Types
of Abuse
Physical
Abuse includes bodily harm, discomfort or injury including
hitting, punching, slapping, kicking, pushing, burning,
biting, torture, restraining, assault with a weapon, withholding
of food and/or medical care, and/or murder.
Psychological/Emotional
Abuse is any act that provokes fear, diminishes the
man's dignity or sense of self-worth, and/or intentionally
inflicts psychological trauma as a means of exerting power
and control over the man.
Emotional
or psychological abuse can be verbal or nonverbal. Its
aim is to chip away at your feelings of self-worth and
independence. If you’re the victim of emotional abuse,
you may feel that there is no way out of the relationship,
or that without your abusive partner you have nothing.
Emotional abuse includes verbal abuse such as yelling,
name-calling, blaming, and shaming. Isolation, intimidation,
and controlling behavior also fall under emotional abuse.
Additionally, abusers who use emotional or psychological
abuse often throw in threats of physical violence.
You
may think that physical abuse is far worse than emotional
abuse, since physical violence can send you to the hospital
and leave you with scars. But, the scars of emotional
abuse are very real, and they run deep. In fact, emotional
abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse—sometimes
even more so. Furthermore, emotional abuse usually worsens
over time, often escalating to physical battery.
Verbal
Abuse is the use of vexatious comments that are known
or that ought to be known to be unwelcome, threatening,
degrading, offensive, and/or embarrassing.
Economic/Financial
Abuse is the misuse of an individual's money or belongings
by another individual. Economic abuse includes, but is
not limited to the withholding and/or restricting of money
needed for food and/or clothing; denying the right to
seek and/or maintain employment; taking personal money;
denying independent access to money; and/or excluding
the victim from financial decision-making.
Victims
of abuse in all its forms - verbal, emotional, financial,
physical, and sexual - are often disorientated. They require
not only therapy to heal their emotional wounds, but also
practical guidance and topical education.
