emotional abuse

Emotional abuse is a pattern of non-physical behavior that damages a person’s sense of self, safety, and reality. In therapy, it is recognized as a serious form of harm, especially when it happens repeatedly within a close or dependent relationship.

Common tactics include criticism, humiliation, contempt, silent treatment, gaslighting, stonewalling, intimidation, guilt-tripping, shaming, and conditional love. When it occurs in childhood, emotional abuse shapes attachment, core beliefs, and the nervous system in ways that can mimic complex trauma. Survivors may struggle with chronic shame, anxious or avoidant attachment, hypervigilance, and difficulty trusting their own perceptions. Clinical work focuses on naming the abuse, grieving what was missing, rebuilding self-worth, and learning what safe connection feels like.