Studies of childhood trauma exposure have focused primarily on physical or sexual abuse, presumably because these types of maltreatment are thought to be more prevalent, more dangerous to the health of a child, and more salient to the victim. The effects of emotional maltreatment, either in the form of emotional abuse or emotional neglect, have been less well studied. One reason for this may be that the definition of emotional abuse is not as clear-cut as that for physical or sexual abuse (Rees, 2010). Despite the lack of consensus on the definition of emotional abuse, most agree that it involves persistent, repeated experience of non-physical harmful interactions with a parent or caregiver (Glaser, 2011; Thompson and Kaplan, 1996). Like physical and sexual abuse, emotional abuse has negative effects on a child’s psychological and physical development. Unlike physical and sexual abuse, 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
