Recovering From Childhood Emotional Abuse
Naming childhood emotional abuse and reclaiming the self.
Posted December 21, 2025 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader
Emotional abuse is a quiet, frequently unrecognized and therefore unnamed, form of abuse that can, nevertheless, have devastating consequences for the abused. Further, emotional abuse can lead to and often accompanies other forms of abuse.
Unfortunately, children are too often emotionally abused. These children grow to be adults who may have lasting symptoms and dysfunctions. These adults commonly do not recognize as emotional abuse the treatment they received as children. In fact, one of the common consequences of emotional abuse is a deep-seated sense of self-blame, which makes it difficult to assess what happened to them. Further complicating this ability to accurately assess what happened to them is the fact that the perpetrator of the emotional abuse often uses lies, scapegoating, and gaslighting , which blurs the lines between where the abuser stops and the abused begins.
So, what is emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse is not yet fully defined by the American Psychological Association, but there is a great deal of research being done. Rather, the APA has generally defined emotional abuse (both to adults and children) by its common behaviors. They name these as verbal abuse; intimidation and terrorization; humiliation and degradation; exploitation; harassment; rejection and withholding of affection; isolation and excessive control. But since those terms need further clarification, the following patterns ( patterns being the operative word ) of parental interaction with children can detail those general terms and have commonly been known as emotional abuse:
What are the effects of childhood emotional abuse on adults?
There are several ways that childhood emotional abuse can have long-term effects on adults. These include, anxiety , depression , low self-esteem , abandonment issues, self-blame, a sense of worthlessness, the conviction that no one wants or loves them, or even symptoms of PTSD or CPTSD . In fact, research demonstrates that emotional abuse is just as devastating as physical or sexual abuse .
How might an adult who was emotionally abused as a child recover from it?
From a transpersonal perspective, what children often do in order to survive childhood abuse is to comply with the pressure of the family to conform to the image the parents have projected onto the child. What this means is that the child might have to wear an identity , a false self, because that identity makes it possible to find at least some capacity to manage life. And from a Jungian perspective, which underlies much of transpersonal theory, self—the authentic self—becomes the primary healing agent.
This will, of necessity, mean first recognizing the abuse as abuse. Once we call abuse abuse, there is a clarity gained that allows the adult who was abused as a child to separate the sense of self from the words and harmful behaviors perpetrated by parents who betrayed their role as parent by using such means of control. This separation of self from abuse means that these words and behaviors do not or no longer define the adult who was emotionally abused as a child.
What such a process means is that the adult is working toward the retrieval of the fragmented parts of the personality that have been lost to the abuse. This creates reclamation of unknown emotions and learning to regulate without repressing these emotions. Choices may then be made to create appropriate boundaries and make changes to relationships or even jobs or careers that have been chosen because of the distorted sense of self created by emotional abuse.
Of course, summarizing such depth of work in a short post will not fully clarify that work. This work can be safely done with a trusted therapist. It is meant to facilitate a relationship to a deeper, more essential “me.” That “me” has previously been disallowed because of an identification with the definition of self that was internalized as a result of emotional abuse.
The deeper essential “me” is the grounding necessary to a sense of safety and the creation of actual safety through the choices made in daily living. Without that grounding it became difficult, if not impossible, to make such choices. Prior to the attainment of that grounding, the emotional abuse, with which the adult had identified, flooded the thinking, imagination , acting, and feeling.
Knowing that fact allows the adult to release the self-blame that has haunted them throughout their lifetime. As that release becomes more and more apparent, the adult is free to explore the deeper regions of the self without the fear that they will find the monster inside of them. And the more that adult accesses that essential self, the greater the potential for real peace.
APA dictionary of American psychology. American Psychological Association. https://dictionary.apa.org/emotional-abuse
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Andrea Mathews, LPC, NCC , is a cognitive and transpersonal therapist, internet radio show host, and the author of Letting Go of Good: Dispel the Myth of Goodness to Find Your Genuine Self.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.