Even if you don’t see any physical manifestations of emotional abuse, it has much more of an impact on the way that you think, feel, behave, and go about your daily life than does physical violence. While physical violence is generally overt in the form of punches or other physical acts, emotional abuse often takes on much less overt forms, such as manipulation, intimidation, humiliation, control, isolation, and/or unwavering criticism. Over time, many victims will begin to doubt their own memory, judgment, and self-worth. Until they experience how much the psychological impact of their emotional abuse has affected them, many victims do not even realize that they have suffered from emotional abuse.
Once an emotional abuse case has reached the court, the level of complexity increases substantially. It is challenging to show what constitutes emotional abuse through photographs or medical scans, so courts often rely on behavioral patterns, the emotional impact of certain events, and other forms of psychological evidence to understand the dynamics of the relationship and/or family members involved in the case. The need for mental health evaluations cannot be overstated in these circumstances.
Mental health evaluations aren’t a means of punishment, nor are they presumed to automatically show guilt. The primary purpose of these assessments is to help the court assess the emotional functioning, trauma-related symptoms, behavioral patterns, credibility, and overall psychological condition of everyone involved. In emotion-laden court cases, these evaluations would provide a clearer and more human representation of what would otherwise be difficult to see due to the use of language and accusations.
The Hidden Nature of Emotional Abuse
The greatest difficulty when it comes to emotional abuse is how the abuse develops slowly and can be done in a very discreet way. A person may experience repeated insults, an abusive partner is controlling, manipulative, threatening, isolated from their family and friends, or their partner is using gaslighting to manipulate them and make them feel like they are going crazy. All of these things cause a person to be so emotionally distressed.
Indications of emotional abuse can encompass anxiety, depression, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, feeling emotionally numb, having a hard time concentrating, low self-worth, and experiencing an extreme fear of conflict. People who have experienced this type of trauma can either be quite reserved and withdrawn or very emotional and well-reacted in their response to daily stressors, as well as overwhelming experiences. Unfortunately, many of these traumatic reactions will often be mischaracterised by the court system.
An example of a person who has been victimized is someone who may find it difficult to talk about what has occurred to them. This can lead those who observe them to label them as having an “unstable” behaviour. Likewise, an abuser may appear calm, collected, and very persuasive when they are in public. Due to the nature of emotional abuse, it is very difficult to visibly see the long-term effects because of the method of emotional abuse being used; charm, control, and/or subtle intimidation tend to conceal the emotional abuse that has occurred.
As such, when determining if a party has the mental capacity to participate in legal proceedings or make decisions concerning their own welfare, mental health assessments are essential. The assessment will allow professionals to take into account not only general impressions, but also the emotional state of both individuals and how their state of mind may influence each of them.
What Mental Health Assessments Look for?
Mental health assessments in the context of the law typically consist of comprehensive evaluations accomplished by trained professionals in the area of mental health. The purpose of these assessments is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mental health status and functioning of the parties involved in the legal matter.
Medical records, personal history, communication style, witness statements, observation of behavior, and psychological symptoms can be examined by the evaluator. A series of interviews will generally be performed by using more than one emotional occasion from the court as an interview subject.
Evaluators assess emotional abuse situations by looking for evidence of coercion, manipulation, traumatizing responses, fear-based behaviour, emotional dependence, and chronic psychological distress. Evaluators will also assess if an individual is exhibiting symptoms that correspond to trauma disorders, severe levels of anxiety and depression, or emotional dysregulation because of prolonged stress.
The job of an evaluator is to keep an open mind and not to be biased either way when assessing psychological patterns for accuracy. This includes assessing the consistency between how someone acts, how they present their emotions, and what they report happened to them. Part of this evaluation of psychological patterns is to assess the degree of agreement between an individual’s emotional reactions, behavioural patterns, and reported experiences so that a psychological connection can be established to each of the three factors rather than separating individuals into either “good” or “bad” categories.
Family courts consider mental well-being when family law is concerned (child custody, and emotional abuse will often influence legal outcomes).
A History Of Trauma Changes Behaviour
Emotional trauma has a dramatic impact on the central nervous system of a person. When suffering from chronic emotional/psychological stress, an individual will act more from survival than emotional stability. Chronic trauma/harm can also put someone in long-term distress even after they are no longer in an abusive situation.
Many survivors have hypervigilance, which is when individuals are always on alert for criticism, anger, or any potential danger. Some have problems with memory loss or have shut down emotionally, while others experience fear of open communication and have difficulty trusting others. In the court context, these individuals may be misinterpreted as being dishonest, confused, or exhibiting unstable behaviours, when in fact these behaviours are simply a result of their trauma experiences.
Experiencing emotional abuse as a child leads that child to potentially suffer from a wide range of long-term negative emotional effects. Children subjected to emotional abuse often exhibit signs of anxiety, fearfulness, withdrawal from others, aggression, dependence on others emotionally, or confusion around relationships and safety. A comprehensive mental health evaluation performed during custody disputes can assist in determining how the family dynamics have influenced the child’s emotional state.
Long-Term Effects of Emotional Abuse Emotional abuse is uniquely harmful because it slowly destroys an individual’s sense of self. Victims of emotional abuse will eventually feel they are unworthy, overly emotional, incompetent, and responsible for the emotional abuse inflicted upon them. The damage done to the emotional self, as well as the individual’s identity and self-perception, can extend into the years even after the emotional abuse has ceased. Professionals who perform psychological evaluations for clients who have experienced trauma understand that trauma may not always present in a tangible manner. Under ongoing emotional harm, human behaviour can become so multifaceted that accurately evaluating it requires the evaluator to employ their experience and skill with patience, empathy, and consideration.
Why These Evaluations Matter in Court?
Judges must sometimes make significant choices that impact your or your ex-spouse’s parental rights (who will have custody), whether or not you or your ex-spouse has emotional safety in (and/or through) the relationship as well as determining the validity of your or your ex-spouse’s relationships based upon how they’re psychologically affected; therefore mental health evaluations may also assist the courts when emotional abuse cannot be established by other types of evidence.
Psychological evaluations create an opportunity for conversation to occur around psychological understanding instead of assumptions. Psychological evaluations aid in creating context for behaviours that might otherwise have been misinterpreted and can help identify circumstances involving manipulation, coercive control, trauma bonding, or emotional instability stemming from abuse.
The best thing about a psychological evaluation being done in conjunction with any of the other legal evaluations listed here is that they remind the legal community that emotional suffering is real, even when it is not visible. Emotional abuse can create ongoing impairment to an individual’s confidence, ability to regulate their emotions, ability to form and maintain healthy relationships, and sense of safety.
Once someone’s history of emotional abuse has been shared, so that the person can be understood in a way that is fair, professional, and compassionate, any experiences related to their emotional abuse must be recognised throughout the legal process.
The objective must not be to overly dramatise pain but instead to correctly identify it, protect at-risk individuals when needed, and ensure that psychological injury is addressed as seriously as other types of injury.