Emotional Abuse: A Review

The emotional abuse of children has been principally analyzed as a form of psychological maltreatment. Garbarino, Guttmann, and Seeley (1989) have identified and traced five principal components of abuse suffered by infants, small children, school-age children, and adolescents:
Rejection or emotional abandonment
Terror
Ignoring the child
Isolation
Corruption
...A review of the literature suggests that children who experience emotional abuse present with multiple emotional anad behavioral problems.... Those who internalize the abuse become depressed, suicidal, and withdrawn. They manifest self-destructiveness, depression, suicidal thoughts, passivity, withdrawal (avoidance of social contacts), shyness, and a low degree of communication with others.... They are likely to have low self-esteem...and may suffer from feelings of guilt and remorse, depression, loneliness, rejection, and resignation. Perceiving themselves as unworthy and the world as a hostile place in which they are bound to fail, many are unwilling to try new tasks or develop new skills. They have difficult visualizing and planning for the future. Emotionally abused children have nightmares, nervous habits, and suffer from such somatic complaints as headaches...