The Effects of Emotional Abuse on the Brain

Abuse doesn’t have to cause visible bruises, lacerations, or broken bones to be detrimental. Although emotional abuse doesn’t involve hitting or other forms of physical aggression, it has lingering effects on how people perceive themselves, how they behave, and how their brains function. Whether experienced early in life, at work, or in a romantic relationship, emotional abuse can cause epigenetic brain changes, emotional dysregulation, lack of self-awareness, loss of empathy, and more.

What Is Emotional Abuse?

Driven by a need to control, emotional abuse is a behavioral pattern in which one person belittles, humiliates, neglects, or psychologically torments another. Emotional abusers instill fear to obtain or maintain control over the thoughts, actions, and behaviors of others. Although a single or isolated incidence of abusive behavior doesn’t constitute emotional abuse, repeated abusive behaviors do.

The Importance of Understanding the Impact on Mental and Brain Health

Victims of emotional abuse are often in desperate need of validation. By all outward appearances, they might not appear harmed at all. Worse still, many emotionally abusive people often hide their abusive tendencies under very normal-seeming veneers.

For many, validation is the first step toward emotional healing. Validation allows abuse victims to recognize wrong and hurtful behaviors for what they are. Moreover, where emotional abuse seeks to control victims and keep them trapped in fear-based relationships, validation sets them free.

Emotional abuse affects the brain’s functioning, chemistry, and structure. Understanding these changes is key for validating abuse and acknowledging its immediate and long-term impact. When emotional abuse isn’t understood, validated, and properly treated, it can affect all decision-making and all future relationships.

People in emotionally abusive relationships can remain trapped in the same patterns indefinitely. Even if they leave one abusive relationship successfully they might find themselves in others. Those who are abused in childhood grow up to display patterns of self-abuse. Worse still, they often repeat the same behaviors they were once subjected to when parenting their own children.

Understanding, validating, and treating emotional abuse breaks this cycle. It allows abuse victims to heal and to establish healthy relationships, boundaries, and behaviors. While emotional abuse doesn’t leave visible scars, there are telling signs of its impact on the brain and brain functioning.

Types of Emotional Abuse

Often a precursor to violent physical abuse, emotional abuse comes in many forms and is a significant aspect of psychological abuse. This type of abuse, which can also be linked to domestic violence, includes not only belittling and gaslighting but also sleep deprivation, using intimate knowledge to threaten or degrade, and financial abuse. Additionally, emotional abuse may intersect with other forms of abuse, such as stalking, sexual abuse, and even child abuse, making it a critical issue in understanding the broader spectrum of abuse.

Verbal Abuse

Name-calling and making threats are two of the most common forms of verbal abuse. Verbal abuse also includes:

• Public degradation
• Scapegoating and blaming
• Constant criticism
• Manipulation
• Silent treatment

The “silent treatment” or withholding causes victims to constantly pursue the attention of their abusers for validation, forgiveness, or peace.

Manipulation and Control

Financial abuse is a common form of manipulation in emotionally abusive relationships. Abusive partners often maintain tight control over household finances and may refuse to release monies for essentials. Financial abuse prevents victims from seeking a way out by eliminating tangible means for escape.

Sometimes financial abuse comes in the form of overspending. For instance, one party might spend beyond a household’s means to keep the other bound in the relationship by debt.

Triangulation and “love bombing” are two tactics commonly used in manipulation and control. In triangulation, an abuser sways the opinions of outside parties against the victim by convincing them that the victim is crazy, abusive, forgetful, or in other ways responsible for their own suffering and pain.

“Love bombing” is a tactic in which abusers flood their victims with love and affection to regain control. “Love bombing” often follows instances of extreme emotional abuse and attempts to sway victims from leaving by convincing them that everything will be different going forward.

Gaslighting and Psychological Manipulation

Gaslighting can be both verbal and non-verbal. The “silent treatment” is one form of non-verbal gaslighting. In verbal gaslighting, abusers might tell their victims that they’re being overly sensitive or dramatic or that they’ve imagined harmful actions, events, or behaviors. Gaslighting seeks to undermine a person’s feelings, perception of reality, and reactions. In short, it directly invalidates a victims’s suffering and pain.

Isolation and Neglect

Witholding affection, keeping people from spending time with others, and general neglect are all emotionally abuse behaviors. In childhood emotional abuse, neglect can include withholding essential medical or dental care, food, shelter, and other basic necessities.

Common Signs and Symptoms of Emotional Abuse

The symptoms of emotional abuse are a direct reflection of its impact on the brain and brain functioning.

They include:

• Low self-esteem
• Poor decision-making
• Inappropriately childlike or adult-like behavior
• Emotional outbursts
• Unwarranted aggression or passivity
• Avoidance of activities related to abusive events

Social withdrawal and frequent or excessive self-criticism are also signs of emotional abuse.

The Brain’s Response to Emotional Abuse

Duration and time of experience both play major hands in determining how significantly emotional abuse affects the brain. The longer that emotional abuse is endured, the greater its impact on the brain. The earlier in life that a person is emotionally abused, the more their brain functioning and health suffers. Early childhood emotional abuse affects the brain during critical stages of neurological development and can permanently or semi-permanently alter the hippocampus, prefontal cortex, and temporal lobe.

Early childhood trauma can make a person emotionally numb to traumatic events. This in turn might make them more vulnerable to retraumatization and less likely to notice the warning signs of social dangers.

Emotional abuse can also cause thinning in brain areas that are critical to emotional awareness, empathy, and self-awareness. As a result abuse victims may be less sensitive to their own pain and less sensitive to the pain of others.

Stress Response System

Emotional abuse can affect the brain’s stress response system such that victims have a harder time regulating their emotions. This is but one of many epigenetic changes that can occur when people are emotionally abused early in life or for long periods of time.

The stress response system or the “Fight, Flight, or Freeze” response determines how people protect or preserve themselves when facing immediate or perceived danger. Due to brain changes, victims of severe abuse may simply freeze and accept their reality without seeking self-preservation or change. Some might be more prone to acts of aggression even in instances in which aggressive or reactive behaviors aren’t required. In essence, emotional abuse limits the stress response system in its ability to initiate appropriate responses to outside stimuli.

Activation of the Hypothalamic-Pituatry-Adrenal (HPA) Axis

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is the primary neuroendocrine system for stress-regulation. When activated by emotional abuse, it causes elevated cortisol levels particularly in the saliva, and it may be a risk factor for eating disorders. Due to elevated cortisol levels, HPA activation can cause long-term problems with anxiety and the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), general anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, or panic disorder.

Impact on Brain Structures

In addition to the thinning of brain tissue across multiple brain areas, emotional abuse can cause a decrease in brain volume, increased activity in the amygdala, and alterations within the corpus callosum which connects the left and right brain hemispheres.

Amygdala: Heightened Fear and Anxiety Response

The amygdala processes fear. Increased reactivity in the amygdala can cause a heightened fear response, a blunted or insufficient fear response, and impulsive decisions and behaviors.

Hippocampus: Impaired Memory and Learning

Thinning tissues across the hippocampus affect empathetic response. In addition to lost or diminished empathy, changes across the hippocampus can also impact a person’s ability to recognize how their words and actions affect others.

Prefontal Cortex: Affected Decision-Making and Impulse Control

Highly trauamatic events can cause underactivation of the prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain that’s responsible for rational decision-making. Underactivation of the prefrontal cortex leads to impulsivity, lack of planning and planning abilities, and a greater likelihood of substance abuse. This is why victims of emotional abuse who develop substance use disorder (SUD) or alcohol use disorder (AUD) often experience the greatest success in recovery when enrolling in comprehensive addiction treatment programs that account for changes in brain chemistry, functioning, and health.

The Long-Term Psychological Effects of Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse increases the risk of substance use disorders, anxiety disorders, and many other mental health issues. People who’ve experienced emotional abuse often have lifelong struggles in maintaining healthy relationships and may spend much of their lives self-isolating or forming abusive attachments. Emotional abuse can also cause:

• Cognitive impairments and learning difficulties
• Difficulty concentrating
• Lack of focus

These psychological effects are tied to the many chemical and structural changes caused by emotional abuse.

Emotional Dysregulation

Emotional dysregulation makes it difficult for abuse victims to control their emotions. People may have overly strong emotional reactions and frequently feel “stressed out” or overwhelmed. Emotional dysregulation also contributes to poor impulse control and the development of impulsive control disorders (ICDs).

Neurobiological Changes Due to Emotional Abuse

Changes within the brain’s amygdala, hippocampus, and other areas can affect brain chemistry and stress response. These neurochemical changes are responsible of elevated cortisol levels and heightened or blunted reactivity. However, emotional abuse can also cause neurobiological changes that impact the brain’s ability to develop new responses based on new experiences.

Neuroplasticity and Brain Development

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to form new synaptic connections or reorganize existing ones. Decreased neuroplasticity is a risk factor for chronic anxiety, depression, and PTSD. It also makes it more challenging for abuse victims to establish new views concerning themselves, healthier coping responses, and healthier reactions.

Impact on Brain Development in Children and Adolescents

For young children and adolescents, early emotional abuse can additionally impact the cingulate cortex and precuneus. These areas of the brain relate to self-perception and self-awareness and trauma-induced changes can have a lingering impact on how victims perceive themselves.

Long-Term Health Consequences

Neurobiological and neurochemical changes in the brain resulting from emotional abuse can also impact a person’s physical health. People who experience early-life abuse and prolonged emotional abuse have a higher likelihood of developing problems like:

• Heart problems
• High blood pressure
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Fibromyalgia

Having a chronically heightened stress response can also lead to weight gain, sleep troubles, recurring headaches, and general digestive issues.

The Cycle of Abuse and Its Perpetuation

Often neither validated nor treated, emotional abuse has a way of trickling down from generation to generation. Without the means for recognizing harmful and unhealthy behaviors for what they are, people often repeat them or form new relationships in which these behaviors exist.

Behavioral Patterns

Children of abuse may grow up to become parents who repeat the same patterns of:

• Withholding affection
• Isolating
• Neglecting
• Demeaning
• Gaslighting

Whether intentional or inadvertently, children of emotional abuse who repeat behavioral patterns as adults and parents do so as a means for maintaining control. This effort to maintain control is typically fear-based. Without control, people with untreated emotional abuse are often anxious and on edge.

Development of Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms

Among the many long-term effects of emotional abuse is the development of maladaptive coping mechanisms, including:

• Overeating or under-eating
• Self-harm
• Setting unrealistic and unattainable goals
• Ruminating on negative thoughts
• The avoidance of stressors rather than problem-solving

People who identify these maladaptive coping mechanisms in their young children or teenagers may also recognize them in themselves. Much like generational emotional abuse, maladaptive coping behaviors are often passed from one generation to another.

Healing and Recovery From Emotional Abuse

With validation as the first step in the healing process, recognizing the neurological effects of emotional abuse and seeking treatment are also essential. When people are aware of the neurochemical and neurobiological changes that are responsible for things like heightened stress response and impulsive behaviors, they can rise to the challenge of tackling these issues head-on.

Therapeutic Approaches

There are many effective therapeutic and clinical approaches for treating the effects of emotional abuse. These include various forms of talk therapy, trauma-focused therapy, and skill-building.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is psychotherapy that combines behavior and cognitive therapy to address emotional and mental health issues. It includes:

• Identifying troubling or traumatic events and circumstances
• Practicing coping and relaxation techniques
• Encouraging awareness of beliefs, thoughts, and feelings
• Identifying inaccurate and negative thought patterns
• Reshaping negative thinking

CBT gives patients the power to reshape their views of themselves and their response to the world around them.

Trauma-Focused Therapies (EMDR and Somatic Experiencing

Trauma-based therapies help people process and move past traumatic experiences using psychological techniques such as somatic experiencing and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).

In EMDR, patients focus on traumatic memories while receiving bilateral stimulation. This alters the way in which the brain stores traumatic memories and promotes psychological healing.

Somatic experiencing targets dysfunction throughout the nervous system caused by emotional abuse. It increases the awareness of bodily sensations that are ultimately caused by past trauma.

Counseling and Support Groups

Group counseling sessions and support groups help victims of abuse develop a sense of camaraderie while learning through shared experiences. Private or one-on-one counseling helps abuse victims work through their trauma via traditional talk therapy.

Building Resilience

Abuse victims seek both validation and acceptance. Building resilience helps people avoid seeking either of these things from abusive parties. It also fosters healthier coping skills, increased self-awareness, and improved self-esteem.

Developing Healthy Coping Strategies

Healthy coping skills help people manage their thoughts, impulses, emotions, and behaviors in effective and non-destructive ways. They represent a move away from self-harm, substance abuse, and overeating, and can include:

• Meditating
• Exercising
• Journaling
• Spending time with close friends
• Developing rewarding hobbies
• Deep breathing

The Importance of Social Support and Community

Lack of social support is in itself a risk factor for the development of PTSD. Healing from emotional abuse is a challenging and painful process that involves revisiting old wounds, accepting accountability for self-defeating and abusive behaviors, and uncomfortable amounts of introspection. As with all mental and emotional health treatments, recovery from emotional abuse works best when people have strong social bonds, a sense of camaraderie, and loyal support teams.

The Brain’s Ability to Heal and Rewire

Some forms of early emotional trauma can cause lifelong changes in brain structure and brain functioning. However, through therapy and other treatments, many people area able to form new neural connections via the brain’s ability to rewire itself. Neuroplasticity often makes it possible to override or overcome the lingering effects of emotional abuse.

Practices to Promote Brain Health

Several self-care practices can promote increased brain health while healing from emotional abuse. These include mindfulness, meditation or intentional focusing, and reality check anchoring. Reality check anchoring is simply listing the emotional and psychological effects of traumatic experiences to reaffirm them as real. This technique is highly effective for long-term victims of gaslighting.

Prolonged and early life abuse can dramatically alter the structure, chemistry, and functioning of the brain. Early interventions and support can minimize brain changes while optimizing long-term outcomes. If you are a victim of emotional abuse and want to stop the vicious cycle, seek help today!

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