Reply To: do psychologists really help ppl?

Yes people who are abused often become abusive. However, people also become abusive by themselves (or else how did the chain begin?) so I don’t think we can say an abuser has necessarily been abused.

mw13 even if an abuser has not been abused there is something causing him to hurt another person. No one just hurts others for the fun of it. There is something in them that is making them unhappy and is leaching their confidence. Maybe they were neglected as a child or treated like they were dumb or useless. Or maybe something else happened to destroy their self-esteem. But whatever is was they are desperately unhappy and the only way they feel good is by exercising their power over someone weaker than they are.That is why abuse is a cycle. Unless it is stopped it always gets worse. Just like an alcoholic needs alcohol and a drug addict craves more and more drugs, an abuser needs to feel power and he needs it more and more, as each dose is less filling. Because the power masks their insecurity and inner feeling of worthlessness. If you feel good you don’t abuse. Abusers are mainly people who desperatley neeed help and cant get it. They cant possibly be happy because if they were they would have no need to make themselves feel good in this way.