however, emotional abuse is not considered a crime (Thompson and Kaplan, 1996), and this may be another reason why the consequences of emotional abuse are not given as much attention. The consequences of childhood emotional abuse persist into adulthood and have been linked specifically to mood disorders, in particular major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder (Etain et al., 2010; Huang et al., 2012). That the consequences of emotional abuse persist into adulthood is not surprising, given the long postulated relationship between emotional maltreatment by a caregiver and the development of insecure attachment styles (Bowlby, 1969). Insecure attachment in infancy has been linked to poor emotional regulation and social functioning in humans as well as in animal models (Bowlby, 1969; Riggs, 2010; Suomi, 1991), effects that carry forward into adulthood and increase risk for psychopathology throughout the life cycle.
