What is Intimate Partner Violence?
The Hidden Epidemic
The World Health Organization defines intimate partner violence as:
“Intimate partner violence refers to behaviour within an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours. This definition covers violence by both current and former spouses and partners.”
I don’t know why learning this came as a shock to me. Still, previously, I had always assumed that it referred to physical violence until I sat down for a conversation with Shannon Knight, a Johns Hopkins-trained psychotherapist. We met to record a podcast episode about the topic of emotional abuse. I wanted my listeners to hear from a professional about what emotional abuse is to help break it down and make it easier for people who have experienced abuse to understand what happened to them, but also for people who have not experienced abuse to understand what someone else may be going through. During our discussion, Shannon used the term intimate partner violence, and I realized that emotional abuse is included in that term. I feel like this information is important to highlight because emotional abuse IS a form of violence.
Intimate partner violence affects millions of people every year and is considered a public health issue due to its lifelong effects on the victim's health and well-being. According to the CDC, About 41% of women and 26% of men experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime and reported a related impact. Over 61 million women and 53 million men have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
Now that we know intimate partner violence includes emotional abuse, let’s break down the other types of behavior that are also included in this term:
- Physical abuse: any intentional act causing injury or trauma to another person or animal by way of bodily contact. In most cases, children are the victims of physical abuse, but adults can also be victims, as in cases of domestic violence or workplace aggression.
- Financial abuse: a form of abuse when one intimate partner has control over the other partner’s access to economic resources, which reduces the victim’s capacity to support themselves and forces them to depend on the perpetrator financially.
- Sexual abuse: any action that pressures or coerces someone to do something sexually they don’t want to do. It can also refer to behavior that impacts a person’s ability to control their sexual activity or the circumstances in which sexual activity occurs, including oral sex, rape, or restricting access to birth control and condoms.
- Psychological abuse: (aka emotional abuse) when a person subjects or exposes someone else to a behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or PTSD, among other psychological problems.
- Stalking: a pattern of repeated, unwanted attention and contact by a partner that causes fear or concern for the victims' safety or the safety of someone close to the victim. *Please note a more detailed article on stalking will be published soon*
Another surprising fact I learned on this journey is that human brains treat emotional pain the same way as physical pain.
Just because your partner isn’t physically violent toward you does not mean you are not experiencing intimate partner violence.
Looking back at my experiences with my abuser and the devastating long-term mental and physical effects I’ve encountered after emotional abuse, this makes a lot of sense. My relationship left me with a PTSD diagnosis and physical symptoms that affect my daily life. The terror I feel when reminded of memories with my abuser or the pure spikes of panic and adrenaline that surge through my body if I have to communicate with them makes a lot more sense in this context. My mind reacts to an implied threat as if it were a real, physical danger because it can’t tell the difference.
There is much more to the term intimate partner violence than I initially knew, and I hope that by breaking down these terms, everyday people like myself will gain a deeper understanding of what they mean.
**Please note: I am not a mental health professional. I am writing based on my own experiences with emotional abuse. If you are experiencing abuse and need professional help, please seek out a trauma-informed therapist**
