Physical, Psychological and Sexual Abuse - Free Essay Sample

Abuse occurs when people misuse or mistreat others, or when they display no concern over their dignity in a way that degrades one's well-being. Habitually, abusers are often interested in controlling their victims. Thus, they use these abusive behaviors to manipulate the vulnerable into compliance or submission. In this paper, we shall describe the characteristics of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. Physical abuse usually occurs when an individual is purposely put at risk or physically injured by another person. People who are prone to physical abuse often tend to suffer in various ways; some of the characteristics of physical abuse include anxiety. Such individuals are never at ease and always worry about future events (Wauchope & Straus, 2017). Also, they have behavior issues, and this is common in young students. Physically abused people tend to direct their anger to other people and are violent. Other characteristics of physical abuse include; depression, obesity, risky sexual behavior, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, drug and alcohol problems.

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Alike, psychological abuse, commonly referred to emotional abuse, has been a common problem in society. Some critical characteristics linked to emotional abuse are unrealistic expectations. Emotionally abusive people tend to make unreasonable demands, expect on to forgo everything and satisfy their desires, and to criticize others using their weaknesses. The other characteristic is that there is the creation of chaos, and this may be seen by people starting arguments just for the sake of arguing (Maguire, Williams, Naughton, Cowley, Tempest, Mann & Kemp, 2015). Lastly, sexual abuse may refer to any vigorous sexual activity. One of the characteristics of sexual abuse is trauma. Most of the people who are sexually abused high display levels of trauma, and in most cases, this causes more emotional and psychological harm that lasts for a long time. The other characteristic is fear. Particularly during the act of abuse, most people face fear, and this makes them unable to fight back (Papalia, Ogloff, Cutajar, & Mullen, 2018). Finally, there is self-judgment. Several rape victims tend to blame them in the case of abuse, and in the long run, this causes them to feel ashamed and embarrassed.

References

Maguire, S. A., Williams, B., Naughton, A. M., Cowley, L. E., Tempest, V., Mann, M. K., ... & Kemp, A. M. (2015). A systematic review of the emotional, behavioral and cognitive features exhibited by schoolaged children experiencing neglect or emotional abuse. Child: care, health, and development, 41(5), 641-653.

Papalia, N., Ogloff, J. R., Cutajar, M., & Mullen, P. E. (2018). Child sexual abuse and criminal offending: Gender-specific effects and the role of abuse characteristics and other adverse outcomes. Child maltreatment, 23(4), 399-416.

Wauchope, B. A., & Straus, M. A. (2017). Physical punishment and physical abuse of American children: Incidence rates by age, gender, and occupational class. Physical violence in American families (pp. 133-148). Routledge.