Michael Johnson's Three Forms Of Abuse

Love is an overwhelming feeling, action, and expression. Love is a beautiful thing that helps heal and feel a connection among people, but, it is often that love overrules flaws, inconveniences, and feelings towards people. Love is a slippery slope between danger and euphoria. However, there are positive aspects that come from love, such as feelings of belonging, connection, and affection. These aspects can be used against people, especially in the context of domestic violence and abuse. These attributes can be used by perpetrators as an act in ways to own and control individuals to gain power over victims. Excusing these toxic behaviours by using controlling techniques through love can become second nature to victims. Victims are often brainwashed to
Despite the challenges, we face traumatic events.

Forms of abuse can be displayed in many ways that are not subject to physical abuse. Non-physical abuse can take form in ways such as financial, emotional, spiritual, sexual, and psychological abuse. Many behaviours can be portrayed as abuse, as once an individual feels uncomfortable with a situation, it is abuse. Recognizing non-physical abuse can be hard to identify, as it is not always recognized as a form of violence. Michael Johnson (2011) identifies three methods of abuse that demonstrate the wide variety of abuse forms: intimate terrorism, situational violence, and violent resistance (Johnson, 2011). Intimate terrorism is the form of abuse that people typically revert to when they think of domestic violence, such as the physical aspects of abuse. Secondly, situational violence occurs when there is a period of anger or distress which causes individuals to use violence as a result of the situation, and thirdly, violent resistance is a form of violent action that is used to defend oneself against the violence being perpetrated toward them. These categories carry weight as they each lay out levels of risk factors and identify