Psychological violence: signs, types, how to cope

Violence can be physical or psychological ( emotional)

). Most people associate the word “violence” with the use of physical force. The brain immediately produces pictures of fights, torture, the use of weapons and pools of human blood. These are all visual images that are most easily imprinted in memory. But there is violence that cannot be “seen,” and it is often more insidious and dangerous than physical violence. We are talking about psychological violence.

• What does this mean?
• What are the signs of psychological abuse?
• How can you help in this case?

And most importantly, how to protect yourself, your children and your family from invisible, but very real tyranny? First things first.

What is psychological violence?

Despite the prevalence of psychological violence, there is no generally accepted precise and complete definition of it. We can say that psychological violence is an impact on the human psyche that can lead to psychological trauma.

There are borderline cases when you can only suspect psychological violence by relying on your own feelings. If you feel bad around someone, there is reason to reflect and think critically about your experience.

The purpose of psychological violence is to weaken or completely kill your self-esteem and completely control you, to lead you to the idea that you cannot break off a pathological relationship or to impose that you cannot live without the offender.

Methods of confrontation and defense

Psychologists identify several effective methods of countering psychological violence:

1. Find new forces to resist. To do this, you need to weigh your strengths and weaknesses and focus on your advantages. You need to identify your shortcomings, which the manipulator puts pressure on, and try to correct or cover them with strengths.
2. Find the weaknesses of the manipulator, develop leverage to change the situation. If you prepare well and think through a clear sequence of actions, you can turn the manipulator into a victim, using his own weapon.
3. Active ignoring and independence. To prevent the manipulator from feeling superior, he needs to show personal independence.

It is important to start resisting pressure as soon as possible. If you don’t do this, your strength will disappear and it will be more difficult to fight back.

Types of psychological violence

All characteristic manifestations of psychological violence are conventionally grouped into three categories.

Verbal aggression

The abuser will do everything they can to lower your self-esteem or in some way make you feel inferior or powerless. After all, if you feel like you are worthless and no one needs you, you are less likely to leave.

Techniques that can be used for this include:

1. Label. Attention is focused on the negative quality that you supposedly have. The word “always” is always added to any negative phrase addressed to you.
2. Scream. Aggressive behavior , hitting the table and throwing things around is used. With the goal of intimidating you, making you look pitiful and unable to resist.
3. Patronage. Focusing on the supposed superiority of the offender’s intelligence compared to yours.
4. A shame. Making fun of your shortcomings in public, revealing secrets.
5. Neglect. What is important to you is ignored verbally or through gestures, eye rolling, smirking, etc.
6. Sarcasm. Turning any violence into a joke means you are taking everything too seriously.
7. Insult to appearance. Before going anywhere, your appearance, clothes, hairstyle, makeup,
8. Interests. Your hobbies are considered a pointless waste of time.

Blaming the victim and denying the perpetrator's guilt

The purpose of this behavior is to make you believe that you are full of flaws and should be ashamed of yourself. It’s hard for a rapist to live with you, because he has the best feelings for you and, of course, there is no violence on his part and cannot be. Here are the tactics used:

1. Jealousy. Accusations of flirting or cheating.
2. Gaslighting. Denying obvious violence or other actions to make you feel uncomfortable.
3. Guilt. The belief that you owe the rapist something.
4. Accusation. Shifting responsibility for starting a quarrel.
5. Castling. Accusing you of violence. Allegedly, the rapist is himself a victim.
6. Elephant. Accusation of exaggerating the significance of any action.
7. "Because of you". An attempt to justify all problems with your existence.
8. Destruction. Damage to your things followed by denial.

Dominant behavior

The goal is to create a hierarchy in the relationship, where the rapist is at the top and you are at the bottom. The abuser gains power and control. The tactics are:

1. Threats. They can be specific: taking children, ruining things.
2. Place. Constant monitoring of your location. The abuser wants to know where you are and insists that you answer calls or texts immediately. In addition, they can double-check your location.
3. Spy. Control your social networks, mail, browser history in front of you or secretly.
4. Insulation. Cutting off your connections with the outside world, with family and friends, often in order to prevent help from them.
5. Solution. Making decisions for you, without your participation.
6. Financial violence. Retention of money, control of finances , obstacles to getting a job and work.
7. Theft. An order, actions that must be carried out immediately, against your will.
8. Helplessness. It’s easier to do something yourself than to explain it. Rapists know this and take advantage of it.

The technique of some rapists is so refined that it will not be easy to understand that you are being manipulated. On the other hand, some techniques from this list can be encountered once in a normal relationship.

Signs

Characteristic manifestations:

1. Ban on communication, new acquaintances.
2. Fanatical jealousy for no reason.
3. Surveillance. It starts with browsing social networks, phone. Gradually, he can move on to daily monitoring of all actions.
4. Limitation of responsibilities. The partner prohibits the person from doing usual activities in order to limit him from contact with society.
5. Shifting responsibilities. The manipulator shifts responsibilities to the victim in order to show his superiority and subjugate the person.
6. Constant presence. Due to the desire to constantly control the partner, the manipulator tries to always be nearby. He can hide it behind any activity.

Manifestations of emotional aggression:

1. Humiliation. In simple communication and everyday situations, insults predominate.
2. Contempt. There is ridicule of personal interests, professional activities, appearance, religious, political views, hobbies.
3. Despotism. The manipulator behaves arrogantly. He points, gives orders.
4. Criticism. It manifests itself through ridicule, caustic jokes regarding intellectual abilities, physique, personal interests, and daily activities.
5. Threats. Intimidation that affects close relatives, partners, children.

Threats during psychological violence may concern physical harm to others or suicide of the manipulator.

Consequences of psychological violence

It can have serious consequences. In particular:

• seriously harm self-esteem and self-confidence;
• often sacrifices are made by trust in the world and people, which is very difficult to restore;
• over time can lead to anxiety disorder, chronic depression or post-traumatic disorder;
• There may be physical symptoms, such as nightmares, increased heart rate.

Typical victim behavior

Over time, the “toxic” person makes it so that his victim has no one left close to him. He isolates her from others in every possible way, and this ends with no one left who would sensibly evaluate their relationship from the outside and could help the victim. If the victim does not understand his situation or does not have the strength to resist, then ultimately he becomes practically the property of the “toxic” person.

According to statistics, most people who succumb to psychological pressure are weak-willed individuals. But people with a stable psyche, self-control and healthy self-esteem extremely rarely fall for the bait of an abuser.

What to do if you are faced with psychological violence?

Step 1. You have to decide whether to stop contact with the abuser or try to save the relationship.

Remember this: if you hope the abuser will change, the abuse will likely continue.

Abusers often have deep-seated emotional and psychological problems. Dealing with this is not easy. Change will only happen if your abuser takes full responsibility for his behavior, finds professional help, and stops blaming you, an unhappy childhood, stress, work, bad habits, or his personality for the abuse.

It's okay if you want to help the rapist. You think that you are the only one who understands him or that you are responsible for solving his problems, but the truth is that you cannot change another person unless he wants to.

By staying in a relationship, you will perpetuate the violence. Abusers often ask for a chance, ask for forgiveness and promise to change, but their true goal is to maintain control and prevent you from leaving. In most cases, they quickly return to violence once they receive forgiveness.

You may be afraid of how your abuser will react to your leaving, where you will live, or how you will support yourself. In this case, consider whether temporary difficulties might frighten you when you are already living in a dangerously unhealthy situation.

Even if a rapist receives psychological help, there is no guarantee that he will change.

You still need to make decisions based on who he is now.

Signs that an abuser is not changing:

• does not consider the situation serious;
• continues to blame others for his behavior;
• claims that you are the rapist;
• forces you to jointly solve the problem with a psychologist, thereby shifting part of the blame onto you;
• asks to give him one more chance
• says he can't change unless you stay with him;
• tries to get sympathy from you, your children, or your family and friends;
• expects something from you in exchange for stopping the violence.

Step 2. If you decide to stay

If you decide to continue the relationship, contact crisis centers or psychological services. They provide emotional support, information and other services.

1. Communicate with positive and pleasant people.
2. Lead an active social life.
3. Develop a positive outlook and self-talk.
4. Praise yourself and come up with arguments to counter insults.
5. Free up time for activities you enjoy.
6. Try to control the situation and prevent violence from developing.

Causes

Causes:

1. Cowardice. Individuals who possess this quality try to establish themselves at the expense of others. This leads to humiliation and bullying.
2. Mental disorders. People suffering from schizophrenia, narcissism, and sociopathy more often resort to violence.
3. Lack of self-realization. If a person could not find a purpose in life, he does not have personal interests, hobbies, or a favorite activity, he seeks to increase his authority in the family in order to justify himself.
4. Poor communication skills. People who do not know how to express their opinions verbally often take it out on others.
5. Negative experiences in the past. A partner who was bullied in a past relationship may turn into a manipulator.

There are situations when a novice manipulator is aware of his problems, but cannot cope with them on his own. He needs help from his loved ones.

How to overcome an abuser if he acts as a boss?

In the event that you have to experience emotional violence in a relationship with management, resolving this problem, of course, will be a little more difficult, since it is necessary to maintain the hierarchy of subordination and not go beyond the subordination.

In this case, there are also two options. The first is to record insults and humiliation on paper or record the conversation and transfer the materials to higher management. The second option is to leave this workplace.

However, both options are not ideal, and such situations are considered difficult to resolve peacefully. The most important thing is not to hide from such a boss, since such behavior can provoke the abuser, and the situation itself will develop into something terrible.

There is another option, but it requires sufficient moral preparation - to fight for yourself. In this case, it is necessary to remain constantly calm, find weaknesses in the work of the leader and be able to defend one’s rightness without resorting to raising one’s voice or scandals.

Rehabilitation

Violence turns into psychotrauma. It is impossible to cope with it and post-traumatic syndrome on your own. You should definitely visit a psychologist.

For rehabilitation, it is not enough to eliminate the incidents of violence themselves, the impact itself. It is necessary to eliminate traumatic memories and experiences associated with what happened. It is important to give vent to the victim's feelings. Reactions vary from person to person, but are common:

• fear;
• negation;
• shock from the feeling of a hopeless situation or failure to accept alternative solutions;
• feelings of guilt and helplessness;
• anger;
• mistrust;
• inconsistency;
• depressive and suicidal tendencies.

Rehabilitation takes place in stages: working with thoughts, emotions, behavior. To correct the condition, individual or group therapy is used (not all victims can or want to work in a group).

During psychotherapy the following tasks must be solved:

1. Identify problems associated with violence.
2. Help the client gain access to their own resources.
3. Regain a sense of security and control.
4. Identify and strengthen the client's strengths.
5. Achieve complete or maximum self-acceptance.
6. Adjust self-esteem.
7. Determine the victim's share of responsibility. Determine how to avoid this in the future.
8. Restore the integrity of the individual.
9. Help integrate into society, restore social connections.

For individual work, cognitive behavioral therapy, gestalt therapy, psychodrama, art therapy, and body-oriented therapy are used. Read more about each method of psychotherapy in the article “Types of psychotherapy and their brief description.”

Group psychotherapy is useful because it serves as a source of emotional support, understanding and acceptance, and active listening. Group psychotherapy relieves clients of fear and isolation. Other benefits of group therapy:

• multiplication of personal resources;
• feeling of security;
• reduction of anxiety and perception of one’s case as unique as a result of sharing experiences;
• an atmosphere of trust and openness that gives a positive experience of communication and interaction.

In group classes, the same methods of psychotherapy are used as in individual consultations: art therapy, gestalt, psychodrama, cognitive behavioral therapy.