What is at the heart of the power and control wheel?

• A. Power and control
• B. Emotional abuse
• C. Economic abuse
• D. Physical violence

Answer: (A)

The central idea revealed by the power and control wheel is that the driving force behind abusive behavior is a need to dominate another person. The wheel places Power and Control at its center, with various forms of abuse—emotional, economic, physical, sexual, threats, isolation, minimizing or denying, using children, coercion—extending outward as tools that help the abuser maintain that control. That’s why this option is the best choice: all the other abuses are real manifestations of the same underlying goal, used to exert and preserve power over the partner.