Types of Abuse
There are many different types of domestic violence. Coercive controlling violence is defined as, “a pattern of behaviour used by one person to gain and maintain power and control over another.” It may be physical, but physical force is often not the first form of abuse that an abuser will use.
Abuse or violence may not be immediately apparent to others outside the abusive relationship.
This information was adapted from ACWS, for more information on this topic visit https://acws.ca/domesticviolence/.
Physical Abuse
Psychological Abuse
Emotional Abuse
Sexual Abuse
Financial Abuse
Identity Abuse
Cultural or Spiritual Abuse
Stalking
Physical Abuse
Physical Abuse is the intentional infliction of pain or injury by slapping, shoving, punching, kicking, strangling, burning, stabbing, or shooting; Using a weapon or other objects to threaten, hurt, or kill; or abducting a woman or keeping her imprisoned.
Psychological Abuse
Psychological Abuse describes living with the constant fear of threats of violence against a woman, her children, or her friends and relatives. It includes being harassed at work by phone calls or visits, the destruction of prized possessions, and even suicide threats on the part of the abuser. The intent is to control the behaviour of the woman. Threats of violence are illegal under the terms of Canada’s Criminal Code.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional Abuse is the repeated use of harmful behaviours by a perpetrator to control their victim. It can include a never-ending experience of criticism, name-calling, and put-downs alone or in front of friends and relatives. It might include unjust blaming, false accusations about loyalties, and controls on time, activities, and actions.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual Abuse is any form of unwanted sexual activity without that person’s consent. It is being forced against your will to perform sexual acts with anyone, including your partner or husband. It can include forced sexual intercourse (rape), forced pornography or prostitution, sexual harassment, or any unwanted kissing, fondling, touching, oral sex, or threats to do any of these things against your will. As of 1983, sexual assault within a marriage in Canada is illegal. It is a crime for a man to force his wife or partner to engage in sexual activity.
Financial Abuse
Financial Abuse occurs when a single person controls all the financial resources (money, property, credit) within a relationship and uses this power as a means to exert control over their partner. Perpetrators using financial abuse might not “allow” their partner to get a job, open their own bank account, or contribute to household financial decisions. A woman experiencing financial abuse may appear to live comfortably, but have no control or access to the family’s money.
Identity Abuse
Identity Abuse is the use of personal characteristics (age, sex, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other identity factors) to demean, manipulate, or control the survivor. This might include using negative feelings about the survivor’s identity as an excuse for abusing them; negatively stereotyping the partner; keeping the partner from connecting with their community; or threatening to ‘out’ their partner.
Cultural or Spiritual Abuse
Cultural or Spiritual Abuse includes using a person’s religious or spiritual beliefs to manipulate, dominate, or control them. It may include preventing someone from participating in spiritual or cultural traditions or forcing them to participate in practices that are not their own or ridiculing their beliefs. An abuser might distort religious texts and cultural customs for their own benefit to justify their position of power.
Stalking
Stalking is repeated and unwanted attention that causes a person to fear for their personal safety or for the safety of someone they know, a definition which qualifies as criminal harassment under the Criminal Code of Canada (s. 264). While stalking, by definition, makes someone feel unsafe, it can take the form of actions that do not include overt threats of physical violence. Examples include threats to divulge sensitive personal information and unwanted romantic advances that make the person feel unsafe, despite not including threats of physical harm. Stalking can encompass a range of behaviours, such as someone waiting outside a person’s home, school, or work; physical or electronic surveillance; damage to property; and various kinds of unwanted communication, as further outlined in the Criminal Code (ss. 372(2) and (3)).
Children and Domestic Violence
There is no uniform response to living with domestic violence. Children’s responses vary enormously, with some children being affected far more than others; children within the same family can be affected differently. Each child’s experiences and reactions are unique. Whether or not children are physically abused, they often suffer emotional and psychological trauma from living in homes where a parent is being abused. Just because your child may not be directly hurt or in the room at the time of abuse there is still impacts on their mental well-being. Research indicates that there are physiological changes happening in the brain due to exposure of family violence which makes recovery more difficult and can lead to PTSD. The feelings and memories that a child has in a moment of stress can affect their feelings, beliefs and choices in a relationship and other areas of their life.
Areas that can be affected
Learning can be impacted by developmental, motor and speech delays as well as struggling to take in new information. This can result in behavior problems and overall difficulties with learning.
Most experts believe that children who are raised in abusive homes learn that violence is an effective way to resolve conflicts and problems. They may replicate the violence they witnessed as children in their adult relationships and parenting choices. Boys who witness their mothers’ abuse are more likely to batter their female partners as adults compared to boys raised in nonviolent homes and are more likely to exhibit externalizing behaviors like aggression. For girls, witnessing family violence may result in the belief that threats and violence are the norm in relationships and exhibit more internalizing behavior problems such as social withdrawal and depression.
Children from violent homes have higher risks of alcohol/drug abuse. The exposure to family violence can include fear of harm or abandonment, excessive worry or sadness, guilt inability to experience empathy or guilt, habitual lying, low frustration tolerance, emotional distancing, poor judgment, shame, and fear about the future. Compared with other kids, those who have witnessed family violence experience far greater incidence of insomnia, bed wetting, nightmares, self-harm, aggressive and antisocial behaviors, depression, PTSD, anxiety, bullying, assault, and substance abuse.
How you can help your child
The circumstances of family violence leave caregivers – emotionally and otherwise—unavailable and unresponsive. Both parents are not able to be as in tune with their children and thus are at a decreased capacity to recognize stress and danger which are protective factors that might increase a child’s resiliency. In addition to the exposure itself, other factors which influence impact, include the nature of the violence, age of the child, elapsed time since exposure, the child’s gender, and presence of physical or sexual abuse. There are protective factors that can mitigate the worst impacts, including a child’s literacy and overall intelligence, the extent to which the child is outgoing and socially competent, and whether the child has safe and supportive relationships with at least one influential adult. In so many cases, it is difficult for those outside of the family to know with sufficient clarity what is going on, and it is often difficult to know how best to intervene. With the appropriate help they can learn healthy ways to deal with their emotions and memories as they mature. The sooner you seek help for your child, the better their chances for becoming mentally and physically healthy adults.
