Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But names will never hurt me. …
That
often repeated children’s rhyme is wrong, according to
Harvard University psychiatrists. Scolding, swearing,
yelling, blaming, insulting, threatening, ridiculing,
demeaning, and criticizing can be as harmful as physical
abuse, sexual abuse outside the home, or witnessing
physical abuse at home, notes a report in the April
issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter.
The
report suggests that, when verbal abuse is constant and
severe, it creates a risk of post-traumatic stress
disorder, the same type of psychological collapse
experienced by combat troops in Iraq. The research on
which the report is based points out that children who
are the target of frequent verbal mistreatment exhibit
higher rates of physical aggression, delinquency, and
social problems than other children.
Many
studies tie physical and sexual abuse to lasting effects
on the brain and behavior, but emotional mistreatment
has not received the same focus. “Exposure to verbal
aggression has received little attention as a specific
form of abuse,” notes Martin Teicher, associate
professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital, a
Harvard-affiliated psychiatric facility. “This despite
the fact that one national study found that 63 percent
of American parents reported one or more instances of
verbal aggression, such as swearing at and insulting
their child.”
Other researchers have associated childhood verbal abuse
with a significantly higher risk of developing unstable,
angry personalities, narcissistic behavior,
obsessive-compulsive disorders, and paranoia. “Verbal
abuse may also have more lasting consequences than other
forms of abuse, because it’s often more continuous,”
says Teicher. “And in combination with physical abuse
and neglect [it] may produce the most dire outcome.
However, child protective service agencies, doctors, and
lawyers are most concerned about the impact and
prevention of physical or sexual abuse.”
This
situation prodded Teicher and three colleagues —
Jacqueline Samson, Ann Polcari, and Cynthia McGreenery —
to do a study comparing the impact of childhood verbal
abuse in both the presence and absence of physical and
sexual abuse and exposure to family violence.
Badgering vs. battering
They
recruited 554 young people, aged 18 to 22 years, who
responded to advertisements. About half were women and
most were white. They all filled out questionnaires
about unhappy childhoods and verbal abuse.
Typical of the respondents was Angela, an 18-year-old
college freshman who enrolled in the study after seeing
a subway car advertisement for people who had an unhappy
childhood. “This is the first time I have thought about
these things in years,” she said, “and the first time I
have talked about it.”
Verbal abuse, the researchers found, had as great an
effect as physical or nondomestic sexual mistreatment.
Verbal aggression alone turns out to be a particularly
strong risk factor for depression, anger-hostility, and
dissociation disorders. The latter involve cutting off a
particular mental function from the rest of the mind. In
one type of dissociation, the person can’t recall part
of his or her personal history. Other types involve
hallucinations, feeling unreal or unstable,
unconsciously converting painful emotions into physical
symptoms, and multiple personalities.
“Our
findings raise the possibility that exposure to verbal
aggression may affect the development of certain
vulnerable brain regions in susceptible individuals,”
Teicher’s group warns. “Alternatively, such exposure in
childhood may put into force a powerful negative model
for interpersonal relationships.” Possible consequences
could include insecure attachments to others, negative
feelings about oneself in relation to others, poor
social functioning, and lowered self-esteem and coping
strategies. Worse, says, Teicher, “such possibilities
are not mutually exclusive.”
As
yet unpublished research by Teicher shows that, indeed,
exposure to verbal abuse does affect certain areas of
the brain. These areas are associated with changes in
verbal IQ and symptoms of depression, dissociation, and
anxiety.
Violence at home
The
effects of verbal abuse were worse than witnessing
serious domestic violence and as serious as sexual abuse
outside the home, but not as bad as sexual abuse by a
family member. Of 54 people in the study who witnessed
domestic violence, 35 saw their mothers being threatened
or assaulted. Twenty-three witnessed brothers and
sisters being physically mistreated. Thirteen of these
attacks involved severe beatings.
It
is possible, the team points out, “that exposure to
domestic emotional, physical, or sexual abuse is
greatest in families with mental illness. Thus, genetic
factors could contribute to the higher symptom scores we
found in subjects exposed to domestic abuse.”
On
the other hand, they note that the overall degree of
psychological problems they found is probably lower for
their college-educated, mainly upper middle-class
subjects than it would be for the population in general.
The
take-home message is that occasional harsh or angry
words are not going to traumatize a child for life.
However, frequent verbal bashing could be as bad as
sticks and stones that break their bones.
Shannon Munford
Daybreak Counseling Service
www.daybreakservices.com
