What is your definition of emotional abuse?
AG: Defining emotional abuse is not easy. It has been delineated from physical abuse partially to better validate women's experience of abuse, and partly to enable service providers to respond in a more comprehensive way. Emotional abuse may be defined as a controlling or abusive act that leaves an emotional scar on a woman. One cannot talk about physical abuse without talking about emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is far more insidious, lingering, and therefore more harmful, than physical abuse.
CS: Emotional abuse is any behaviour that is used to control and mistreat another person. This includes verbal comments, degrading her and her family, destroying her personal belongings, and hurting her loved ones, including pets. An abuser may also do something to harm her social and legal status.
PA: In traditional Chinese culture, only physical assault has been named as wife assault -- emotional and psychological abuse have not. Sexual assault is generally understood as a part of the intimate relationship between husband and wife, not as wife assault. Women identify emotional abuse as a marital problem, and hope that the husband may change. Women also see their role as caretaker, with the responsibility of preserving the name of the family. Harmony takes precedence over individual concerns, and women's endurance is regarded as a high virtue.
What intervention methods do you use when responding to emotional abuse?
AG: When working with women who are emotionally abused, my intervention generally includes all or some of these elements: 1) naming the emotional abuse; 2) providing validation; 3) acknowledging the effects; 4) acknowledging the ways she has tried to keep herself safe from emotional abuse; and 5) a healing process that involves women reconnecting with their health, their voice, their intuition and their safety in order that they may once again make choices for their lives based upon their full potential.
When working with emotionally abusive men, my intervention generally includes all or some of the following: 1) naming the emotional abuse and addressing power and control; 2) understanding why men use emotional abuse to gain control of women; and 3) alternatives to being emotionally abusive – from taking time-outs to ideally being able to take responsibility for difficult emotions and communicate wants and needs in a respectful manner.
PA: In the past year, through individual and group counselling, as well as outreach to the community, we have helped women to be more aware of their abusive situations, emphasizing that emotional, psychological and sexual assault are also forms of wife assault.
CS: Validation, support, problem solving, information sharing, and providing her with access to other women to help her break down her isolation and self-blame. We discuss the impact that the emotional abuse has on her because we know that emotional abuse can be just as detrimental as physical abuse. One of the most difficult things is that emotional abuse is not against the law unless it is death threats, therefore as a society we are unable to validate the emotional abuse. We do not minimize emotional abuse. Many women say, "I would rather get hit than suffer the emotional abuse". We encourage an open dialogue with a woman to assess and respond to her in terms of where she is at.
What are your thoughts on mutual abuse?
CS: It is very important for both partners to consider what kind of control they have in the relationship to determine if it is mutual emotional abuse or not. They must recognize what they can and cannot control, and understand that they should not have control over their partner's life. We also look at who is afraid and frightened more. When a woman is describing a situation we ask her how it makes her feel. Is she frightened? Does she have control or is the control being taken away from her? We encourage a woman to look at why she is behaving or responding in a particular way. Is she just angry or is she afraid of what is going on? We also look at the impact that the abuse has on the children.
AG: From a feminist perspective, it is very important to distinguish any kind of emotional or even physical violence that women perpetrate on abusive men, from the abuse that men perpetrate and to situate the abuse within a larger context of power and control. Whereas men may be emotionally and physically hurt by women, that fact alone does not give women power over men. Men are for the most part bigger and stronger than their female partners. They are for the most part, more economically independent (from a combination of factors that can include not being a primary caregiver to children, and/or earning more money because of a patriarchal capitalist system). In addition, the gender socialization that encourages men to be dominant over women gives them societal and familial-backed power. When a man uses emotional abuse on a woman, he does so with all of this power behind him. When a woman yells, insults or tries in other ways to hurt her partner, most often as a defence against him, she does so alone. Acknowledging the differences in power, most women and men are then able to see the greater impact on women.
Resource details:
Patrick Au is the Executive Director at the Chinese Family Life Services of Metro Toronto. He is also the co-author of "Chinese Battered Women in North America: Their Experiences and Treatment", in Battered Women and their Families.
Alysa Golden, MSW, CSW is a Therapist in private practice who works with abused women and their partners. She is also a Board Member at Education Wife Assault.
Cristina Santos is the Clinical Director at the Abrigo Centre.
Type/Format of Resource: Article; Interview(s)
Category/Topic of interest: Emotional Abuse
Population Group: Friends & Family; Victims / Survivors
Language of Resource: English
Year of Publication: 1995-1999
Contact Information:
Program Manager
Springtide Resources
t- 416-968-3422
f- 416-968-2026
[email protected]
http://www.springtideresources.org