Psychological Abuse: Implications for Adjustment and Commitment to Leave Violent Partners

“Psychological aggression often has an impact that may be more difficult to overcome than the impact of physical aggression (Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“Researchers consistently have found evidence of emotional abuse in conjunction with physical abuse (e.g., Arias & Pape, 1999; Campbell, 2002; Coker et al., 2002), and reviews of the literature have suggested that ridicule, put-downs, and excessive control may be more detrimental to mental health…”

“However, other studies have shown that the level of violence in a relationship is not predictive of the choice to leave or to stay with an abusive partner (Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“Coercion theory also leads to the expectation that the effect of physical aggression on depression might be intensified by high levels of psychological aggression (see also Arias & Pape, 1999; Johnson, 2001; O’Leary & Maiuro, 1999).”

“…from male-to-female partner violence include physical injury, psychological distress such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety (Arias & Pape, 1999; Cascardi, O’Leary, & Schlee, 1999; Golding, 1999), substance abuse (Coker et al., 2002), and suicide (Vitanza, Vogel, & Marshall,…”

“…whereas past research provides support for a weak or negative relation between problem-solving coping and PTSD symptoms among IPV-victimized women (Arias & Pape, 1999; Kocot & Goodman, 2003), the current study revealed that problem-solving coping served a protective role for Latinas, suggesting…”

“…resulted in little knowledge about psychological aggression as expressed in dating relationships, a particularly perilous oversight considering the detrimental effects associated with these acts (e.g., Arias & Pape, 1999; Follingstad, Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek, 1990; Sakett & Saunders, 1999).”

“Such a finding was consistent with the literature (Arias & Pape, 1999; Mitchell & Hodson, 1983).”

“So for targets who show signs of PTSD, is there anything to elicit less emotion-focused coping and more problem-focused coping?”

“The study conducted by Arias and Pape (1999) with a sample of 68 battered women living in a shelter in Atlanta, Georgia, reported that the frequency and severity of psychological abuse, but not physical abuse, predicted PTSD symptomatology.”

“…report emotional consequences similar to those reported in dysfunctional mentoring relationships, including depression, lowered self-esteem, reduced sense of autonomy, fearfulness (O’Leary, 1999) and post-traumatic stress symptoms (e.g., anxiety, stress, nightmares; Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“Although they are related, they differ in frequency and severity of occurrence (Arias and Pape 1999; Murphy and Hoover 1999).”

“Four studies (Arias & Pape, 1999; Coker, Smith, Bethea, King, & McKeown, 2000; Dutton, Goodman, & Bennett, 1999; Wijma, Samelius, Wingren, & Wijma, 2007) concluded that psychological and emotional IPV are associated with significant physical health consequences.”

“…aggression (e.g., verbal aggression, controlling behavior; Capezza & Arriaga, 2008; Simon et al., 2001), nonphysical aggression predicts personal distress more strongly than does physical aggression (Arias & Pape, 1999; Basile et al., 2004; Dutton, Goodman, & Bennett, 1999; Taft et al., 2006).”

“Previous researchers have validated the reliability and validity of the measure (Arias & Pape, 1999; Dutton & Hemphill, 1992; Tolman, 1989).”

“…with the literature on female PV victims, which finds that psychological forms of PV are uniquely associated with poor health indicators (e.g., Arias & Pape, 1999; Dutton et al., 1999; Khan et al., 1993; Marshall, 1999; Mechanic et al., 2008; Taft et al., 2005), even after controlling for…”

“…with adult IPV victimization, and PTSD is associated with all forms of childhood trauma (Famularo et al., 1996; McLeer et al., 1998) and adult IPV (Arias & Pape, 1999; Becker et al., 2010; Pico-Alfonso, 2005; Roberts, Lawrence, Williams, & Raphael, 1998; Street & Arias, 2001; Taft, Murphy, King,…”

“Psychological abuse has serious negative effects, which include depression, anxiety, and other forms of psychological distress and trauma (e.g., Arias and Pape 1999; Arriaga and Schkeryantz 2015).”

“Frequent psychological abuse has a very negative impact on well-being and can increase fear, thereby giving women more incentive to leave (Arias & Pape, 1999; Barnett, 2001).”

“…work suggests that greater use of adaptive coping strategies would be associated with decreased PTSD and depression symptoms, while greater use of maladaptive coping would be related to increased PTSD and depression symptoms (Arias & Pape, 1999; Kocot & Goodman, 2003; Mitchell & Hodson, 1983).”

“Research linking reports of abuse in college student relationships to violence in future adult relationships has led investigators to examine psychological variables related to the early adult experience of abuse (Arias & Pape, 1999; Pape & Arias, 1995).”

“Frequency and severity of physical abuse were not significantly related to depressive and posttraumatic stress scores as noted previously (1) .”

“Intimate partner abuse is a multidimensional phenomenon and rarely does a woman experience only one type of abuse (Arias & Pape, 1999; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000).”

“…A. Dutton, Goodman, & Bennett, 1999; Katz & Arias, 1999; Marshall, 1999; Sackett & Saunders, 1999), stress (M. A. Dutton et al., 1999; Marshall, 1999), trauma symptoms (Arias & Pape, 1999), and self-esteem problems (Aguilar & Nightingale, 1994; Follingstad, Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek, 1990).”

“This is surprising because it can be difficult to overcome the negative effects of psychological abuse, which include depression, anxiety, and other forms of psychological distress and trauma (e.g., Arias & Pape, 1999; Arriaga & Schkeryantz, 2015).”

“…to have the greater psychological impact, as measured by levels of anxiety, depression, and reported self-esteem (e.g., Aguilar & Nightingale, 1994, Arias & Pape, 2001; Derogatis 1983; Follingstad, Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek 1990; Herbert, Silver, & Ellard,1991; Taft, Murphy, King, Dedeyn, &…”

“For example, psychological abuse has been found to be associated with chronic pain, migraine, and indigestion (Coker et al., 2000) as well as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“…PTSD symptoms in victims of dating/ domestic violence in that it assessed trauma symptoms not necessarily caused by victimization experiences (e.g., Arias & Pape, 1999; Harned, 2001; Hines, 2007; Street & Arais, 2001), semistructured interviews, such as the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (Blake…”

“However, the Lilly and Graham-Bermann study found that the type of coping moderated the relationship between IPV exposure and PTSD symptoms.”

“For example Arias and Pape’s (1999) definition includes acts that symbolically hurt another, or the use of hurtful threats, and these acts can be verbal or non-verbal.”

“Greater use of emotion-focused coping strategies (i.e., so-called avoidant or passive coping) has been found to predict greater PTSD symptoms among help-seeking women (Arias & Pape, 1999; Krause, Kaltman, Goodman, & Dutton, 2008).”

“For example, psychological abuse and perceived increases in violence severity have been associated with a woman’s intention to leave an abusive relationship (Arias & Pape, 1999; Pape & Arias, 2000).”

“These results are quite similar to Arias and Pape (1999) who found that psychological abuse predicted the commitment to leave an abusive partner, whereas physical abuse did not, and to that of others (Gortner et al., 1997; Jacobson et al., 1996) who found that over time, increased levels of…”

“…studies indicate that psychological abuse, in many cases, can have a more devastating emotional and psychological impact than physical abuse (Arias & Pape, 1999; Folingstad, Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek, 1990), and that psychological abuse frequently precedes physical abuse and, thus,…”

“…and positive social reactions to IPV disclosure and PTSD symptom severity given evidence for a robust association between avoidant coping and PTSD symptoms severity among IPV-victimized women (e.g., Arias & Pape, 1999; Flanagan et al., 2014; Krause et al., 2008; Lilly & Graham-Bermann, 2010).”

“…previous research has suggested that psychiatric symptoms associated with physical violence might be largely due to concomitant psychological abuse (Arias & Pape, 1999; Orava, McLeod, & Sharpe, 1996), results of this study suggest that psychological abuse alone does not account for the elevated…”

“…of other PTSD populations, avoidant strategies have been correlated with a greater number of PTSD symptoms among victims of intimate partner violence (Arias & Pape, 1999) and survivors of car accidents (Fecteau & Nicki, 1999) and both sexual and nonsexual assault (Dunmore, Clark, & Ehlers, 1999).”

“The experience of domestic violence frequently erodes victims’ mental health and coping capacity (Arias and Pape 2001; Lindhorst et al. 2005), which further disrupts family relationships (Riger et al. 2002).”

“High levels of aggression register as being negative and thus may dilute one’s dependence on a partner; lower levels of aggression do not register as being as harmful, despite evidence that even low aggression is associated with lower well-being (Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“On the other hand, Arias and Pape (1999) revealed that women who engaged in more emotion-focused rather than problem-focused coping were more likely to develop PTSD symptomatology in response to abuse.”

“In addition, even when violence has ceased for many years, abusers may use non-physical abuse to ensure the target person’s ongoing submission or compliance (O’Leary, 1999; Arias & Pape, 1999; Fortin & Chamberland, 1995; Iwaniec, 1995).”

“Additional research also found emotional abuse was a greater contributor to post-traumatic stress disorder than physical abuse (Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“Second, previous research has identified psychological abuse as having unique and additive consequences to women’s health problems (Arias and Pape, 1999; Sackett and Saunders, 1999), a potentially severe and long-lasting consequences, such as stress-related physical/mental health problems, sleep issues, and nonspecifi…”

“The link between psychological abuse and feeling depressed or anxious is robust and occurs beyond instances of physical abuse [6,8,60].”

“Due to its higher frequency and pervasiveness and the specific intent to negatively affect the target’s well-being, previous studies have suggested that PA has an independent, deleterious effect (Arias & Pape, 1999; Taft et al., 2006).”

“Greater use of avoidant and emotion-focused coping strategies has been linked with greater risk of posttraumatic stress disorder following abuse (Arias & Pape, 1999) and with dysfunctional attributions of blame following rape (Arata, 1999).”

“Such negative feelings, in turn, diminish couple relationship well-being and increase victims’ tendency to end the relationship (Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“…between adaptive coping strategies and psychological well-being or overall positive mental health outcomes (Kocot & Goodman, 2003; Taft et al., 2007); whereas, maladaptive coping has been shown to be associated with greater psychological difficulties (Arias & Pape, 1999; Clements et al., 2004).”

“Some investigations among battered women in shelters have shown that psychological aggression is a more robust predictor of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms than is physical assault (Arias and Pape 1999; Dutton et al. 1999; Street and Arias 2001).”

“Arias and Pape (1999) reported that 88% of battered women who participated in their study indicated high “clinical levels of [post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)]” (p. 64).”

“Such studies have revealed that emotional forms of spousal abuse, for example, may account for poor self-esteem and posttraumatic stress symptomatology (Arias & Pape, 1999) previously attributed to physical battery.”

“Although physical abuse was related to women’s intentions to end their abusive relationships, Arias and Pape (1999) reported that psychological abuse was a significant predictor.”

“…1996) is higher; while other studies found that the severity of violence was not predictive of the women’s intentions to return to the partner (Gordon et al., 2004) or, in some cases, that it was positively associated with intentions to permanently leave abusive partners (Arias & Pape, 1999).”

“Psychological abuse has negative consequences that might be as damaging, or more damaging, than physical abuse (Arias & Pape, 1999; Coker et al., 2002; Herbert, Silver, & Ellard, 1991).”

“…in relationships rarely occur without other forms of control and women report psychological abuse is more hurtful than physical assaults (e.g., Arias & Pape, 1999; Follingstad, Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek, 1990; Stark, 2007) and nonphysical abuse can be more frightening (Crossman et al.,…”