PART 1.25 Continuing on from the general theme of cutting of her connections to the outside world, at one point, she announces to him that she's visiting her family tomorrow on short notice. He gets really upset and angry about it. While she's visiting her family, he uses specifically formulated language to suggest that he's seeing another girl, setting off jealousy and subtly punishing her for it. There's no collar, relationship, agreement, or contract or anything at this point, so she hasn't done anything wrong. This is also a radically different scene in the book (where they just joked about it round the table). It's a stand-alone example of manipulation, yet is a sub-manipulation contributing to the "Isolator" component of his bigger manipulation.
Partial romance was offered to her to seduce her into signing the contract. It was implied repeatedly that romance was not what he wanted long term, so reasonably conjectured from phrases like "I will use you for only what I want", is that he probably wouldn't continue romance long term. He was hot one moment, and cold the next, with his warmth aligned to how she's feeling about the contract. This is "The Encourager" again, as well as a bit of "Notifier".
In one scene, he explodes angrily when she asks "what's wrong?". (It's not the subs fault your business empire is falling apart). A short hot / cold intimacy exchange follows, in which she is basically emotionally blackmailed into hard-limit breaking play. This verbal exchange, essentially word for word, I've observed first hand between abuser and victim. He explodes at least 3 times in the film - a nasty red flag on its own, but for the purposes of this list its another "Notifier"
He sold her car without her consent. Yes, he bought her a new, better one, but still - giving a gift is great, but you don't throw out her old one without asking, this left her at his mercy regarding travel. (Reading the book and the movie and connecting dots I can actually conject that the car had a tracking device in it - but this isn't explored either way in the movie.) This is another "Isolator"
Conditional gifts were given unconsentially. These covered several aspects of her life. Her laptop, her car, etc. It took away her concept of self-ownership of property. One of the last scenes showed her returning all the gifts he'd given her - leaving her without a car and without a laptop. Had this break up occurred deeper into their D/s she would've had even less property, perhaps not even owning her own clothes or shoes, for example. Large, excessive gifts from abuser to abusee are an example of what I'm calling "The Counter-Exhibit".
About an hour in - it became clear that he was setting up an abandonment trigger in her. This is a sub manipulation; He would emotionally bring her close, and then push her away when she upsets him to 'punish' her. He repeats this over and over. By the second hour, the mere concept of him being in a state which suggests potential break up is enough to scare her. I'm close to 2 survivors of intentional abandonment triggers, and his technique could've been taken from their stories. This sub-manipulation forms an additional form of "Feedback".
Putting all the pieces together of his emotional abuse, we get a simple functional way to manipulate Anastasia into doing things.
Encourager, we define something long term that motivates the abused to perform general actions over the course of her abuse. This is usually a target state in the abuser requested by the abusee, and the abused is required to 'work' to achieve it. In this movie it was affection and warmth from the abuser - a fairly common one in the real world. Notifier - the notifier is how the abuser submits an action request to the abused. Mr Grey did it through a variety of methods, most not subtle at all. The simplest non-trivial example was withdrawing emotional investment (or adding anger) during discussion to emphasise particular requirements, but for the majority of actions he simply said what was required and then fobbed off her objections. Isolator - metaphorically, these are the dividers which turn a swimming pool of possible options into a swim lane. They stop the sub from escaping, and they limit the way the sub can commit an action into predictable paths. Feedback. Feedback is how the abuser lets the abused know whether they've succeeded. It can be anything from a violent punch in the face (task 0% complete) to a passionate love making session (task 100% complete). This is the reward or punishment for the abused for progress on their action - a measure of how far down the metaphorical swimlane they've gone. Hot and cold behaviour is a great way to provide feedback to the abused, snapping or triggering behaviour works even better. He did all of these. Counter-Exhibit - Continuing from the Isolator, the Counter-Exhibit is evidence provided by the abuser that he's not abusing you. It stops the abused from seeking advice from themselves. Some very common examples of this in the real world are apologies the morning after from the abuser to the victim. "I'm sorry I hit you, I was just really angry, I'm not angry now, I promise it wont happen again. The abused takes this counter exhibit and uses it to rationalise her past choices, and decides she's not being abused - it was just a bad night. In 50 shades, her constant showering in expensive gifts was an exhibit to both her and her friends that there was no abuse going on - that her relationship was in fact envious, as well as the positive feedback she received for completing actions successfully. And that's how basic emotional abuse works. Its an easy trap to fall into and become the victim to an emotional abuser. I know this not just because many people around me had this happen to them, but also because I personally fell into one once.
Mr Grey is an asshole.