Abstract

TOMAZ PAIVA, Tamyres; DA SILVA LIMA, Kaline  and  GOMES CAVALCANTI, Jaqueline. Psychological abuse, self-esteem and emotional dependence of women during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cienc. Psicol. [online]. 2022, vol.16, n.2, e2257.  Epub Dec 01, 2022. ISSN 1688-4094.  https://doi.org/10.22235/cp.v16i2.2257.

Violence against women, like COVID-19, is a pandemic phenomenon that affects all social strata. The aim of this study was to understand the relations between psychological abuse, self-esteem, and emotional dependency in women during the pandemic, from the perspective of the Theory of Traumatic Bonding. The sample included 222 women, the majority heterosexual (76.6 %), dating (53.3 %) or married (44.1 %). The results showed that the greater the psychological abuse, the lower the self-esteem and the greater the dependence on the spouse. An alternative model has also been confirmed, demonstrating that the greater the dependency, the greater the susceptibility to maintaining abusive relationships, and the low self-esteem intensifies this cyclical process. In addition, we observed that women who live full-time with partners during social isolation showed greater psychological abuse and exclusive dependency.

Keywords : psychological abuse; self-esteem; COVID-19; emotional dependence; partner violence.

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