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THE HIDDEN ABUSE

SETTING YOURSELF FREE EXPOSES cycles AND IMPACT of emotional abuse   

“The way we act now can be dictated by emotional abuse suffered in our childhood—not only at the hands of our parents but also at the hands of siblings, religious leaders, teachers or primary caretakers, or anyone who had an imbalance of power to abuse and has done so.”

Widespread, rarely discussed and frequently covered up, emotional abuse harms its victims as indelibly as physical or sexual abuse.  It is as damaging and even more insidious than physical violence – its wounds are invisible, its pain buried.  And it is self-perpetuating, carried from generation to generation, parent to child, sibling-to-sibling, boss to employee, community leader to neighbor – and beyond.

Family therapist and best-selling author SaraKay Smullens’ new book, SETTING YOURSELF FREE: Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse in Family, Friendships, Work and Love (New Horizon Press, September, 2002) draws on Smullens’ extensive work with her clients, her own personal experience, and her unique involvement with an interfaith coalition in the Philadelphia area, to reveal the repetitive cycles of emotional abuse that scar children and ultimately affect their relationships with their own children, spouse, family, friends and even colleagues at work.

In her new book and in an article to be published in the September 2002 issue of the Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association, Smullens, who is author of the best-selling WHOEVER SAID LIFE IS FAIR?, identifies five unique but frequently intertwined cycles of emotional abuse that can affect any family.  The five cycles are:

Rage – displaced outbursts an abuser uses to achieve a sense of power, control, and domination over others in the family

Enmeshment – the family is seen as one enormous entity with no room for privacy or individual thoughts

Extreme overprotection – a parent makes the child the center of his/her happiness, crippling the child from feeling independently safe and competent

Rejection/abandonment – a parent withdraws his/her love from a child who disagrees with a parent’s opinion, thus equating love and control as one and the same

Complete neglect – while basic physical needs may be met in such a family, there is a total lack of emotional closeness and substantive interactions

Abusers who practice psychological manipulation, financial control and social isolation can paralyze their victims, depriving them of their independence and self-esteem and destroying their happiness, careers and health.  Emotional abusers also can be difficult to spot.  It is not unusual for them to be seen as friendly, outgoing, even community-minded individuals who have the best interests of others at heart, while their abusive selves are revealed only to those within the family. 

SETTING YOURSELF FREE is a valuable book for parents and for individuals who may recognize emotional abuse in their own lives or in those around them.  The subliminal message of the book is a philosophy of child raising based on self and mutual respect.  It will be useful to parents, educators and pediatricians who wish to raise children who will not fall victim to abuse, and will know how to recognize and assess potentially damaging situations and free themselves if necessary.  The book is also useful for clergy and mental health professionals, helping them understand the cycles and the symptoms of emotional abuse, and ways they can help families break these harmful patterns.

With a compassion borne of her own experience dealing with emotional abuse while growing up, Smullens offers examples from her own life and from those of her clients.  She also offers prescriptive exercises that can help a reader to face the truth and heal.   There are valuable self-assessment checklists, suggestions for self-realization, ideas for dealing with past abuse, and techniques for confronting current emotionally abusive relationships. 

For many, the signs of the cycles of emotional abuse will be startlingly familiar.

When abused as a child, you are trapped into a life of abuse unless you make a conscience decision to understand and stop the cycle.  You will either be an abuser or seek out those that abuse.  –SaraKay Smullens

SaraKay Smullens, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., B.C.D., is a marriage and family therapist, social worker and founder of the Philadelphia-based Sabbath of Domestic Peace, a nonprofit, non-denominational organization dedicated to educating clergy about domestic abuse.  Smullens is the author of the best-selling Whoever Said Life Is Fair?: A Guide to Growing Through Life’s Injustices.  During her years as a single parent she was a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Smullens continues writing on all forms of abusive relationships as well as current social and public policy issues. 

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SETTING YOURSELF FREE: Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse in Family, Friendships,
Work and Love
By SaraKay Smullens

New Horizon Press
ISBN:                      0-88282-224-1
Pub. Date:              September 2002
Price:                      $14.95
Pages:                    236