#168 Alan Stevens: Coercive Control: The Silent Abuse That Steals Your Freedom

What if the most dangerous form of abuse left no bruises?

In this gripping episode of the Healing Through Love Podcast, we welcome Alan Stevens, an internationally acclaimed Profiling and Communications Specialist, to shine a spotlight on coercive control—the abuse you don’t see coming. Coercive control is subtle, manipulative, and often invisible to outsiders. It creeps into relationships disguised as “love,” leaving victims isolated, disempowered, and doubting their own reality.

Alan shares how coercive control manifests—through excessive monitoring, financial manipulation, social isolation, and psychological intimidation—and why it’s often a red flag for future physical violence. Drawing from decades of experience and his proprietary Rapid Trait Profiling system, Alan offers practical, life-saving strategies to recognize coercive control early and break the cycle of emotional manipulation.

You’ll learn:

• How to decode toxic behaviour before it escalates
• Why coercive control is a serious public health issue
• What steps you can take to protect your emotional wellbeing and regain self-trust

This episode is not just about awareness—it’s about transformation. Alan’s clear, empowering guidance gives listeners the tools to detect and dismantle manipulative behaviour, reclaim their confidence, and take back their power. Whether you're a survivor, a supporter, or simply want to better understand relationship dynamics, this episode is essential listening.

🎧 Listen now, share with a friend, and help us bring the hidden epidemic of coercive control into the light. 

📩 CONNECT WITH ALAN

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReadingFaces/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/readingfaces

Website: https://www.alanstevens.com.au

Store: https://store.alanstevens.com.au

The Campfire Project: https://thecampfireproject.com.au

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FaceProfiler

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/face_profiler

X: https://twitter.com/Face_Profiler

📌 PROMOTION:  https://store.alanstevens.com.au/free

♥ ♥

Transcript

Voiceover | 00:02
Welcome to another episode of Healing Through Love. Each week, we share ideas, experiences and resources to increase the awareness of domestic and family violence and to empower survivors to grow and thrive. We talk with experts who share their advice. Or with people who have experienced abuse, no matter where they are on their journey. This is all about healing through love. And now, here are your hosts. Sharlene Lynch and Rose Davidson. 

 Sharlene | 00:42
Hello and welcome to the Healing Through Love podcast. I'm Sharlene Lynch and together we're shining a light on hope, resilience and transformation in the journey to end domestic violence. Each week we bring you inspiring interviews with changemakers, survivors, advocates and experts who are making a difference in the lives of those affected by domestic and family violence. Whether you're on a healing journey yourself, or you're supporting someone who is. This is the place for powerful stories, practical tools and heartfelt inspiration. Let's heal through love. I'm very excited to introduce today our guest Alan Stevens. He's an international profiling and communication specialist who has spent decades, now he's not that old, so he must have started really early, helping people understand human behavior, particularly the subtle signs that are often go unnoticed. He's worked with law enforcement, education, educators and families to decode patterns of manipulation and control. I love it. And he is the editor and creator of Rapid Trial Profiling System. We're going to find out all about that today. Alan brings his unique perspective on how to recognize the early warning sides of cohesive control and how to reclaim confident and clarity from after abuse. I love it. Hello and welcome, Alan. It's great to have you here. 

 Alan | 02:07
Thanks very much. And thanks very much for the invitation to be here as well. And by the way, I'm probably a bit older than you think I am. 
 So I've been around for quite a long time. 

 Sharlene | 02:18
I don't know. Look, I'm just a minute off 60. 
 So I reckon we must be around almost the same age. What do you think? 

 Alan | 02:25
No, well, I'm in my 70s. 

 Sharlene | 02:27
Well, aren't you holding up very well? He has a wealth of information. I'm curious. This is a unique place to be serving the human race. How did you get here? 

 Alan | 02:39
Well, the main reason I got into reading people, profiling, et cetera, was two divorces, a lot of broken relationships and even business partners who emptied the bank. So I had to learn. It was the only way I was going to survive in business and survive in my own personal life as well. And so it's been driving me for a long time to help other people to build stronger relationships. First of all, have those relationships and then make sure that the relationships were created. Are safe. 

 Sharlene | 03:10
I love this. Okay, so let's talk about some old wives tales that we talk about when we're talking about people's facial features. 
 So tell me the story behind the mono brow, like having one brow that goes together across the face. Like, is there a thing there? Or is this just an old wives tale? 

 Alan | 03:31
Well, generally you'll find that when you've got something that's really strong across, you actually have what in the brow itself, the skin, it's raised. It's a trait that we call being methodical. People who like to do something the same way over and over again. A lot of people would see them as being stuck in the way that they do things, not open to change. And that can be misjudged as a negativity, as opposed to realising that Well, every trait we have has an upside and every trait has a downside. The upside is where our strengths are. The downside, let us know how we get triggered when we're stressed. And how to then set our environment up so that we don't get triggered anymore. And so that's where I first came into this, was getting the understanding of someone's personality, first of all, and then through. Changing the way that I like to be spoken to match the way that they need and want to be spoken to. 
 And then from the feedback from their body language and expressions to tell us, Did we read them right? Is there something emotionally going on? And really, are they who they said they were? But most importantly, are they telling the truth? 

 Sharlene | 04:38
We're going to talk about mirroring in a moment, but I still got another question. So the thin upper lip, so a thin top lip, which I can see now so many people are overcompensating for that now with surgery and fillers and everything else that they do. Tell us the story behind a thin upper lip. 

 Alan | 04:56
Thin upper lip is more to the point of somebody who is concise when they speak. They may talk a lot about something they're really interested in, but the sentences, the information they give is going to be concise and to the point. 
 Somebody who's got a fuller upper lip, you ask them for directions, they'll give you the grand tour. They'll tell you everything along the way. 
 You know, when you go out the front door, you turn right, you go past this house and that blue house used to be a greenhouse or whatever it might be. And they'll give you so much information. Whereas concise, like I've got this thinner upper lip as well, hidden underneath my massage. But you ask me for directions, it'll be go out the front door, turn right, go up to the third street on the left. Go up there and you'll find where it is on the third house or fourth house up. That will be my district directions. I don't waste words. Yes, the things I'm passionate about, I will talk your ear off, but I'm not going to waste any words in there, embellish them. 
 So I'm not such a storyteller, but some of that... Large upper lip is somebody who is really good at embellishing stories and they become great storytellers. 

 Sharlene | 06:02
I love it. I love it. Okay. 
 So is there any connection between introverts, extroverts and ambiverts with facial features? 

 Alan | 06:11
Yeah, well, you'll find that some of the traits will, it's a combination of traits, by the way. So I'm looking at about 68 traits. And I'm now looking at some new ones where we're looking at the actual shape of the eyes as well. And there's 15 different eye shapes that will tell us if that person is more likely to be loyal. And there's somebody who's going to be secretive, somebody who is a little bit vengeful, likes to hold a grudge and then needs to get retribution on that. 
 So we're going well over the 68 trades now, more towards over 80 trades. So we can see those in the face, but it's a combination of those when we put them together that then tell us how someone likes to behave. 
 So I'm looking at you, if you don't mind me saying, I can see straight away you put flair into all the things that you do. You have what I call a dramatic appreciation. 
 So great to be a presenter, great to be on stage. But I see that when you meet people for the first time, you like a little bit of space when you first meet them. 
 So it's not that you're not friendly, it's that you're discerning. You want to work out who's safe to be around and who's not safe to be around. And so I then look at those traits and I see how the combination work together and therefore how I need to treat you in a way that you feel comfortable. If I'm an employer, for instance, I want to get the best out of you. 
 So I want to make sure you're happy in the work you're doing and the work you're doing suits your personality. You're going to be happier, going to go home happier. You're not going to fight with your spouse. You're going to be happier with the kids. And if I'm the business owner, I'm going to make more money. This is why in my game, it's all about how to build the relationships we have to make them even stronger. But because we've got so much coercive control going on, we've got a lot of domestic violence, we've got a lot of bullying in the workplace. And some professions are very high in the amount of narcissists and psychopaths that they have running those organizations. 

 Sharlene | 07:58
I love it. I love it. 
 So you're saying that with facial features alone, you can determine if someone has a psychological dysfunction. Yes. 

 Alan | 08:10
Well, if they've said that, you know, if I'm looking at their profile, say on LinkedIn, or I've been talking to them, the facial features will tell me what their personality is really like. But then if they're behaving outside of that personality, I know something's going on. And the questions that I then ask after that, or the conversation we've been having, well, tell me, is this somebody who is just trying to embellish stories because they want to fit in? Or is it somebody who is trying to manipulate you? Because we know when it comes to partnerships or relationships, and we have somebody who's into coercive control, they operate by the initials of CIA. Not the actual investigation organisation, but it is charm. They charm you. And once they've done that, then they isolate you. And once they've isolated you, that's when the abuse starts to happen. And depending on how you respond to that, they can then throw the extra letter on the end, which is K. Which becomes actually killing somebody, the abuse that goes to that level. But understanding whether their personality matches the way they're behaving is, but being able to pick up through the body language and expressions, any variations that aren't congruent or in context with what we're talking about at the time, All of those things become warning signs. And there's so much information that we can call on to make sure that we can keep ourselves safe. 

 Sharlene | 09:31
Yeah, and if we flip that coin then, Alan, what I see could happen is that as a survivor myself, is that perhaps maybe we have facial expressions, facial traits, body language that says, I'm a victim, please choose me. Now, this is really quite a challenging thing to say, because I'm not pointing the finger at anything. But if I'm reading between the lines of what it is that you're sharing, I'm going to say, I'm a victim. You're saying that we have a little red light on our head that says pick me. 

 Alan | 10:03
That's absolutely true. We've found that in research they've done before, where somebody has been through a lot of abuse, and they put them in a room with a large number of people and just one or two abusers in there, they usually find that they get gravitated to the abuser. This is something that happens because it's what we feel about ourselves and whether we believe that we're worthy enough. This is sort of a person that, you know, the only thing that we deserve in our life. And some of those will be at a very deep, unconscious level. At the same time, the abusers know how to recognise those people as the body language and things that they put out. They're very good at picking up those signs. And so the more that you can work on your own self-esteem, and I would say this to everybody, regardless of whether they've been in a relationship or not, whether they're looking at going into a relationship. And if you're happy about yourself and you feel right in that level, life's so much better. And the people you will attract to you will be the ones who want to be associated with that. And we know that everything we feel inside, we express outwardly. And so Well, I'll give you an example. 
 Somebody is speaking and everything sounds perfectly fine, but you have that gut feeling something's not right. We've picked up the nonverbals. Now, at the same time, if you'll recognize somebody who you're talking to somebody and they sound like or they look like somebody that's done the wrong thing by you in the past, people will say, yeah, but this new person proved to be the same. 
 Well, in a lot of cases, it's self-fulfilling prophecy because we don't trust them because they remind us of somebody else. We then turn around and we respond to them in that particular way. And they're going to pick it up. Because we are all energy beings. We pick up people's body language. If we can look at somebody and everything sounds fine, but we think something's wrong, obviously we've picked up a non-verbal. This told us that things aren't congruent. They're not aligned with what a person is talking about. 
 So if we pick that up ourselves, they're picking it up from us as well. - I love it. - This is the. 

 Sharlene | 12:07
Thing. - So many questions, Alan. 
 So the facial reading aspect, is it aligned with any other personality assessment tools, like DISC or like Gallup? Are any of those attuned to or aligned with the facial features? 

 Alan | 12:30
- Well, I used to use Myers-Briggs and DISC Profiling, and training in those. But once I started looking at the face and reading faces, I just put those aside. Because when you ask people questions with any questionnaire, people will try and second guess what you're asking. And this is how it happened for me. There was a company that taught currency trading. None of their students made any money, even though the instructor was a qualified trader and brilliant at teaching. The end result was when people went live, they were still losing money. 
 So they got me to come in and back in those days, this is the beginning of the century, beginning of the two thousands. Yeah. I love that term saying to everybody, the turn of the century, that really makes you feel old. But yeah, In this particular case, the people were still losing money. 
 So I just decided to use Myers-Briggs and disk profiling, et cetera. When we put people through the profile, then they went through their training. 
 And then. When they went live, they didn't match their personalities. And I even went to the level of designing a trading plan that they could use that would look at all the different personality things to make sure they followed it in a certain way that pushed them to make a decision if they were people who struggled at making a decision, slowed people down who rushed into things and all the rest of it. But and that's when I realized they weren't matching their personalities. Because I realize that people will try and second guess what you're asking. And a lot of them were actually trying to figure out what sort of a personality we have to be a good trader. And I'm going, no, you get stressed no matter how much you practice to be a certain way. When you get stressed, you're going to always revert back to your own personality. The triggers will be triggered and you'll respond in that particular way. 
 So I needed a better way of doing things. So that's why the facial print. And somebody mentioned to me one day, you ever looked at reading faces? Now. My belief all my life has been the most important thing I'll ever learn is the next thing I learn after I think I know everything. 
 So straight away, I went in and learned how to recognize the faces and then realized that told me how to change the way I like to be spoken to match the other person. But I thought, well, where's my confirmation? Body language and microbes, those little twitches on the face that happen as fast as a fifth of a second down to one twenty fifth of a second. And the funny thing is our eyes can pick it up really well. And this is the thing when somebody goes, something wasn't right, they picked one of those indicators up. And if things are misaligned, then you're not going to trust the other person. No matter what they say, you'll be again going, something's not right here. And therefore you then, distrust everything that actually said. 

 Sharlene | 15:06
Yeah, so Alan, as a survivor myself, thinking back to how my, I was so... Tangled up in myself that I was obviously had a little red light on saying pick me but I wasn't at a level of awareness to even look at someone else's body language or their Miro expressions or anything else in between because I was still damaged and insular and like Yes. 
 So the level of awareness just isn't there. So maybe for our listeners today, that could be... Obviously everything starts with self-worth, self-esteem, and that's where the whole journey starts. But can you at least start to have a level of awareness around the people around you, as far as their behaviors, their appearances, their facial structures, their body language? And we're not saying going and judge everybody or just saying that maybe if you have that level of curiosity, Maybe you can think twice, yeah?

 
 Alan | 16:12
When you start picking up things that just don't match, You know, if you're talking to somebody and they've, you know, you're talking about something that's really important to you and all the rest of it and you're talking about something that's not quite right, there's, you know, stresses or whatever, and you see a little twitch of a smile, that momentary switch of a smile, you know they're happy. Well, why are they happy? And so, depending on what you've been talking about at the time, will determine whether they've been truthful to you. Say, for instance, you're talking to somebody and you're talking about one of your good friends who is now separated from their partner. And This person's supposed to be their friend. And all of a sudden you see a little twitch on the face, a little smile. 
 Well, you know they're happy. But the first thing that we've got to determine is for what reason are they happy? Could it be that, yes, their partner's just broken up with their partner or their friend's just broken up with their partner and that partner was... 
 Yeah, I didn't really like my friend. So I'm happy because of that, because it was about time they got a bit of a wake up call. Or it could be that their partner is somebody that is really not nice and you're really happy for them and now free from that person. Or it could even be, well, their partner is now free. And my friend's friend is now available, I've got a shot. - Could be a, could be a-- -. 

 Sharlene | 17:33
Alan! Okay, yes, it could be all of these things. So knowing more about how the facial structure works and knowing more about body language and micro expressions could really lead us to asking more questions really, rather than making any assumptions. I love it. But if you want to find out more, if you're listening today, and you want to find out more, please reach into the links we've gotten the show notes and the show description that will have the link to Alan's website where all of he's got some fantastic free resources and more information. I'll I love it. Now, before I ask you the final question, I did want to dive into mirroring and have a look because as a survivor myself, what I did notice is lots of my perpetrators would mirror my behavior to make me feel more comfortable with them. Can we talk about that? 

 Alan | 18:22
Yeah, well, the mirroring and the matching, because there's two levels. Mirroring is when you're looking at somebody and they raise their right hand up and you raise your left. It's like looking in the mirror. Matching is when they raise their right hand and you raise your right hand. 
 So it's the opposite side. Speakers use this all the time on stage. When they are presenting to a stage and they want to get people to say yes to something, they will ask a question and raise their left hand because most people are right-handed. 
 So when they lift their hand up, it's now matched with them. It's mirrored with them. 
 So the mirroring works quite effectively. The matching is another way of looking at something. The matching can be the person folds their arms and the other person folds their feet. At the ankle point, for instance. 
 So it's looking for that. Do they change exactly as you do? Are they talking, you're talking about something and you lean in and they lean in at the same time. What are their other expressions and things showing you? As you said before, it's not just looking at one thing and taking that as gospel. It's looking at that and asking yourself a question. What did that mean? What other things are aligned with that? If you see that every time you do something, I immediately do it. And you can see they're concentrating on looking at where your hands are moving, etc. And things like that, then you know that they're actually doing this deliberately. But the other thing, the thing I really point out to people is that I've talked about people charming other people. My question is always, is that person just a charming person or are they just charming you? How did I treat everybody else around them? Say for instance, you met, you're going to have coffee or you've gone to dinner with somebody for the first time. They're really charming to you. But how do they treat the waitresses and waiters? How did they treat other people who were walking in and out the door? Do they hold doors for people? Do they smile with a genuine smile? If it's only charming for you know you're being groomed. It's the beginning of being groomed. 

 Sharlene | 20:18
I love it. Alan, we are going to have you back as a guest later on during the year and dive in. If you're listening today and you're a survivor of family and or domestic violence, reach out to Healing Through Love. We've got pamper days, so think day spa on steroids in your local neighbourhood. And if you're listening today and you are... A person that has heart centered and maybe a survivor yourself, but you're a wellness practitioner or beautician somewhere where you can hold the space for someone could be a facial massage, a hand massage, could be hair or makeup. If any of those things are something that you can help somebody with, please reach out to Healing Through Love. We're always looking for new practitioners for our beautiful pamper days. Look in finishing today, I'd just love to know, Alan, what are your final words of wisdom? 

 Alan | 21:08
Well, as I was saying before, don't just take one indicator and just Assume that's everything. Look for as many things as you can. When I grew up, my parents used to have, you know, three ducks over the mantelpiece in the lounge room by the fire. A big one, a smaller one, the smaller one, all flying in the same direction. The old saying, get all your ducks in a row. Make sure that what you're seeing all align. If they're mismatching, that you're thinking, they're seeing something there that's telling me one thing, but you're seeing something else, question it. Look deeper. But when all the ducks are pointing in one direction and that's pretty much the situation. If that person is little twitches all the time that don't correlate, something's going on because of the multiple of things that are happening. The expressions align with the body language. All of that. If somebody's got their arms folded, what's the rest of their body doing? Are they facing towards the door? Are they listening in? Are they nodding, etc? It's the combination of all the traits. 
 So everything's in clusters, in context, and are they congruent with the situation as well? Always think of threes. 

 Sharlene | 22:13
I love it Alan that is so powerful thank you so much for sharing with us today we look forward to our next conversation it's goodbye from us at healing through love and a goodbye for Alan. 

 Alan | 22:24
Thank you. 

 Voiceover | 22:28
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Healing Through Love. You can get further resources See the show notes or simply reach out to us via our website at htlaustralia.org. Thanks so much for joining us and we look forward to your company next time on the Healing Through Love podcast.