WHAT IS EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Emotional abuse undermines and ignores a child's basic needs for self-worth, safety and unconditional love. This includes the need for shelter, nurturing, education and acceptance.

Emotional abuse is a persistent pattern of demeaning or threatening a child. It can be intentional or not and can be invisible and gradual.

Emotional abusers can be anyone with perceived or actual power over another who repeatedly participates in these behaviours.

Emotional abuse can corrupt a child's development physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and intellectually.

Emotional abuse can seem so widespread that it is not taken seriously.

It is important to name and acknowledge emotional abuse. Children who have been abused can be helped.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will forever harm me."

WE CAN BREAK THE CYCLE.

One study which looked at emotionally abused children in infancy and than again during their preschool years consistently found them to be angry, uncooperative and unattached to their primary care giver. The children also lacked creativity, persistence and enthusiasm.

"Children who experience rejection are more likely than accepted children to exhibit hostility, aggressive or passive-aggressive behaviour, to be extremely dependent, to have negative opinions of themselves and their abilities, to be emotionally unstable or unresponsive, and to have a negative perception of the world around them." Health Canada

Discussion - What is Emotional Abuse?
Initial comments about emotional abuse:
Emotional abuse is pervasive, insidious and often invisible. It is hard to intervene in cases of emotional abuse in order to prosecute the abusers. Definitions of emotional abuse may be affected by gender, or by cultural, economic and individual contexts.

There is a need to support people who provide care for children, since emotional abuse can be life-long and intergenerational.

Emotional abuse is crazy-making, and manipulative.

Emotional abuse is more painful than other abuse. It invisible and intangible. It actively inhibits a child’s growth and development, and results in low self-esteem, shame, guilt, and inward turning anger. It is often characterized by a lack of personal boundaries and an absence of emotional support.

Emotional abuse targets and erodes the autonomy of the individual, in order to meet the needs of the abuser. It is debilitating, insidious and creeping. This type of abuse could be unintentional, offered as an alternative to physical abuse (by the abuser).

A gradual process of “grooming” takes place in order to convince the victim of the normalcy and acceptability of this abuse.

There is a need to differentiate between an isolated incident and a repetitive pattern of abuse.

What emotional abuse looks like:
Emotional abuse can consist of swearing, giving the silent treatment, blaming, making fun of a child’s emotional expression, persistent and demeaning correction, a denial of the child’s uniqueness, a lack of attunement, lack of protection, threats of dire consequences and the withholding of affection or the use of affection as a control device. It can also involve children being treated inappropriately as a partner or parent.

Conflicting messages are often offered by authority figures about such abuse. The child is left with the feeling of not being good enough, of not being wanted. The child’s feelings are not validated in any way. By acquiring so much knowledge before time, childhood is stolen from each victim.

Who abuses?

Siblings or other family members, grandparents, teachers, parents, neighbours, friends or peers, coaches, bosses, ministers or other religious leaders, partners, ex-partners, members of the medical community, therapists, the media and government policymakers can all be emotional abusers.

Symptoms of emotional abuse:
Anger, aggression, shame, depression, emotional abusiveness towards others, self harming, attention seeking behaviours, withdrawal, additions and perfectionism can all be symptoms of emotional abuse.

Issues and concerns about emotional abuse:

Emotional abuse is extremely widespread, and because of this, it is not taken seriously. This type of abuse affects individuals differently, and can be hard to diagnose. Emotional abuse alone is rarely investigated unless it is tied to other forms of abuse. How do we define, differentiate or draw boundaries?

The old rhyme “sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me” is not true.

Victims of emotional abuse can become desensitized and emotionally abusive to themselves.

This type of abuse is not named or acknowledged as abuse. There is a stereotyping of people who have suffered emotional abuse, i.e. that they are highly functioning.

REFERENCES ON EMOTIONAL ABUSE:

Ashner, Laurie and Mitch Meyerson. When Parents Love Too Much: What Happens When Parents Won’t Let Go. New York: Morrow, 1990.

Clarke, Jean Illsey. Self-Esteem, A Family Affair. Center City, Minn.: Hazelden, 1998.

Leman, Kevin. Bringing Up Kids Without Tearing Them Down. New York, N.Y.: Delacorte 993.

Love, Patricia and Jo Robinson. The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent’s Love Rules Your Life. New York: Bantam Books , 1998.

“Emotional Child Abuse: Discipline’s Fine Line. Newsweek, October 3 1988, vol. 112 no. 14, p. 48, 50.