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The Physiology of Domestic Abuse

CPD/CE Accredited Workshop

Duration: 90 minutes or 3 hours

A Nervous-System-Led Framework for Understanding Survivor Responses and Improving Front-Line Practice

Domestic abuse is not primarily a psychological choice. It is a physiological survival experience. When a person is exposed to ongoing threat, control and coercion, their nervous system adapts to keep them safe. These adaptations shape behaviour, memory, communication and decision-making, often in ways that are misunderstood by systems designed around logic, compliance and linear thinking.

This workshop offers a bottom-up, trauma-informed approach to domestic abuse, helping professionals understand how survivors respond at a nervous-system level and why many common responses are misinterpreted as resistance, inconsistency or lack of cooperation.

The Physiology of Domestic Abuse

CPD/CE Accredited Workshop

Duration: 90 minutes or 3 hours

A Nervous-System-Led Framework for Understanding Survivor Responses and Improving Front-Line Practice

Domestic abuse is not primarily a psychological choice. It is a physiological survival experience. When a person is exposed to ongoing threat, control and coercion, their nervous system adapts to keep them safe. These adaptations shape behaviour, memory, communication and decision-making, often in ways that are misunderstood by systems designed around logic, compliance and linear thinking.

This workshop offers a bottom-up, trauma-informed approach to domestic abuse, helping professionals understand how survivors respond at a nervous-system level and why many common responses are misinterpreted as resistance, inconsistency or lack of cooperation.

What You Will Learn

Participants will gain a clear, embodied understanding of how domestic abuse impacts the nervous system and how this shows up in real-world behaviour.

How a survivor’s nervous system responds to ongoing threat, including fight, flight, freeze and collapse responses.

Why survivors may appear calm, compliant, confused, inconsistent or emotionally disconnected and how these responses are rooted in survival physiology rather than choice.

How chronic fear and coercive control affect memory, attention, speech and decision-making, particularly during disclosures, interviews or high-pressure situations.

Why leaving an abusive situation is often physiologically threatening, not relieving and how the body can interpret separation as increased danger.

How trauma bonding and attachment responses are driven by nervous-system regulation rather than emotional dependence or weakness.

The impact of abuse on the coping capacity, including hypervigilance, shutdown and rapid emotional shifts that can be misread by professionals.

How to recognise signs of nervous-system dysregulation during interactions with survivors and respond in ways that reduce threat rather than escalate it.

Practical, regulation-focused strategies to support safety, grounding and stabilisation without forcing disclosure or decision-making.

How a nervous-system-led understanding improves safeguarding, risk assessment and survivor engagement across services.

Who This Workshop Is For

  • Police officers and frontline responders

  • Domestic abuse and refuge staf

  • Social workers and safeguarding teams

  • Health professionals and mental health practitioners

  • Probation services and criminal justice professionals

  • Housing, education and community support organisations

  • Coaches, therapists and wellbeing practitioners seeking trauma informed practice

Why This Matters

When professionals understand survivor behaviour through physiology rather than psychology alone, responses become safer, more compassionate and more effective. This reduces re-traumatisation, increases trust and improves outcomes for survivors navigating complex systems during high-risk periods.

This workshop supports a shift from asking “Why don’t they just leave?” to understanding “What has their nervous system learned to do to survive?”

Workshop Format

Duration: 90 minutes or 3 hours

Accreditation: CPD-accredited

Delivery: In-person or online

Approach: Trauma-informed, nervous-system-led, practical and evidence-based

This is essential training for any service committed to survivor-centred, trauma informed practice grounded in the realities of how the human body responds to abuse.

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