Emotional Abuse: Agony for Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescence is a period of transition during which an individual experiences not only profound physical, physiological, cognitive and emotional changes but also experience many emotional abuse. The transition from childhood to adolescence may be challenging time for majority of young people. Emotional Abuse as recently stated in a maltreatment prevention guide proves to be detrimental for child‟s physical, social, mental and spiritual development. Emotional abuse has been variously characterized as “the use of verbal and non-verbal acts which symbolically hurt the other or the use of threats to hurt the other”. The basic aim of this paper is to explore the kinds of emotional abuse and then suggest various strategies to overcome such aspects of life. The paper reports a series of factors responsible for the torment among the emotionally abused adolescents or the excruciation they go through. This paper also highlights the role played by parents, teachers and peers in emotional abuse such as shame and humiliation, rejection and ignoring, terrorizing, isolating and corrupting etc. Studies during the last decades have consistently documented impaired cognitive abilities and poor academic achievement along with aggression, irritability, hyper vigilance, suicidal tendencies, paranoia and substance uses behavior among emotionally abused adolescents. If Emotional abuse remains a routine task in the life of an adolescent, it may have long term consequences at every walk of his/her life.