We have just started using that term. Before that it was "intimate partner violence" or "domestic violence". It is a new term, and we have been using it.
To the women and children who come to us, we explain it as repetitive behaviour that is silent and not an act of overt violence. It's controlling, such as needing the phone to see whom they called. That repeated behaviour is what we term "coercive behaviour". It's very effective, because that's when women start saying, "Oh, that happened to me."