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RE: emotional abuse versus emotional neglect
>Hi Carryl,
>I have been grappling with this question myself recently. I don't have any
>answers, but am interested what you and others on the list think about it.
>I recently used the CTQ (Bernstein & Fink, 1998) which has subscales of
>emotional abuse and emotional neglect in a research piece, using a
>non-clinical sampple of sexually abused and non-sexually abused adults. I
>found the two subscales, not surprisingly, to be very highly correlated, r =
>.73. So I now begin to wonder about the usefulness of the neglect/abuse
>dichotomy both conceptually, and in terms of the lived experience of the
>victim.
>
>Conceptually, is emotional neglect not also emotional abuse? Is not the
>lived experience of the victim the same, whether its abuse or neglect, i.e.
>"I am not loved"? I have begun to use the lable "emotional maltreatment" to
>describe the combined emotional abuse/neglect subscales fromt the CTQ.
>Extending this line of thinking, physical abuse/neglect are also, to my way
>of thinking at least, manifestations of emotional maltreatment. Even though
>emotional maltreatment can occur in the abscence of physical maltreatment,
>the reverse, I believe, never can.
>
>I offer these comments merely as indicators of where my thinking is at
>today, and am happy to be informed of alternative knowledge.
>
>
>
>Trisha Leahy
>Senior Psychologist
>Australian Sports Commission
>Leahyt@ausport.gov.au
Trisha,
I'm wondering how many out there agree with the conceptualization that
emotional neglect is caregiver acts of "omission" whereas emotional abuse
is acts of "commission". In our laboratory, we have been using a scale
that we developed called the "Verbal Aggression Scale" in which we
categorize verbal abuse as a specific form of emotional abuse. The measure
attempts to tap into caregivers' verbal statements that would be described
as belittling, scolding, criticizing, etc. We have found that verbal abuse
is quite common, especially in those who report a history of child sexual
abuse.
Carryl
Carryl P. Navalta, Ph.D.
Assistant Child Psychologist Instructor in Psychology
McLean Hospital Harvard Medical School
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