How Is Violence Affecting Teenage Relationships?

Violence associated with teenage relationships could be abstracted as a set of various violent and abusive behaviors, including sexual and physical assaults, homicides, psychological abuse, kidnapping, harassment, and threats (Theriot, 2012, p. 224). Consequently, dating violence could occur as sexual, psychological, or physical abuse.
Physical violence is defined by actions such as being choked, slapped, kicked, hurt with a weapon, pulling hair amongst other actions (Theriot, 2012, p. 225). Findings from research conducted by the CDC showed that 9.8% of females and approximately 9.1% of males in high schools reported that they had been physically hurt, slapped, or hit on purpose by their partners within the past year (CDC, 2006, P. 534). On the contrary, psychological abuse is described by activities such as making derogatory remarks and sarcasm. (Theriot, 2012, p.226). Moreover, psychological violence could entail insults, emotional withholding, treating a partner as an inferior individual, cursing at someone, name calling, yelling, and ignoring someone (Theriot, 2012, p.227).
Emotional and verbal abuse entails the use of gestures and words aiming at humiliating, threatening, or degrading a person (Close, 2005). Since verbal abuse can be easily hidden when compared to physical abuse, psychological abuse prevails as a common type of violence in relationships (Theriot, 2012, p.227). Identifying psychological violence in teenage relations could be grim since there is lack of signs showing that some form of abuse is happening. Rather, the enormously damaging psychological abuse effects happen inside, degrading a person’s self-esteem accompanied by a gradual breakdown of the soul and