Traumatic bonding
Trauma bonds are emotional bonds that arise from a cyclical pattern of abuse. A trauma bond occurs in an abusive relationship, wherein the victim forms an emotional bond with the perpetrator. The concept was discovered by psychologists Donald Dutton and Susan Painter.
The two main factors that contribute to the establishment of a trauma bond are a power imbalance and intermittent reward and punishment. Trauma bonding can occur within romantic relationships, platonic friendships, parent-child relationships, incestuous relationships, cults, hostage situations, sex trafficking, hazing or tours of duty among military personnel.
Trauma bonds are based on terror, dominance, and unpredictability. As the trauma bond between an abuser and a victim strengthens, it can lead to cyclical patterns of conflicting emotions. Frequently, victims in trauma bonds do not have agency, autonomy, or an individual sense of self. Their self-image is an internalization of the abuser's conceptualization of them.
Trauma bonds have severe detrimental effects on the victim. Some long-term impacts of trauma bonding include remaining in abusive relationships, adverse mental health outcomes like low self-esteem and negative self-image, an increased likelihood of depression and bipolar disorder, and perpetuating a generational cycle of abuse. Victims who develop trauma bonds are often unable or unwilling to leave these relationships. Many abuse victims who experience trauma bonding return to the abusive relationship.
Trauma bonding is frequently mistaken for the emotional bond between survivors of a shared experience.
Recent developments and contemporary research
Weaponised attachment
Weaponised attachment is a recent perpetrator-centred framework developed by Cambridge Criminologists Mags Lesiak and Loraine Gelsthorpe that explains victim–perpetrator attachment in the context of inter-personal violence. The model reconceptualises trauma bonding as a strategic system of coercive control rather than a victim-based psychological response. The theory proposes that emotional attachment is deliberately engineered by perpetrators through patterned tactics such as grooming, trauma-sharing and is commonly established before overt abuse begins. While attachment is maintained through alternating care with cruelty, often described as a "two-faced soulmate" profile in which perpetrators combine intense affection with sudden withdrawal, secrecy, or hostility to create psychological entrapment.Where earlier theories of trauma bonding tended to interpret victims' attachment behaviours as symptoms of dependency, pathology, or maladaptive coping, weaponised attachment shifts analytic focus to the intentional actions of the perpetrator. According to the weaponised attachment model, the emotional bond is not an irrational reaction to violence but the product of an organised system of influence, designed to maintain dominance without the need for continuous physical force. Evidence shows that attachment might persist without physical captivity, financial dependence or power imbalance, and that it often continues after relationship dissolution. Attachment, in this view, is established by the perpetrator and it functions as a technology of control: it stabilises domination, suppresses resistance, and secures ongoing compliance even in the absence of overt force.
Implications
The framework of weaponised attachment has several implications for policy and frontline practice:1. Risk assessment must account for non-physical entrapment.
Traditional tools prioritise injury, threats, cohabitation, or financial dependence. Weaponised attachment shows that coercive control can be established before physical violence and without captivity. Risk tools may need revision to incorporate grooming patterns, trauma-sharing, and intermittent reinforcement as red flags of escalating danger.
2. Police and courts require guidance to avoid "relationship conflict" misclassification.
Findings show that patterned manipulation is often misread as mutual dysfunction or poor communication. Recognising the perpetrator profile could reduce minimisation and improve evidence gathering, charging decisions, and family court assessments.
3. Professional training should shift focus from victim behaviour to perpetrator strategy.
Practices based on concepts like codependency or learned helplessness obscure the perpetrator's intentional tactics. Training for police, social care, mental health practitioners and legal professionals should emphasise how attachment is produced, not how victims supposedly "fail to leave."
4. Therapeutic approaches need reframing.
Interventions grounded in trauma bonding or codependency place responsibility on the victim's psychology. A weaponised-attachment lens emphasises coercive influence, reducing self-blame and improving clinical responses by addressing manipulation rather than presumed pathology.
5. Policy debates around coercive control should integrate non-physical mechanisms of domination.
Legislation and guidance typically rely on visible harm, threats, or financial restriction. Recognising emotional engineering expands understanding of how coercion is enacted and sustained, supporting more accurate statutory definitions and better protection thresholds.
Context
In the 1980s, Donald G. Dutton and Susan L. Painter explored the concept of traumatic bonding theory in the context of abusive relationships and domestic violence. This work was then further studied in the contexts of parent-child relationships, sexual exploitation, and more. Patrick Carnes described trauma bonding as "the misuse of fear, excitement, sexual feelings, and sexual physiology to entangle another person." Traumatic bonding is also described as " strong emotional attachment between an abused person and his or her abuser, formed as a result of the cycle of violence." Carnes also studied traumatic bonding theory in the context of betrayal, which involved the exploitation of the victim's trust and/or sense of power by the abuser.Establishment
Trauma bonds are formed in abused-abuser and/or victim-victimizer dynamics. A victim can form a trauma bond with an abuser in the presence of a perceived threat from the abuser. Trauma bonds also form when the victim believes the abuser will follow through with a threat, when the victim perceives some form of kindness from the abuser, when the victim is isolated from outsider perspectives, and when the victim perceives a lack of ability or capacity to leave the situation.The first incident of abuse is often perceived as an anomaly, a one-off instance occurring at the beginning of a seemingly healthy and positive relationship that is often not very severe. Furthermore, the expression of affection and care by the abuser following the incident pacifies the victim and instills in them the belief that the abuse is not recurring. However, repeated instances of abuse and maltreatment later generate a cognitive shift in the victim's mind: that preventing the abuse is not in their power. When the inability to escape the abuse becomes apparent, the emotional trauma bond is already strong.
Two main factors facilitate forming and continuing a trauma bond: a power imbalance and intermittent reinforcement.
Power imbalance
For a trauma bond to persist, a power differential must exist between the abuser and the victim such that the abuser is in a position of power and authority and the victim is not. Inequality in power can produce pathologies in individuals that can fortify the trauma bond. Upon experiencing intermittent punishment from the abuser or dominant individual, who is in a position of high power, the victim may internalize the abuser's perception of themselves. This may result in a tendency for the victim to blame themselves in situations of violence perpetrated by the abuser, which can negatively impact the victim's self-concept.A negative self-appraisal can maximize the emotional dependency on the abuser and the cyclical nature of this dependency. Negative self-concept can eventually lead to the formation of a strong emotional bond from the victim to the abuser. Furthermore, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse can be used to maintain the power differential. This dynamic is also maintained via the interaction of the abuser's sense of power and the victim's sense of powerlessness and subjugation.
Intermittent reinforcement
Intermittent reinforcement of rewards and punishments is crucial to establishing and maintaining a trauma bond. In trauma bonding, the abuser intermittently maltreats the victim through physical, verbal, emotional, and/or psychological abuse. This maltreatment is interspersed with positive behaviors like expressing affection and care, showing kindness, giving the victim gifts, and promising not to repeat the abuse. Alternating and sporadic periods of good and bad treatment serve to reinforce the victim intermittently.The pervasiveness of learning something through intermittent reinforcement can be elucidated by drawing from learning theory and the behaviorist perspective. In the presence of an aversive stimulus, reinforcement through rewards in unpredictable ways is a key component of learning. When the learner is unable to predict when they will get the reward, learning is maximized. Similarly, the intermittent expressions of affection and care are unexpected, and the inability to predict them makes them more sought after. Intermittent reinforcement produces behavioral patterns that are tough to terminate. Thus, they develop incredibly strong emotional bonds.
Maintenance
A trauma bond can be maintained by keeping the power imbalance and the intermittency of abuse intact.Trauma bonds can also be maintained if the victim is financially dependent on the abuser or has some investment in the relationship, such as a child with the abuser.
Cognitive dissonance theory can also explain the maintenance of a trauma bond; it postulates that when individuals experience a conflict between their beliefs and actions, they are motivated to reduce or eliminate the incongruence to minimize the psychological discomfort. In this vein, victims may distort their cognition about the trauma and violence of the relationship to maintain a positive view of the relationship. This can involve rationalizing the abuser's behavior, justifications, minimizing the impact of the abuser's violence, and/or self-blaming.
Furthermore, research shows that the memory of instances wherein abuse was experienced is dissociated or state-dependent, meaning that the memories of abuse only fully resurface when the situation is similar in intensity and experience to the original situation of terror.
If and when the victim finally decides to leave the abusive relationship, the immediate relief from the traumatizing violence will begin to abate, and the underlying, deep attachment formed from intermittent reinforcement will begin to surface. This current period of vulnerability and emotional exhaustion will likely trigger memories of when the abuser was temporarily affectionate and caring. In the desire to receive that affection once more, the victim may try to return to the abusive relationship.
Strong social support can be a protective factor in preserving the victim's functioning and providing a buffer in traumatic situations.