Psychological Abuse: A Variable Deserving Critical Attention in Domestic Violence
Abstract
Policy makers and researchers give psychological abuse considerably less attention than physical abuse in the partner abuse area. One reason for the relative neglect of psychological abuse is that there are difficulties in arriving at a common definition of psychological abuse that might be useful to both the mental health and legal professions. Another reason for the relative neglect of psychological abuse has been an implicit assumption that physical abuse exacts a greater psychological toll on victims than does psychological abuse. At the extreme level of physical abuse, this assumption seems defensible, but at levels of physical aggression that are most common in marriage and long-term relationships, psychological abuse appears to have as great an impact as physical abuse. Even direct ratings of psychological and physical abuse by women in physically abusive relationships indicate that psychological abuse has a greater adverse effect on them than physical abuse. Retrospective reports, longitudinal research, and treatment dropout research all provide evidence that psychological abuse can exact a negative effect on relationships that is as great as that of physical abuse. Finally, psychological abuse almost always precedes physical abuse, so that prevention and treatment efforts clearly need to address psychological abuse. Eight measures of various forms of psychological abuse that have reasonable psychometric properties and considerable construct validity are reviewed and a definition of psychological abuse in intimate relations is provided.
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Domestic violence has long been recognised by scholars as an issue of power and control as much as physical violence and coercion.
“Domestic violence has long been recognised by scholars as being an issue of power and control as much as it is one of physical violence and coercion (Dobash & Dobash, 1992; Gondolf, 2007; O'Leary, 1999; Øverlien, 2013) .”
From Beyond “Witnessing”: Children’s Experiences of Coercive Control in Domestic Violence and Abuse (2018) · cites this paper as O'Leary, 1999
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- Authors
- O’Leary, K. D.
- Affiliations
- Stony Brook University (US)
- Corresponding author
- O’Leary, K. Daniel
- ORCID
- O’Leary, K. Daniel
- Venue
- Violence and Victims
- Publisher
- Springer Publishing Company
- Published
- 1999-01
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-23
- ISSN
- 0886-6708 (ISSN-L)
- 1945-7073
- OpenAlex
- W2101031831
- Cited by
- 507
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 29
- FWCI
- 13.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Violence and Victims (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (1r01mh047801-01a3)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH47801, MH-57985, R01MH057985)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Social Sciences › Demography › Elder Abuse and Neglect
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Keywords
- psychological violence, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, physical abuse, psychological impact of abuse, treatment discontinuation, abuse prevention, women in abusive relationships, construct validity
- MeSH terms
- Aggression, Female, Humans, Internal-External Control, Male, Marriage, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychometrics, Research Design, Spouse Abuse, Verbal Behavior, Reproducibility of Results, Battered Women
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