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Emotional abuse may also include humiliating the victim in front of family, friends or strangers. Batterers may repeatedly claim that victims are crazy, incompetent, and unable “to do anything right.” These tactics are used to maintain power and control over the victim and are similar to those used against prisoners of war or hostages. Not all verbal insults between partners are acts of violence. To be considered domestic violence, it must be part of a pattern of behaviors in which the batterer uses or threatens to use physical force. In domestic violence, verbal attacks and other tactics of control are intermingled with the threat of harm in order to maintain the control and dominance through fear. While repeated verbal abuse is damaging to partners and relationships over time, it alone does not establish the same climate of fear as verbal abuse combined with the use or threat of physical harm. The presence of emotionally abusive acts may indicate hidden use of physical force or it may indicate possible future domestic violence. Research at this point can not predict which emotionally abusive relationships will become violent and which will never progress beyond verbal abuse. If the victim feels abused or controlled or afraid of her partner without showing or offering clear indications of physical harm, then the cautious approach would be to accept the patient’s views as stated and to respond with concerns about the victim’s safety and psychological well-being.
Isolation
Batterers often try to control the victim’s time, activities and contact with others. They gain control over them through a combination of isolating and disinformation tactics. Isolating tactics may become more overtly abusive over time. The batterer may start by cutting off victims from supportive relationships with claims of loving them “so much” and wanting to be with them all the time. In response, the victims may initially spend increasing amounts of time with their batterer. These subtle means of isolating the victim are replaced with more overt verbal abuse (e.g., “interfering” family, complaints about her spending too much time with others); sometimes the batterer uses physical assaults or threats of assault to separate the victim from her family or friends. He may lock her out of her house or control her movements by taking her car keys or forcing her to quit her job. The batterer will often move the family to a new location, away from the victim’s family, friends, and her support system in general. Batterers’ use of disinformation, distorting what is real through lying, providing contradictory information, or withholding information is compounded by the forced isolation of the victims. While many victims are able to maintain their independent thoughts and actions, others believe what the batterers say because the victims are isolated from confirming or denying the information. The batterer can also isolate the victim by acting jealous and interrupting social/support networks. They often accuse the victim of sexual infidelity and of other supposed infidelities, such as spending too much time with children, the extended family, at work, or with friends. They claim that family or friends are trying to ruin their relationship. This jealousy about alleged lovers, friends, or family is a tactic of control.
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