking patterns. This is where an us vs them mentality can come into play — ‘well, they just don’t understand what we have.’ An abuser might require a partner to change their name or identity. They often use what we call ‘thought-stopping cliches’ to mitigate reflection and change. A thought-stopping cliche constricts knowledge, stops critical thoughts, and reduces complexities into nonsense buzzwords or phrases. When confronted with a critical question, the response from the abuser might be something like “You’re overreacting,” “You’re always so emotional,” “Other people have it worse than this,” “Why can’t you just let it go.” Thought stoppers are a form of gaslighting that effectively deflects responsibility and stops a conversation from progressing. Denial, rationalizations, justification, and wishful thinking are thought-stopping techniques that shut down reality testing by focusing only on positive thoughts. Naturally, in a toxic relationship, there is no room for civil discourse, reflection, and constructive criticism, and if there were a desire for a real conversation like this, punishment would likely be a result.
Finally, Emotion Control is where the abuser manipulates and narrows the range of feelings and emotions that the victim is allowed to experience, usually by deeming those emotions wrong, selfish, or out of control. Emotion-stopping is required and often enforced by punishment; crying is seen as a weakness or an overreaction. “If you’re having a negative reaction to this, that’s your emotion to deal with, and it isn’t my problem.” I think this is one of the most toxic phrases someone can use because within it they acknowledge the hurt a person is experiencing but completely denounce their responsibility and impact on the situation. While yes, our emotions are our own to deal with and work with, they are not triggered in a vacuum, and someone who cares about us will care about how their actions impact us instead of denying their role. Feelings of guilt, unworthiness, and shame are promoted in a toxic relationship and can take on many forms. Being berated for past mistakes, body shamed, guilted for your identity, dissatisfaction with certain friendships, and being told you are selfish or out of line are all examples of emotion control by the instillation of guilt and shame. Fear might be another route to control emotions; telling someone they will be left in the dark or homeless if they leave or threatening suicide by the abuser if the victim leaves are examples of the types of fears that can be instilled in a toxic dynamic. The roller coaster of highs and lows is another critical element to maintaining control, especially emotion control, in a toxic relationship. The abusive partner might show up and create an incredibly romantic evening with everything they love, only to swing back in the other direction later. Love bombing and a quick escalation are often hallmark signs of the beginning of a toxic relationship. Love bombing is a very dysregulating experience and also mimics a hypnotic state in some circumstances; this leads us to make decisions we might not normally make if we were in a more regulated headspace. Finally, phobia indoctrination is an element of emotion control; this is where an abusive person creates a story about how the victim will be more harmed or worse off if they were to ever leave them, in severe cases even threatening assault and murder.
How can someone begin the healing process after leaving a toxic relationship? Based on your research or experience, can you please share your “5 Things You Need To Heal After A Toxic Relationship”?
1 . Get safe and get out
I don’t believe that we have to leave a toxic environment to begin our healing, but leaving the environment is usually required to accelerate our healing and get where we want to be in our lives. One common thread with coercive control dynamics is the impact of exit costs — the real or perceived costs and losses associated with leaving. For some, it might be a home, their children, friends, or money. Others might fear retaliation or spiritual retribution for leaving — exit costs are vast and varied, and they are all valid. A common exit cost I see many people experience with leaving a toxic relationship is feeling like they failed for not being able to make it work. This is the sunk cost fallacy in action, where we think because we already put so much effort in we are failing if we bail out. It’s just that, a fallacy, though, and the real jump of healing and choosing yourself is the leaving process. It’s important to do this in the safest way possible; maybe it takes years to get everything in order to be able to leave, or maybe you can just pack up your car and never speak to them again. Every case is very different. When I decided to leave the cult, it took me nearly two years to actually leave. The implanted phobias and fears, along with wanting to hang on ‘in case’ I was wrong, were very strong factors in slowing my exit. Eventually, it was by speaking with other people who had left that I realized my experience wasn’t abnormal; others felt the same way, and their lives weren’t ruined; they were thriving. In essence, the knowledge I gained from those conversations helped me to feel safe enough to leave. That knowledge gave me the courage to leave, to trust myself, and to walk out the door and never come back.
2 . Validate your reality
When I was first toying with the realization that the spiritual group I had spent 8 years being a part of was probably a cult, I was experiencing a lot of dissonance about my own experience. Was I being ‘too emotional?’ ‘too sensitive?’ or was my experience, in fact, real? Reading books from other cult survivors and speaking with ex-members was a helpful tool to help me realize that I wasn’t alone and that the conclusions I was drawing were, in fact, real. My next step was learning more about what made a cult a cult; in my previous abusive relationship, I spent some time learning about sociopathy and what makes an abusive relationship abusive. It’s in this validation of our reality that we feel safer with leaving and our choice to have left. When I work with a client who is exiting a toxic relationship or group, the first step of our work together is simply to validate their experience. What happened to you was real, it was harmful, and it wasn’t your fault.
3 . Understand what happened and learn about coercive control
The healing process is complex, and I see at the core of it that virtually everyone wishes to never experience what they experienced ever again. Education is the remedy for this intention. By learning more about the dynamics of coercive control and abusive relationships, we can learn to protect ourselves from future interactions that follow the same dynamics. I had noticed that my pattern in life was one coercive control interaction after the next, an abusive one-on-one relationship to a literal cult — I was determined not to do that again. There’s an unfortunate phenomenon that we see in cult and abusive relationship survivors, and that is the tendency to repeat the pattern, or ‘cult hop’ if you will. With education, we solve this problem, and we bolster your ability to recognize these dynamics early and give you the courage to leave instead of sticking it out. Learning about coercive control has helped me to recognize many toxic patterns in my life and even see how it overlays with the alternative wellness spaces. Knowledge gives us the proper information to make informed decisions.
4 . Work through the somatic and emotional wounds
Throughout the entire healing process from a toxic relationship, we will be working on and through the emotional and somatic pain that was caused and triggered by the experience. Oftentimes, experiencing this dynamic will create PTSD or, in a longer experience, cPTSD. Our nervous system is in a constant state of dysregulation as the toxic relationship dynamic is inherently unsafe. When we leave and reach safety, it can still take some time to learn to regulate our nervous system and to process the emotions that come up. My experience leaving the cult was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I made the connection before I actually left that some of the vague, multi-systemic physical symptoms I had that no Doctor was able to diagnose might have been my body’s physical reaction to being in an unsafe environment. Sure enough, within about a month of leaving, those symptoms began to lessen and become more manageable. The emotional roller coaster included periods of immense joy and release and periods of intense grief and anger, with some shame sprinkled on top. Those feelings still occasionally surface to this day; the loss of time, friendships, money, and personal autonomy, along with the knowledge that the group is still operating and harming people to this day, is infuriating. While emotional healing, like therapy and journaling, was immensely helpful, I still needed to work through the physical somatization of those emotions, which I did through reconnecting with my body in various ways. Through exercise, physical contact with other people, and somatic exercises, I was able to transform that stuck energy into something that began to move and fuel me. This work continues on an ongoing basis for me.
5 . Get clarity on how to create a new, safe relationship and commit to it
The final, but not really final, step in healing from a toxic relationship is beginning to envision what you do want and making a plan to stick to it. After leaving my last long-term relationship I was able to have a lot of clarity around what I wanted and needed from a partner. Those qualities weren’t their looks, finances or job they had, but who they were as a person and what type of environment and connection they could create with me. I realized that someone who had done their own personal growth work and who held that work as highly valuable, was a good communicator, and was able to create not just physical safety but emotional safety, were the most important things I needed in a partner. I committed to not accepting anything less than that, and that meant it was going to make dating uncomfortable sometimes because I was no longer willing to play games and I had to say ‘no’ a lot. I put this information in my dating profile and asked very specific questions when beginning chatting with people. This time, instead of saying, ‘But maybe they will change’ or ‘Maybe I can make a concession for this or that,’ I moved on. I was no longer willing to waste my time with someone who didn’t hold values similar to mine, and eventually, I found an amazing partner who met all of my needs and more. Discovering your needs is one step, but committing to their importance and your worth of them is the important step.
Following financial abuse, what actionable strategies can individuals employ to rebuild their lives and achieve financial independence? What resources are instrumental in this process?
Finding a support network and saying yes to programs and people who can help you is an excellent place to start. You may need to get a lot of clarity around your personal finances and see where things are at in order to make a plan to move forward. Get the clarity you need, even though it’s hard to face and begin the process to make an actionable plan forward. There is a lot of shame that comes up around finances and debt, which is largely unnecessary; stuff happens, and financial abuse isn’t your fault. Declaring bankruptcy might be a great option for one person but not for another, but there’s no shame in doing what’s best for you, even if it isn’t ‘socially acceptable.’
For those impacted by multiple forms of abuse, what comprehensive strategies and support systems are most effective in facilitating their healing journey?
I think connecting with others and learning more about this entire experience can be profoundly healing. You might find a support group, things like grief salons, or work with a coach or therapist to help you make sense of it all. Making sense of the unsensible often seems like an insurmountable task, but it is possible, and eventually, we usually realize that we don’t have to make it all make sense, but having more clarity is helpful for moving forward. It can be a complex process to move forward from this type of abuse; finding someone to work with who is knowledgeable in abusive relationships, coercive control, and trauma is an essential requirement for success on this path. I don’t believe any healing is a one-size-fits-all approach; your needs are unique, your experience is unique, and we have to tailor our healing strategy and path to that uniqueness.
What strategies can survivors use to rebuild their self-esteem and confidence?
This process will take time and patience. Self-esteem and confidence come from repetitive experiences of maintaining our inner authenticity in different situations and experiences. By working on self-awareness, boundaries, healing from co-dependency, and becoming more secure in our sense of self, we can improve our self-esteem and confidence day by day. It’s all about doing little things frequently not worrying so much about the big stuff right away; small, actionable steps will get you where you need to go.
How can friends and family best support someone who is recovering from psychological abuse?
A significant amount of the work I do with religious trauma and cult survivors is with the families and friends of the people who might still be involved in these groups and relationships. It’s a difficult place to be in and often feels helpless. The most important thing you can do to help a loved one is to keep the door open and let them know you are always there for them; if and when things comes crashing down or they need a break, you’re there. It’s important to know your limits and not overgive or extend beyond your capabilities, as witnessing a loved one experience abuse day in and day out is traumatizing in and of itself. Apart from that, be careful how you approach the subject, as there will often be a lot of pushback or denial; slow and steady wins this race. Helping someone take a vacation without their partner or get away from a group and connecting with others who have been through a similar experience might be a subtle way to seed ideas of life on the other side of the experience. But usually, we just need to keep the door open and, in the meantime, work on our own discomfort and emotional experience of being witness to this type of abuse and harm.
What role does therapy play in recovering from psychological abuse, and how can one find the right therapist? Additionally, what tips do you have for overcoming common barriers to accessing therapy?
Therapy, coaching, and even hypnosis can have a powerful impact on the healing process from toxic relationships. As I mentioned before, finding someone who is well-versed in abusive relationships, coercive control, trauma, and somatic healing will likely be a good match for someone seeking help. It’s important
I think the most common barrier to these types of services is financial; many do not accept insurance, and many people do not have insurance. You can seek out help through pre-licensed therapists and community-style clinics for lower-income needs; support groups may also be available at low/no cost. Additionally, tons of self-help resources are available online for free or for small fees. While this isn’t the same as working with a trained professional, it is a way to access some help if we are committed to our healing process.
Could you name a few organizations or professionals that provide crucial support for individuals seeking to restart their lives after experiencing abuse, particularly when they have dependents relying on them?
Although geared toward cult survivors, the International Cultic Studies Association has some great resources for people seeking care and help.Since the dynamics of cultic abuse and toxic relationship abuse are effectively one in the same, seeking out these resources may be profoundly helpful. Many people exiting cults have families and nowhere to go, similar to those exiting toxic relationships.
The National Domestic Hotline is another resource dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I’m not sure that this is a movement so much as systemic change, but single-payer healthcare for all would be a top pick for me. So much help is unavailable to many people because of bureaucracy and billing issues with privatized healthcare. With a single entity overseeing all healthcare processes and providing community aid to those who need it, I think this would go a long way to improving our society. If physicians and clinicians didn’t need to go through the red tape of prior authorizations, billing and coding errors, and lack of payment, we would be able to get the care we need more timely.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
You can find me online at www.couragetotransform.com. I offer a free Discovery Call to see if we might be a good fit to work together. You can also find me on Instagram @couragetotransform on Tiktok @couragetotransform and Facebook — Courage to Transform Coaching
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com .
