Emotional/Psychological abuse includes:
- name calling
- yelling
- insulting the person
- threatening the person or threatening to take away something that is important to them
- imitating or mocking the person
- swearing at them
- ignoring
- isolating the person socially or failing to let them have visitors
- excluding them from meaningful events and activities
- threatening to use violence
- threatening to abandon them
- intentionally frightening them
- making them fear they will not receive the food or care they need
- lying to them
- making slanderous statements about them to others
- withholding important information that they have a right to know
- demeaning them because of the language they speak
- intentionally misinterpreting their traditional practices
- repeatedly raising the issue of death with them
- telling them that they are too much trouble
- excessively criticizing them
- being disrespectful
- unreasonably ordering them around
- treating them like servants
- treating them like children
- makes hostile jokes about the habits and faults
- ignores their feelings
- withholds approval as a form of punishment
- labels them with generally insulting terms: crazy, bitch, stupid
- repeatedly delivers a series of insults specific to them and designed to inflict maximum psychological damage
- repeatedly humiliates the victim in front of family members and others
- isolates the victim socially, perhaps geographically as well (for example, by moving the family to a remote location)
- blames the victim for all the abuser's troubles and failures
- threatens physical violence and retaliation against the victim, children or other family members
- puts down the victim's abilities as a mother, lover, worker, etc
- demands all the victim's attention and resents the children
- tells the victim about his sexual affairs
- constantly accuses her of having affairs, even when she does not have the desire or freedom to have affairs
- gives the victim the “silent treatment”
- threatens to abuse the children and/or get custody of them
- tells the victim he must stay with her because she needs him and couldn't make it without him
- accuses the victim of being violent if she acts in any way to protect herself
- questions her sense of reality
- forces economic dependency: He prevents the victim from working - either by forbidding her to get a job or by making her life so chaotic that she gets fired - and/or he takes her money
- puts down or denies the victim's history, heritage, faith, values
- hits the wall, not her, to display his power
- breaks personal items that have sentimental value to her as a message that he can break her too
- threatens, tortures or kills her/their pets
- threatens suicide if the victim doesn't stay with him or do what he wants
- spends hours cleaning guns or knives in front of the victim
- threatens to kill her or her children
- destroys victim's self esteem
Behaviour of the abuser – Fathers
Behaviour of the abuser – Mothers
- name calling
- yelling
- insulting the person
- threatening the person or threatening to take away something that is important to them
- imitating or mocking the person
- swearing at them
- ignoring
- isolating the person socially or failing to let them have visitors
- excluding them from meaningful events and activities
- threatening to use violence
- threatening to abandon them
- intentionally frightening them
- making them fear they will not receive the food or care they need
- lying to them
- making slanderous statements about them to others
- withholding important information that they have a right to know
- demeaning them because of the language they speak
- intentionally misinterpreting their traditional practices
- repeatedly raising the issue of death with them
- telling them that they are too much trouble
- excessively criticizing them
- being disrespectful
- unreasonably ordering them around
- treating them like servants
- treating them like children
- makes hostile jokes about the habits and faults
- ignores their feelings
- withholds approval as a form of punishment
- labels them with generally insulting terms: crazy, bitch, stupid
- repeatedly delivers a series of insults specific to them and designed to inflict maximum psychological damage
- repeatedly humiliates the victim in front of family members and others
- isolates the victim socially, perhaps geographically as well (for example, by moving the family to a remote location)
- blames the victim for all the abuser's troubles and failures
- threatens physical violence and retaliation against the victim, children or other family members
- puts down the victim's abilities as a mother, lover, worker, etc
- demands all the victim's attention and resents the children
- tells the victim about his sexual affairs
- constantly accuses her of having affairs, even when she does not have the desire or freedom to have affairs
- gives the victim the “silent treatment”
- threatens to abuse the children and/or get custody of them
- tells the victim he must stay with her because she needs him and couldn't make it without him
- accuses the victim of being violent if she acts in any way to protect herself
- questions her sense of reality
- forces economic dependency: He prevents the victim from working - either by forbidding her to get a job or by making her life so chaotic that she gets fired - and/or he takes her money
- puts down or denies the victim's history, heritage, faith, values
- hits the wall, not her, to display his power
- breaks personal items that have sentimental value to her as a message that he can break her too
- threatens, tortures or kills her/their pets
- threatens suicide if the victim doesn't stay with him or do what he wants
- spends hours cleaning guns or knives in front of the victim
- threatens to kill her or her children
- destroys victim's self esteem
Behaviour of the abuser – Fathers
Behaviour of the abuser – Mothers
