Ican guess why therapists don't recignize emotional abuse..
I know alot of people don't recognize it for what it is.When they say it or when they are recieving it. That is the question..I'll try to tackle here.
I know alot of people mistakea person's emotionally painful venting for emotional abuse aimed at them.They take it personal and the person venting isn't exactly eloquent under stress. Sometimes when confronted peeople see more into intentions that are not there in a person they think is agressive.People project on each other back and forth. Some people are not dangerous they are just are intense and feel things deeply alot.(I have this sometimes) To be responsible in a relationship,I want to remember to be observant and make sure the listener understands what I say is not directed at them,personally if I want the relationship to stay on good terms.
Emotional abusers don't care to keep relations on good terms they just want to control all the terms in thier relationships..
I know people who abuse and who are hurt by it rationalize emotional abuse as 'normal' especially when it happens to kids,or minorities,anyone seen as a lesser quality person, inferior,or weaker by society at large..Or when a majority in power may lose the pedisatal they are accustiomed to having they were never entitled to have due to a flaw in society itself I'll get to later..This sick power dynamic plays out in alot of human relationships.Some parents rationalize abuse and say things like "boys will be boys" when thier kids are being bullied or they think emotional abuse will "toughen thier skin"(desensitize them to thier own feelings and feelings of others)Or it will encourage people who are abused to become tough and"take it". Which are beliefs that are self serving and useful to abusers.
I know alot of people carry around alot of internal emotional poison and they are sick and they need to get it out and there are not many listeners who can endure listening to that kind of suffering for long..Before they get defensive or scared. And blame the person for feeling as they feel.And offer them a self serving solution which is to feel as the listener wants so they don't have to empathize.The listener is being dishonest about how they are being burnt out or disturbed emotionally by what the person in pain says and they are taking it personal because they may feel similar way inside and they start hurting too.. or may have done similar things to others that this person is saying hurt them...and they feel ashamed but can't admit that. And this evading,face saving, lying game we play with each other is what blinds us all to honestly understanding why we say the words we say,and seeing dissonences between what we say and what we mean and what we do as if they are not connected. What we say or hear may mean something different to someone else than what we want it to or assume it does.. This human communication flaw includes therapists.
Our culture seems to consider emotional abuse as normal.Because of the flaws in our self understanding and lack of internal honesty about our own motives.To me this defensiveness and dishonesty in ourselves is in our culture because,relationships are made to be competitive,a dance of lies and truth,lies are built on cocercion,domination and master/slave type relationships.honesty is based in a chosen self soverign surrenderand acceptance of onself and your inner authority as you are, and anti authoritrarian rejection of abuses of power and the insistance on Equality of worthiness in your relationships and insisting trust is earnedby a person's proven trustworthiness..Trust is not granted because of someones display of symbolic power or reliquished because of threats to your personhood. .These bad reasons to grant someone slse trust are based in a top down inequality relationship.In other words an abusive one.
Cocercion in our lives is so extensive,it permeates human societies and psyches, it's like the air we breathe so it's invisible because it's taken for granted.. I realized just how pervasive cocercion is in our culture the day I stepped into a community that has no narcissists,(Hearts and Ears).
We struggle with boudaries but it is expected at H&E abuse will not be tolerated.
Hearts and Ears like any other community of people based in equality and noty in top down power arragnements always has predatory people wanting to get in. Sometimes they slip in and cause strife for a short time but for the most part the group consiousness is anti cocercive because it is a group of self soverign equals. I used to imagine as a teenager if I won the lotto or something I wanted to set up a haven, an "asshole free zone" where no bullies would be allowed to dominate,a place free of manipulation,insults and cruelty where we could be ourtselves and not be afraid..Where everyone who was not domineering,abusive narcissist or sadist was respected and emotionally nourished.
This kind of anti buly group requires membership to be aware of the subtleties of good or bad relationships,To see the inherent equality in people and to accept but not hierachialize thier differences at the same time,to respect themselves and each other as self soverien responsible people who can choose to respect the community and the individuals in it.For this awareness to develop it requires the excluding of people with conduct disorders from the group the first time they disrespect the community by disrespecting members .It requires all members to learn to be aware of the signs and tactics used by abusive personalities,to discern it from other non abusive but colorful or blunt personality styles,confront iabuses immediately when it occurs and have no tolerace for it continuing.
These kinds of conduct discernment skills are in short supply in human groups and relationships.
Ironically I think things like psychosocial day programs and mental hospitals may have been advertized as places of refuge,and hurting people saw it that way and sometimes found out that the psych system for them really is a place of cocerion, of torture designed to condition you, to force conformity out of people who are too close too seeing how they've been cocerced for every day of thier life and are beginning to see the many sources of thier misery lead back to abusive controlling narcissists in positions of power they abuse.
Therapists can be cocercive to clients without realizing it.
Therapists are agents of determing what society deems "normal" which has it's roots in Eugenics. Normalness is not the same thing as sanity.
I tend to respect the opinions of dissident therapists who sem to understand and struggle to see the complexity ,pervasiveness and commonality of emotional and other kinds of abuse and aknowlege the awful damage to the person,to society that all forms of abuse do.
I think therapists who don't see emotional abuse clearly,are confused partly because of how they percieve power relationships.Maybe they don't see emotional abuse because society is so steeped in emotional abuse that itis seen by too many people as a normal way to behave in interpersonal relationships.It looks to me like many people by consensus reality have been conditioned or accepted emotional abuse as part of the fabric of thier own life. To have to control of your own mouth or be aware of the effects of your words on other's emotions is a big responsibility.It requires empathy,and a fine tuned self deception detector. A life without abuse for some people is so beyond thier realm of life experince.Partly because in our kind of culture most people who grow up narcissists are not taught to conduct themselves in a cooperative manner by bystanders. If an abuser can't get away with tearing someones emotions apart because people do not tolerate being treated that way or seeing others treated that way the abuser has to change his behaviorand quirt being an asshole if he wants a place in the community ,or leaveand find one that tolerates being abused...People in our culture let abusive people get away with emotional abuse quite a bit,We are in denial about abusewe tolerate it and pretend it does not hurt..We tolerate people with conduct disorders and give them trust and power. We as a culture are axccepting of the choices of abusers to harm because abuse is generational and the dynamics of abuse and trauma pervades our culture,,because as a cultural expectation we are conditioned to identify with the "role model" if we want to survive,that is invariably sociopathic on some level...This is why power-over, the appearance of "success",the negating of emotions as "weakness",symbols of authority and social status is so attractive to everyone caught up in competitive ways of relating.
We tend to draw the line at physical fighting and ignore fighting words unless it gets physical.We blinded ourselve by disconnecting our thinking from our words from our actions.Prtending as if there is a compete solid wall there that contains it all.This is not true..We forget that wall is broken by our decisions,our choices. A desire to abuse someone because you think you can,can break out of your head and become abusive words said to inflict pain,deliberately Abusive words can turn into an abuse situation and the abuser feels powerful..
It takes a choice to abuse somebody or yourself 'Thisis a choice one does not have to take if one is aware and not lying to oneself about your own motives..
For instance: Fundamentalist ideas that are central to thier faith like all of humanity is inherently evil because we are made to exist in a fallen state by default by god, that we must be rescued from,by belief in a particular concept of god or the personally abusive creed of fundamentalism that says I deserve to be tortured forever simply because I disagreed with fundamentalism,struggling in a finite life that is full of strife abuse and confusion,I get hell,simply for not trusting the fundy god ,the Christian belief system it'sa bibles,andIf i dare to think these beliefs are abusive to my humanity I am a monster by default..It's abusive to myself to think this way..... The belief itself is in my observation iof how it effected me,emotionally abusive .
So when fundiesor even "moderate christians" rationalize to me this notion of torture is good or just and thier jealous vengeful god does this to me because he loves me and he's perfect it's even more emotionally abusive to me,it's the perfect paradigm of an abuser and abused in a bad relationship wrapped up in a religion, and sold as belief.
How many frustrated angry abusive parents will beat thier kids for being different or defying thier domination and say they beat thier kid out of the love they have for them?
This is Moral relativism dressed up as a moral authority,it is peddled and pushed all over america as if it's "good news"and a normal healthy belief to have about oneself..or others.(that we are inherently evil monstroties that deserve to burn forever)Sounds like emotional abuses my parents would say to me to keep me in my place ,not hating them for beating me up ,and terrorized.It's a sick belief and alot of people especially the believers don't see it this way because they approach god like an abused person they paint thier abuser(god ,church,the bible) in a rosy picture to themself with a selective memory to cover up the abuse in the beliefs .It's the biggest catch 22 of the ages.. Christian autorities don't take the abuse out of the bible because it's useful to them to keep power and excuse themselves. Believers have struggled in that catch 22 for centuries the only way they can rationalize it is through saying bad is good and that is true moral relativism...And gods presence somehow will make it make sense.TMoral relativism is just the kind of morality that exuses abusers.
This pattern of emotional abuse in human relationships is everywhere because cocercion is everywhere in our culture it's invisible like the air we breathe..You don't see it until you are totally out of that environment like a fish out of water.
Just watch comedy central most of the stand up comics rely on emotional abuse as if it's"funny". The same thing as a school bully belittling you excuses himself because it's so "funny". The sad observation I have seen is the excuses alot of people have for justifying and concealing emotional abuse they do to others. They say lies like,It'as a joke,grow a thicker skin(desensitize and don't hear my barbs as barbs),or they blame you for being upset at thier verbal cruelty and go hide thier sadism under free speech arguments. Knowing full well that having free speech is very valueable and nessary for self defense against emotional abusers too.
Yet alot people are afraid that if you make a bully watch his mouth you gotta use the law to do it.As if a clear group consensus on what abuse is tis can't pressure them to stop acting out...People think if we tell a bully he is abusing us it takes away free speech for all. That ain't nessarily so.It requires alert empathic people who observe emotional abuse and will not stand by and let it go on unchallenged, standing up and sensitizing each other to it by living an example as they chastize the bully for the cruelty without being a hypocrite.This behavior in practice speads and makes a new model it creates a culture that gives emotional abusers no company. So,as more individuals understand what abuse is and what it is not..and they start walking thier talk the culture will change itself.
Hearts and Ears is a community that has a group consiousness that's anti-abuse. We all are expected to self police and protect each other from abuses,because we choose to create a haven for ourseves and our kind..We learned how based in an 'official' focus on understanding diversity,sensitivity,empowerment,awareness.The open frank discussions had among everyone about abuse and why it hurts us,how we feel, what it is,where all voices that are hurting come from.Deep searching is respected and pain is heard within boundaries.
This is what Hearts and Ears is all about.
It is part of the On Our Own/ Psych survivior movement.
Over my time there I have observed how bullies are intensely uncomfortable in the group because they feel like a fish out of water..They don't stick around long because it isn't the kind of culture they like..They apparently can't tolerate the group expectations of a balanced mutual emotional respect and emotional expresion and the mileu of civility and individualityheld in balance by the anti abuse additude we have all created there. There are no anti cussing rules,speech "appropriateness"or dress codes that create a veneer of civility like alot of "professionally"run day programs tend to impose from the top down.
Instead each person wants to make a real community with genuine from the heart mutual respect of persons.But this is shown by example not by official policy. When someone else is wounded in group by what someone else sayswe don't tell them to lump it. We learn to balance our empathy for the hurting with our needs to express what we see and each of us are responsible for what we say and protecting each other from abuse when we percive it happening.The goal is to understand and empowerand find integrity inside..The group can be blunt,raw and very nourishing and tender depending on your conduct in it.And integrity isn't about your beliefs,appearances,not cussing or "approprateness"It is about a non abusive relationship and throwing out chosen beliefs and rejecting people that choose to hurt people. It is the safest community I have ever set my paws into..
There is no real domination or authoritarian power structure or chain of command at Hearts and Ears. But there is an official policy concerning what to do about abusers. This policy was put there for legal protection and for warning the state or perps to keep certain people with conduct disorers out by saying this group is not designed for them.The policy is there to protect the integrity and non-abusive healing group consiousness of Hearts and Ears too.
It's the group consiousness working all by itself, in the consensus of the environment that is created to be healthy because the people making up the community decided on an abuse free environment from the beginning so that is the founding expectation people are expected to conduct themselves in when they come there.. It's that expectation that creates this determination and mutual agreement held among all members that anti abuse additude all by itself that expells abusers.This also generates the desire in me to respect members and myself and it does so in other members too..
Hearts and Ears has helped me grow in a positive way all the professional help could not do..
Because in theraputic settings there is the inequal (hierarchy) inter personal power structure that I did not trust or percieve clearly enough interfered with my ability to be vunerable enough to trust and heal.
If an expectation of an inequality of power is assumed between the inherently different AND equal people in a group it enables cocercion and abuse to happen. It is because a group that operates inherently in a autoritarianism based structure is in itself an inequal social arragement where someone is on top and someone else assumes the position on the bottom.For authority to sustain its appearance of power over others it needs symbols of authority(Ph.D's Staff.. Patients,Low fuunctioning,High functioning ,Escort Permission levels ect. ) that kind of top and bottom layered structure creates inequality/ The thing in the thraputic relationship was abuse of power in the structure..it was subtle but always implied and reinforced in all professional theraputic relationships I was in.
I didn't trust because I had diminished power as a patent under the parental assumptions of the threapists. And It broke my trust because of the power structure itself I was not seen as an equal with the 'authority' of the doctors or staff on a human being level..The staff and docs were only different they have specialized knowlege,they are not more than me as a human being tho.But the expectaions of my'place' was clearly reinforced in the clinical setting .That made that realization of my lesserness impossible to deny for me.
I don't expect a therapist to have thepsycho- socio-political insight to see the glaring falshood in the inequality and the boundary differences in different power oriented communities when everyone else is oblvious to it too,if he chooses to not see it.If a therapist relies more on theories found in books rather than his personal experinces he will not comprehend how equality really works when it is the founnation is something bigger than a one on one relationship.. Until more therapists are able to step out of the cocercive cultural surround that most groups of humans model themselves into(top down command structure)and has some other structure (like an equal, mutually reinforced horizontal power structurethis is what anarchy really is about basically)(anarchy is not lawlssness) A person needs to compare the healthy to the "normal" domination based relationships and authoritarian power structures to other kinds of structures of he won't be able to pinpoint the differences between them .The idea of Equality and non authoritarianism threatens his own claim to legetamacy of the perks in society he gets appearing as a professional authority figure P.hD.. Some therapists like having that title,and social power over people.So they might tell themselves and other professionals things that are not true about communities like Hearts and Ears because they want the perks of having authority more than to do what it takes to heal society...If a therapist can see how abnormal our society at large is,and see emotional abuse for what it is (a tool of domination in social situations and relationships)..Once he experinces for himself this comparison beteween power structures (mutual equal VS top down) in how it effects group consiousness and social environments..he may be able to deny the damage and crazymaking that emotional abuse causes.
Seeing this huge flaw controlling society's very structure will really cause some cognitive dissonence hope and fear in who sees the massiveness obviousness of it all..It caused emotional struggles for for me and I struggle still with coping with the vast and unnessary contrasts I see all the time between the ways of percieving . Hearts and Ears has helped and empowerd me so much.
I realized I am the sole soverign authority over my own life ,maintaining my integrity and controlling my conduct and detecting when my choices are interfered with by manipulation cocercion abuse or other things..Everyone else is sole soverign like I am too. So respectful negotiations between soverign equals in equal relationships has been corrupted by emotional abuse for a long time..So the appeal for authority to escape responsibility and denying your own soverignity by using abuse to convince yourself of entitlements,And denying responsibility by believiing you are not worthy of being treated fairly and that you are not equal to the dominator is all part of the tragic perceptions we have about social organization and the abuse it takes to maintain a top down hierachy over equally soverign and unique people.... It is sad more people aren't aware of the different kinds of power people use on each other in society and strive to understand how emotions color relationships.Abuse motives can effect emotions making negotiations between equals turn into domination based relationships where someone always loses ina zero sum game..
I think an answer to ending emotional abusecomes from exploring outside the cocercive air of how everthing is done and has always been done socially,and looking within.
Escaping the 'mainsteam' is nessary to understand how pervasive society's abuse damage is and how cultures like ours might be encouraged to get itself away from conditioned perceptions that abuse us. Abuse that is normalised ina society does not stop.It still abuses individuals in a million ways in an unconsious mega- pattern which has an effect of keeping 1 part of humanity disempowered,unhappy fighting with each other, working itself to exhaustion,and confused..And keeps the other part of humanity irresponsible, up on a pedistal it does not deserve lording over all in the name of it's own self perpetuating power-organizing principal lived by milliond of people with a place and stake in a vast game, arranged so that the most abusive of us will get the best rewards of it..
To step outside of that whole mess psychologically and emotionally is hard. This is where societies role models end thier significance and the unknown you want to fill with a better way begins and you are on your own,you are operating outside the paremeters of 'normal'society..Like a battered wife you are breaking house rules by running from a bad place into the night to escape the pain and domination of an abuser.And you are free and terrified and alone. You can either let the fear of hardship drive you back to the abuser,to the familiar rules.Or find new allies who like you do not want to live that way of life anymore. You might have to live in a hole or be poor or risk everything to be free of abuse. I think society needs to do this on a grande scale. The 60's was an attempt to build a different society.and the authoritarian structure crushed it,feared it scaopegoated it.Parents were scared thier kids were living lives unknown to them ...
Seeing the totally false illusion that the chain of command structure is when it abuses power .A game that has for millienia been imposed on all human beings in thier interactions and relationships that in reality are between equals...unjustly I can't unsee it again..
I want to try to understand how this 'normalized' flaw in human social organization got here..how it has caused unimaginable damage to life itself how it has become so normal to us...
Society has been organized in a top down way,it's been done like this for so long One part of Humanity acts like an abuse victim for the other part humanity that thinks it's superior.
Humanity really does react like a child that was born in a abusive home. Who thinks it's normal to be abused or be entitled and that abuse and power is how life must be framed..That permission of another or getting away with it is freedom.. If said kid lives immersed in abuse they don't know any better until it's modeled to them.. Adults in this society are like the kid.. Some are working in theories but have no model.. So until they get out of the cocercive environment ,see equality and empathy in action..thethings thier parents never showed them..because they didn't know. If they have the time to compare environments in a few years of emotional healing more people who step out of the paradigm of authoritarianism might decide a life of abuse is not good for anyone, the old reward and punishment games of how our society is run and ordered creates unequal relationships with people and inequality does not work for long because it is sick and flawed and carries the cause if it's own destruction in it's 'limited sucesses'..
The authority of an abuser is an empty sound that hurts only if you can feel it. Our society does everything it can to avoid feeling it.Because if we felt it we may have to change,get some humility,care about something besides ourself, and grow up.
Those are the best explanations I can think of right now. I hope I didn't ramble too much .I'll try to delve deeper and say it shorter.. I hope it helps at least to get you thinking of a better more accurate answer than I can cook up.
May I reccomend a book?Check out
A language Older than Words
by Derick Jensen.
Hellova read by a Wonderful author,I had an email talk with him awhile back and saw he is a very sweet genuine person.
Take Care.
sometimes I write all this stuff because I really hope someone can use it to free themselves.
