4.1: Introduction and Learning Objectives

Chapter 4: What is Child Abuse? – Psychological, Verbal and Emotional Abuse

Emotional, Psychological and Verbal abuse against children are the most difficult types of abuse to prove in court. This difficulty in no way minimizes the dramatic impact this abuse has on its victims. The scars left by this type of abuse may not be visible on the child's body, but they are often deep-rooted and long-lasting in the child's soul. These types of abuse are often thought of as the most damaging; it is easier for a bone to heal than for a child to develop the ability to bond or trust, when they have suffered this type of abuse. This chapter will explore these abuses, their impacts on victims and what can be done to help the child overcome these effects.

Learning Objectives

By the completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Identify, define and provide examples of emotional, psychological and verbal abuse.
• Identify outcomes of these types of abuse.
• Identify risk factors for children becoming victims.
• Describe what might lead individuals to abuse a child in this way.
• Describe how emotional and psychological abuse is detected and the role various professionals play in helping the child.

What is Psychological Maltreatment?

What we know as emotional abuse goes by many terms. For the purposes of this text, we will utilize the following differentiation: (Crosson-Tower, p. 213)

“Emotional abuse is the sustained, repetitive, inappropriate emotional response to the child’s expression of emotion and its accompanying expressive behavior. “

"Psychological abuse is the sustained, repetitive, inappropriate behavior which damages, or substantially reduces, the creative and developmental potential of crucially important mental faculties and mental processes of a child; these include intelligence, memory, recognition, perception, attention, language and moral development. … psychologically abusive behavior is that which implies rejection or in some manner impedes the development of a child’s positive self-concept.“

"(2/365) Ow headache..." by Sarah G... is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Both of these forms of psychological maltreatment may include non-physical behaviors intended to control or frighten a person. Whatever the term used, psychological, emotional and verbal abuse or neglect of children has long lasting effects. This includes rejecting, isolating, terrorizing, ignoring, and corrupting a child. Because children view their possessions and pets as an extension of themselves, perpetrators abusing or destroying possessions and pets may also be seen as committing abuse toward the child.

Psychological maltreatment and emotional abuse remain the most difficult type to define or isolate. Although the damage may not be visible in x-rays or by examination of the body, the emotional and psychological maltreatment leaves scars much harder to heal than a broken bone or burn might. Emotional and psychological abuse underlies all types of abuse and neglect, but may also exist on its own. Emotional and psychological abuse includes verbal or emotional assaults, threatened harm, close confinement, etc. Emotional and psychological neglect includes inadequate nurturance, inadequate affection, refusal to provide adequate care, or knowingly allowing maladaptive behavior such as delinquency or drug abuse. In many situations parents are both abusive and neglectful; it is sometimes difficult to tell one from the other.

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Psychological or emotional maltreatment is not generally an isolated incident. A pattern of destructive behavior is established between the perpetrator and the victim. Perpetrators may select one child as their chosen victim while allowing other children to live seemingly normal lives. This destructive behavioral pattern may include: (Crosson-Tower, p. 212)

• Rejecting (the adult refuses to acknowledge the child’s worth and legitimacy of their needs).
• Isolating (the adult isolates the child from normal social experiences, preventing the child from forming friendships or alliances, and makes the child believe that he or she is all alone in the world).
• Terrorizing (the adult verbally assaults the child, creating a climate of fear; the adult bullies and frightens the child, and makes the child believe that the world is hostile and unsafe).
• Ignoring (the adult blocks the child from having any form of stimulation, stifling the child’s emotional growth and intellectual development).
• Corrupting (the adult encourages the child to engage in destructive and antisocial behavior, reinforcing the child’s deviance and making the child unfit for normal social experiences).
• Destruction (the adult destroys personal possessions or tortures or destroys the child’s loved pet, both seen by the child as an extension of him or herself).

 

Emotional or psychological maltreatment is the most difficult type of abuse to prove in court. In order to do so, there must be three observable components:

1. identifiable parent (or other adult) behavior;
2. demonstrated harm to the child;
3. causal link between the parental (or other adult) behavior and the harm to the child.

Child Protective Services looks for proof that the abuse has occurred and may rely on testimony of patterns by those who work with the child.