Emotional abuse: definition, prevalence, consequences and interventions

Emotional abuse is a repetitive pattern of child-focused caring emotional abuse that induces a child that is worthless, incomplete, unfriendly, and unwanted. Emotional abuse can have different classes, such as insulting, creating self-confidence, threatening, destroying child's friendships, emotional neglect / neglect, humiliation, neglect / exclusion, compulsion and family disturbance. Emotional abuse is a very common and less known phenomenon. Studies show that up to 75 percent of children and adolescents can be exposed to levels of emotional abuse. Exposure to moderate levels and excessive emotional abuse can have negative consequences. Emotional abuse can affect physical, emotional and cognitive development of children, causing behavioral, emotional and educational problems. Also, its implications for adulthood are also drawn. Some factors associated with parents increase the likelihood of emotional abuse, such as the younger age of parents, the experience of abusive childhood, the type of attachment style, the experience of violence in the current family, psychological problems, and addiction. The age and gender of the child also contribute to emotional abuse. By improvement the personal, familial and social protective factors of emotionally abused people, it can reduce the negative consequences of emotional abuse.