Emotional abuse: Encyclopedia II - Emotional abuse - Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse - Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse - Rejection

Rejection occurs from a refusal to acknowledge a person's presence, value, or worth. It is achieved by communicating to a person that she or he is useless or inferior and by devaluing that person's thoughts and feelings. For example, continually treating a child differently from siblings in a way that is unfair and suggests dislike for the child.

Emotional abuse - Degradation

This occurs from the use of insulting behaviour, such as ridiculing, name calling, imitating and infantilizing. It aims to diminish the dignity and self-worth of the person, and affects their sense of identity in a demeaning way. Examples include: yelling, swearing, publicly humiliating or labelling a person as stupid; mimicking a person's disability; or treating someone as though they were much younger than they are and preventing them from making normal decisions.

Emotional abuse - Terror

This is the evocation of extreme fear in a person, done by coercion through intimidation. It can include placing or threatening to place a person in an unfit or dangerous environment. Examples include: making a child watch violence perpetrated on people the child cares about or a pet; making threats to abandon or kill a child; threatening to damage a person's possessions; stalking.

Emotional abuse - Isolation

Isolation is the limiting of a person's freedom to engage in normal association with others. It may involve physical confinement. Examples include: preventing an older child from participating in decisions about their own life; locking a child in a cupboard or in a room alone; disallowing a partner or older child from using their own money or making financial decisions; withholding contact with grandchildren; depriving a person of mobility aids, transport, healthy living. The abuser wants to see the abused fail therefore they feel that their life is more substantial then theirs.

Emotional abuse - Corruption and Exploitation

Corruption involves training a person to accept ideas or behaviour that is illegal or transgresses cultural mores. Exploitation involves using a person for advantage or profit. The grooming of a child to serve the interests of the abuser rather than those of the child may occur prior to actual exploitation. Examples include: child sexual abuse; permitting a child to use alcohol or drugs or see pornography; or enticing a person into the sex trade.

Emotional abuse - Emotional Unresponsiveness

This entails the failure to provide care in a sensitive and responsive manner and is manifested by being detached and uninvolved, interacting only when necessary and ignoring a person's mental health needs. Examples include: ignoring a child's attempt to interact; failure to show a child affection; treating someone as though they are an object, "a job to be done".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Emotional abuse", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki