Hi Girls, So which one is at odds with what we've all agreed John Mercer has been guilty of but deny abuse occurred??
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Like other forms of violence in relationships, emotional abuse is based on power and control. The following are widely recognized as forms of emotional abuse:
Rejecting - refusing to acknowledge a person's presence, value or worth; communicating to a person that she or he is useless or inferior; devaluing her/his thoughts and feelings. Example: repeatedly treating a child differently from siblings in a way that suggests resentment, rejection or dislike for the child.
Degrading - insulting, ridiculing, name calling, imitating and infantilizing; behaviour which diminishes the identity, dignity and self-worth of the person. Examples: yelling, swearing, publicly humiliating or labelling a person as stupid; mimicking a person's disability; treating a senior as if she or he cannot make decisions.
Terrorizing - inducing terror or extreme fear in a person; coercing by intimidation; placing or threatening to place a person in an unfit or dangerous environment. Examples: forcing a child to watch violent acts toward other family members or pets; threatening to leave, physically hurt or kill a person, pets or people she/he cares about; threatening to destroy a person's possessions; threatening to have a person deported or put in an institution; stalking.
Isolating - physical confinement; restricting normal contact with others; limiting freedom within a person's own environment. Examples: excluding a senior from participating in decisions about her or his own life; locking a child in a closet or room alone; refusing a female partner or senior access to her or his own money and financial affairs; withholding contact with grandchildren; depriving a person of mobility aids or transportation.
Corrupting/Exploiting - socializing a person into accepting ideas or behaviour which oppose legal standards; using a person for advantage or profit; training a child to serve the interests of the abuser and not of the child. Examples: child sexual abuse; permitting a child to use alcohol or drugs; enticing a person into the sex trade.
Denying Emotional Responsiveness - failing to provide care in a sensitive and responsive manner; being detached and uninvolved; interacting only when necessary; ignoring a person's mental health needs. Examples: ignoring a child's attempt to interact; failing to show affection, caring and/or love for a child; treating a senior who lives in an institution as though she/he is an object or "a job to be done."
? Emotional abuse accompanies other forms of abuse, but also may occur on its own.
? No abuse - neglect, physical, sexual or financial - can occur without psychological consequences. Therefore all abuse contains elements of emotional abuse.
? Emotional abuse follows a pattern; it is repeated and sustained. If left unchecked, abuse does not get better over time. It only gets worse.
? Like other forms of violence in relationships, those who hold the least power and resources in society, for example, women and children, are most often emotionally abused.
? Emotional abuse can severely damage a person's sense of self-worth and perception.
? In children, emotional abuse can impair psychological development, including: intelligence, memory, recognition, perception, attention, imagination and moral development. Emotional abuse can also affect a child's social development and may result in an impaired ability to perceive, feel, understand and express emotions.
