Gender violence: psychological violence

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the concept of psychological violence as an integral behavior in gender violence. The Spanish Organic Law 1/2004 on Integral Protection Measures against Gender Violence does not define this concept, which poses a serious problem, above all when attempting to define the behaviors that may be subsumed into the penal type. In this key point the discussion a contrast is made between those extensive definitions of the psychological abuse set out by Psychology and Social Work, and the more restrictive ones, which come from Criminal Law, taking into account its minimal intervention. And this problem is aggravated if we take into account the complex appreciation of psychological violence, since the results cannot be appreciated externally and the specification of the harm suffered is not reflected as explicitly as in the case of physical violence.