What is Domestic Violence?

Experiencing domestic violence can be very distressing, and the emotional wounds it inflicts often endure longer than its physical effects. Domestic violence manifests in various forms beyond physical abuse. At its core, it revolves around the sustained erosion of an individual’s sense of self, including their rights, freedoms, and privileges.

Those who have survived domestic violence face an elevated risk of developing conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, or mental health issues related to stress. It’s crucial for survivors to learn strategies for managing enduring emotional pain and apprehensions as part of their healing process.

Types of Abuse

• Control: Controlling behavior serves as a means for the perpetrator to maintain dominance. This can encompass actions such as monitoring car mileage, scrutinizing phone calls, intruding on privacy, and fostering dependence.
• Abuse: Domestic abuse takes on various forms, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, economic abuse, and verbal abuse.
• Isolation: Closely linked to control, isolation tactics involve the abuser preventing the victim from interacting with others, particularly to conceal visible signs of abuse from family and friends.
• Intimidation: Also categorized as emotional abuse, this includes behaviors such as insults, constant criticism, distorting statements, fostering confusion and insecurity, humiliation, and even convincing the victim that they are mentally incompetent.

What Domestic Violence Counseling Can Do

Breaking the cycle of domestic violence involves reaching out for counseling and seeking support from friends and family, which can empower survivors to progress toward healing. Counseling sessions offer a secure and confidential space for survivors to openly share their emotions, thoughts, and concerns. Counselors serve as impartial advisors who lend a compassionate ear and assist survivors in navigating their experiences.

Engaging with a trauma expert can facilitate survivors in managing lingering anxiety and discovering strategies to alleviate stress. These specialists are adept at helping survivors process traumatic memories or events, enabling them to move forward.

What We Do at ACT Teletherapy

• Enhancing self-esteem to boost a sense of self-worth.
• Re-establishing command over one’s circumstances, rekindling optimism for the future by affirming the victim’s capability to steer and manage their own life.
• Cultivating assertiveness.
• Diminishing feelings of isolation and recurring patterns.
• Aiding victims in holding the perpetrator answerable and responsible for their violent actions.
• Encouraging victims to strategize and put into action a future free from violence for themselves and their children.
• Acquiring coping mechanisms to navigate traumatic experiences.

Get Professional Help with Online Domestic Violence Counseling

Domestic violence constitutes a criminal offense. If you find yourself in immediate physical peril, dial 911 for urgent assistance. If you’re currently in the reconciliation or calm phase, consider using this time to strategize your exit from the cycle of abuse.

ACT Teletherapy stands ready to support you. Contact us today.