ABSTRACT
It has been suggested that emotional abuse is the most common form of child abuse (McCabe 2003). However, since emotional abuse is often accompanied by a more severe form of abuse (i.e., physical or sexual), it is often overlooked, and neglect is the most commonly reported type of abuse. Unfortunately, documenting emotional abuse is often difficult or perceived as not abuse; therefore, many cases of emotional abuse go unnoticed, unreported, and unaddressed (Crosson-Tower 2010). Research suggests that emotional abuse is considered the most difficult type of abuse to identify (Burgess et al. 2013). Definitions vary by state, by country, and within disciplines as even clinical psychologists have offered diverging definitions of emotional abuse (Thompson and Kaplan 1996).
