Psychological Maltreatment

Emotional abuse is not easily defined. Researchers appeared to have had difficulty in coming to an accord with the definitions of emotional and or psychological abuse. Some researchers have separate definitions for emotional and psychological abuse (O’Hagan, 1995); others use emotional maltreatment and psychological abuse as interchangeable terms (e.g. Vissing and Bailey, 1996); others report on psychological abuse (e.g. Ferguson & Dacey, 1997); others use the phrase emotional abuse (e.g. Hamarman & Bernet, 2000; Thompson and Kaplan, 1996) and others refer to emotional abuse and neglect as psychological maltreatment (Glaser, 2002). In relation to emotional abuse, two theories were examined. According to Erikson’s Psychosocial Development

There is much difficulty in defining emotional and or psychological abuse due to its complexity and also in differentiating between what is abuse and maltreatment. Maltreatment of children is a social judgment and is based on judging parental behaviour as suitable or unsuitable according to recognized standards within a society. Psychological maltreatment consist of these standards. Many parents, likewise professionals, have recognized impairments in children’s life from varied forms of exposure of emotional abuse. The abusive nature of psychological maltreatment, can be demonstrated by the subjectivity of abuse, the repetitiveness and the socio-cultural context in which it occurs. However, this idea becomes suspect and one event of maltreatment can be just as detrimental as the reoccurrence of it. (Glaser, 2002) defines emotional abuse and neglect as a carer-child relationship that is marked by patterns of harmful interactions, requiring no physical contact with the child. These forms of ill-treatment are easily observable by family members and friends and motivation to harm the child is not necessary. According to Oates (1996), emotional abuse is the habitual, verbal harassment of a child by disparagement, criticism, threat, ridicule and the inversion of love; by verbal and nonverbal means, rejection and withdrawal are

Over-pressuring behaviours include excessively advanced expectations of the child, criticism and punishment of age-appropriate behaviours as inadequate, and making comparisons to those who are very advanced, consistently leaving the child "poor by comparison." According to Hamarman & Bernet (2000) the severity of emotional abuse is a combination of intent and harm: (1) an action that is characterized with an intent and high probability to cause harm is considered severe emotional abuse; (2) an action that is characterized by either intent or high probability of harm is considered to be moderate emotional abuse and (3) an action that is characterized by neither intent nor harm is considered mild emotional abuse. Regardless of the intention by the abuser, children can experience severe