Psychological abuse

thumb|A poster defining types of bullying actions. thumb|Share of children who report being bullied (2015) Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing, comments, or threats, in order to abuse, aggressively dominate, or intimidate one or more others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) that an imbalance of physical or social power exists or is currently present. This perceived presence of physical or social imbalance is what distinguishes the behavior from being interpreted or perceived as bullying fro

thumb|The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio (c.1602) shows Judas betraying Jesus. Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. Often betrayal is the act of supporting a rival group, or it is a complete break from previously decided upon or presumed norms by one party from the others. Someone who betrays others is commonly known as a traitor or betrayer.

thumb|Google Trends topic searches for "Gaslighting" began a substantial increase in 2016.

thumb|upright=1.2|The Pillory, from The Costume of Great Britain (1805)

Brainwashing is the systematic effort to get someone to adopt a particular deception, loyalty, instruction, or doctrine, usually without being noticed. It is also a term that refers in general to psychological techniques that manipulate action or thought against a person's will, desire, or knowledge. It attempts to damage individual or group attitudes, frames of reference, beliefs, values or loyalties by demonstrating that current thinking patterns and attitudes are wrong and need change. It is said to reduce its subject's ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction

thumb|225px|Threats can be subtle or overt. Actor Justus D. Barnes in The Great Train Robbery A threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control. The act of intimidation for coercion is considered a threat.

Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner through the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. Common-law systems recognize duress as a defense to criminal liability when an individual commits an offense under coercion.

social phenomenon that responsabilizes the victim of the damage suffered

thumb|right|upright=1.2|A woman covering her eyes as an expression of embarrassment

form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that may result in psychological trauma

cognitive bias that assumes that actions will have morally fair and fitting consequences for the actor

capture, publishing or distribution of nude or sexually explicit images or videos without consent

oral, gestured, and written language directed to abuse a victim

discrimination based on appearance

practice of suddenly breaking off a relationship or friendship with someone

Fabrication or exaggeration of victimhood

deliberate and sustained process that destroys the credibility and reputation of a person, institution, organization, social group, or nation

difficulty controlling and moderating one's emotional reactions

inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship

negative form of psychological control over another

DARVO (an acronym for "Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender") is a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, such as abusers or sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. Research indicates that it is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.

failure in thought to bring together both positive qualities and negative aspects of people into a cohesive whole

Parentification or parent–child role reversal is the process of role reversal whereby a child or adolescent is obliged to support the family system in ways that are developmentally inappropriate and overly burdensome. For example, it is developmentally appropriate for even a very young child to help adults prepare a meal for the family to eat, but it is not developmentally appropriate for a young child to be required to provide and prepare food for the whole family alone. However, if the task is developmentally appropriate, such as a young child fetching an item for a parent or a teenager prep

child murder case in Indianapolis

2013 murder of an abused eight-year-old American boy

behaviour of an abusive person seeking to gain and maintains power and control

Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent usually is connoted), and is accomplished with circumlocution (talking around the subject), the use of jargon (technical language of a profession), and the use of an argot (ingroup language) of limited communicative value to outsiders.

type of torture

type of abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult

Table illustrating torture on American prisoners of the Korean War

psychological warfare and torture technique

The word destabilisation (alternatively, destabilization) can be applied to a wide variety of contexts such as attempts to undermine political, military or economic power.

harsh, gratuitous, prejudicial attack on a person, verbally or physically, or on a topic

programme developed to reduce domestic violence against women

British student victim of bullying (1984–1997)

type of anti-social behavior