Violência Emocional contra Crianças e Adolescentes no Contexto Familiar: As Diferentes Expressões da Violência e Suas Repercussões

Abstract

The general objective of this thesis was to study the emotional violence in a family context from the perspective of the people that experienced this kind of violence when they were children or teenagers, as well as to know the different expressions of violence against children and teenagers in that context. We developed three studies in order to understand the nuances of the emotional violence in daily life. The general objective of the first study was to identify the repercussions of intra-family emotional violence experienced by children and teenagers in scientific articles, through a systematic literature review. The specific objectives of this study were: (1) to exam the transcultural aspect of emotional violence in studies carried on with different populations; (2) to identify the emotional violence acts commonly made against children and teenagers; and (3) to verify the impacts of emotional violence experienced as a child or teenager in different phases of life. The second study aimed to provide an overview of the experienced violence in a family context by the students of the Federal University of Espírito Santo (n=600). The specific objectives were: (1) to identify the frequency of intrafamily violence (physical, emotional and sexual) experienced as a child or a teenager by UFES students; (2) to map the different indicators for each type of violence and to understand how they experienced this violence in general; (3) to investigate the aggressors, if they were exposed, the reasons to not report the violence, the search for support and the beliefs about violence; and (4) to identify if the different types of violence experienced are associated. The third study aimed to report the life stories of 12 people that suffered from emotional violence as a child or a teenager in a family context. The specific goals of this study were: (1) to acknowledge the different expressions of violence against children or teenagers in a family context, especially the emotional violence; (2) to identify the emotional violence acts, suffered and committed, and to understand their nuances from the perspective of the people that suffered the violence; and (4) to verify the confrontation strategy and the presence of a support network for the people that suffered emotional violence in this context. Regarding the data collection and analysis procedures, to the first study, the systematic literature review, the selected articles were obtained using the descriptors “emotional violence” OR “psychological violence” AND “child OR adolescent”, as well as “violência emocional” OR “violência psicológica” AND “criança” OR “adolescente”, in the title and/or the abstract. The data bases used were BVS-PSI, PsycInfo, PubMed, Redalyc e SciELO. Concerning the data organization, we used the software Zotero; and for the systematization and to help the analysis, the software SPSS (version 2.3). The data for the second study were obtained thought an online survey, systematized with the software SPSS (version 2.3). We used descriptive analysis of frequency, average, standard deviation, quartiles and t-Student test. In the third study, multiple study cases were carried out with people that have experienced emotional violence in a family context, through narrative interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire with trigger questions, in order to know the family past and present relations. We used the interpretative phenomenological analysis to systematize the data, aiming to significate the particular phenomena experience by these individuals, and we analyzed them using the Bioecological Theory of human development. The violence was reveled contextual and intra-generations; a family way of communication naturalized by means of punishment and emotional and physical aggressions, throughout generations. We observed that the violence experienced as a child or a teenager have an influence on the individual’s development in the course of their life. We identified inverse proximal processes, that is to say, the relation between parents/guardians were negligent, abusive and violent, permeated by stereotype construction, humiliations and intra-family conflicts.