Structural abuse

Structural abuse is the process by which an individual is dealt with unfairly by a system in ways that the person finds it challenging to protect themselves against, to manage, to break out of, to mobilise against, to seek justice and redress for and which is difficult to avoid, reverse or change.

Every system contains at least one level at which structural abuse occurs, when the actions of the system takes over the actions of individuals within that system to create structures by which abuse of others occurs.

Structural abuse should not be confused with structural violence. Structural violence refers to action committed by a larger society, such as racism or classism in an entire society. Structural abuse refers to actions that are not necessarily endorsed by the broader society.

Classes
There are three kinds of structural abuse:
 * 1) Imposed interference with an individual's personal space-time-energy control;
 * 2) "Normal" interferences with an individual's ability to control relationships and their construction;
 * 3) Missing connections that harness the physical, mental and emotional energies of a person over a protracted period, thus causing damage to both the relationship and the physical and emotional wellbeing of the person being kept waiting.

Structural abuse is indirect, and exploits the victim on an emotional, mental and psychological level. It manifests itself in specific situations within each cultural, social, corporate and family framework.

Impacts
Structural abuse is also called societal abuse. It has four permanent impacts upon the individuals subjected to it:
 * Cognitive abuse by which the meaning of the world is changed forever
 * Sexual abuse in which a person's identity is changed for life
 * Emotional abuse by which the capability to function in a human manner is impaired
 * Physical abuse that is imposed upon an individual or group by a personal, social, commercial or cultural system of dominance.

Cues indicating a Structurally Abusive Corporate System

Structural Abuse Indicators include the inability of an outsider to make contact on a personal level with the people who work within an organisation. Cafe meetings turn discussions into plagiarisable events, while lack of agendas for high performance meetings create heightened levels of feeling threatened which impacts on how such meetings are approached. Being kept on hold with music blaring down the earpiece is structural abuse because by listening for the resumption of the discussion there is no escape from the sound.

Structurally abusive political systems

Making promises which are not kept is a category of political structural abuse. Unkept promises fixate the expectations that people create from such promises. Expectations that create physical arousal states and a physical, emotional, intellectual and behavioural mindset by which to accommodate the fulfillment of those promises. When those visualisations of the future and its mobilisation of personal responsiveness is not satisfied in a timely or appropriate manner the result is an extended period of physiological arousal which can turn into stress and emotional depression over time. Hence the anger responses of electorates to the unkept promises of politicians.

Community Control Functions of Structural Abuse

All categories of structural abuse involve the manipulative control of time, energy, focus and connection between people, groups and organisations, in the service of one side, and to the disservice of the other.

Most people call structural abuse "bad manners" or "rudeness", since it generally breaks conventions by which there is mutual control within each situation.

Each instance of structural abuse breaks down the positive relationship between the two parties, creating for those being abused increasingly negative relationships built on expectations of exploitation, snatching of time, waste of effort, missing redress, and feelings of entrapment from which it is hard to escape.

Dealing with structural abuse

Structural abuse is helped by talking therapies in which those abused find a listener, and then find their voice by which to begin to remove the power of the abusing system to continue to harm their inner identities.

Currently in most countries, there is no formal law that has been formulated against structural abuse, protecting the victim from such abuse, and enabling him or her to approach the court for relevant justice.