Emotional Abuse Support Links

Emotional abuse includes parents’ or caretakers’ acts or omissions that cause or could cause serious conduct, cognitive, affective, or other mental disorders. For example, torture, close confinement or the constant use of verbally abusive language to harshly criticize and denigrate a child. It also includes emotional neglect - withholding physical and emotional contact to the detriment of the child's normal emotional development, and in extreme cases, physical development. (preventchildabuseny.org/aboutchildabuse.shtml)

Other types of abuse are usually identifiable because marks or other physical evidence  is left, however, emotional abuse can be very hard to diagnose or even to define. In some instances, an emotionally abused child will show no signs of abuse. For this reason, emotional abuse is the most difficult form of child maltreatment to identify and stop. This type of abuse leaves hidden scars that manifest themselves in numerous ways. Insecurity, poor self-esteem, destructive behavior, angry acts (such as fire setting or cruelty to animals), withdrawal, poor development of basic skills, alcohol or drug abuse, suicide and difficulty forming relationships can all be possible results of emotional abuse. (NECF, preventchildabuse.com, 1-800-924-2643, "Preventing Child Abuse....Serving America"

Links and hotlines for emotional abuse support:

• Childhelp Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD
• Covenant House Nineline: 1-800-999-9999 Crisis line for youth, teens and families. Operates 24 hours.

Mental Health Hotlines

• 1-800-447-4474
  1-888-ANXIETY
  1-800-64-PANIC
• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE
• The Zero: Good emotional abuse resource.
• Psychological Abuse: Increasing awareness, one person at a time.

Email us to suggest a link for this page, or to report a broken or corrupted link.

Join our Chat and Forum Community!