Emotional Abuse Test
A confidential self-assessment of patterns like put-downs, control, blame-shifting, and fear in a close relationship, informed by published abuse-research measures. If someone's behavior has you doubting yourself, this is a private place to look at it clearly. You get a plain-language result, real resources, and a PDF report you can keep or bring to a therapist.
Emotional Abuse Test is a free, confidential 16-question self-assessment, informed by published abuse-research measures. It takes about 5 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language score across 3 interpretation bands plus a downloadable PDF report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
Emotional abuse is a pattern, and patterns can be named
One cruel comment does not make a relationship abusive. What matters is the pattern over time: whether someone repeatedly tears you down, restricts your world, rewrites reality, or keeps you afraid. This screener looks at those patterns together, because research shows they usually travel together.
Belittling and humiliation
Name-calling, put-downs, mocking, and criticism, in private or in front of others. Research on psychological aggression treats this as a core form of abuse, not harmless conflict.
Control and isolation
Monitoring where you go and who you talk to, cutting you off from friends, family, or money. Researchers call this coercive control: shrinking someone's world until it revolves around the other person.
Reality-twisting and fear
Gaslighting, blame-shifting, denying things that happened, and the felt experience of monitoring their mood and being afraid of their reactions. How a relationship feels is evidence too.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Informed by published abuse research | Rarely | Yes, CTS2, WEB Scale, coercive control |
| Believes you, never blames you | Often judgmental | Yes, throughout |
| Covers control and gaslighting, not just insults | Rarely | Yes, four patterns |
| Real support resources included | Rarely | Hotline, safety planning, therapy |
| Tells you what to do with your relationship | Often | Never. Your choices stay yours |
| Downloadable PDF report | No | Yes, branded & shareable |
| Confidential (no data sent) | Often tracked | Runs in your browser, stores nothing |
How scoring works
Answers are scored 0–64 in total. Your result falls into one of 3 bands:
| Score | Band | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–15 | Few signs of abusive patterns | Your answers show few of the patterns this screener measures. Something brought you here, though, and that is worth listening to. |
| 16–35 | Concerning patterns that are not okay | Your answers show patterns that are concerning and worth taking seriously. Whatever the explanation, being treated this way is not okay, and it is not caused by you. |
| 36–64 | Strong signs of emotional abuse | Your answers show strong and frequent signs of emotional abuse. Please hold on to this: none of it is your fault, and you deserve support, starting now. |
Methodology & sources
This is an honest educational screener, not a validated clinical instrument, and it is labeled as such. Its items are informed by three strands of published research: the psychological aggression concepts measured by the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2; Straus et al., 1996), such as insults, humiliation, and threats; the Women's Experience with Battering (WEB) Scale (Smith, Earp & DeVellis, 1995), which measures the felt experience of coercion, fear, and diminishment rather than counting incidents, worded gender-neutrally here because people of any gender can experience abuse; and Evan Stark's coercive control framework, which describes abuse as an ongoing pattern of domination through isolation, monitoring, and micro-regulation of daily life. You rate 16 statements by frequency, and the engine sums them into a single score sorted into three bands.
The interpretation is deliberately careful. It believes what you report, it never blames you for someone else's behavior, and it never tells you what to do about your relationship. Whatever your score, the result pairs plain language with real resources, because the evidence is clear that support, not pressure, is what helps people in difficult relationships.
References
- Straus MA, Hamby SL, Boney-McCoy S, Sugarman DB. The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Development and Preliminary Psychometric Data. J Fam Issues. 1996;17(3):283–316. doi.org/10.1177/019251396017003001
- Smith PH, Earp JA, DeVellis R. Measuring battering: development of the Women's Experience with Battering (WEB) Scale. Womens Health. 1995;1(4):273–288. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9373384/
- Stark E. Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. New York: Oxford University Press; 2007. global.oup.com/academic/product/coercive-control-9780195384048
- Lagdon S, Armour C, Stringer M. Adult experience of mental health outcomes as a result of intimate partner violence victimisation: a systematic review. Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2014;5:24794. doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.24794
Emotional Abuse Test FAQ
Is emotional abuse real abuse?
Yes. Emotional and psychological abuse is recognized in the research literature and by domestic-violence organizations as a serious form of abuse. Studies find its links to depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress are as strong as, and sometimes stronger than, those of physical violence. You do not need bruises for what is happening to you to count.
Am I overreacting?
If you are asking that question, someone may have taught you to ask it. Healthy relationships include conflict, but they do not include a pattern of insults, monitoring, isolation from people you love, being blamed for the other person's behavior, or feeling afraid of their reactions. Those are concrete markers, not oversensitivity. Trusting your own read on your life is not overreacting.
Is this my fault?
No. Nothing you said, did, wore, forgot, or failed to do makes another person's abusive behavior your fault. Abuse is a choice made by the person doing it, and abusive partners often work hard to convince you otherwise. Responsibility for the behavior belongs entirely to them.
What is gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation where someone denies things that happened, insists you said or did things you did not, or tells you that you are crazy, too sensitive, or imagining it, until you start doubting your own memory and judgment. It matters because it attacks the very thing you would use to recognize mistreatment: your trust in your own perception.
What if I'm not ready to leave?
That is okay, and it is common. Leaving is genuinely complicated, and this test will never pressure you to do anything. Support does not require an ultimatum: hotline advocates, therapists, and trusted people can help you feel safer, think clearly, and plan, whatever you decide and whenever you decide it. You deserve support right now, exactly where you are. If you are trying to understand your partner's patterns more deeply, our narcissistic partner test is a companion to this one.
Will my answers stay private?
Yes. The test runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are never sent to a server, never stored, and never linked to you, and the optional PDF is generated on your own device. If someone checks your device, use a private or incognito browser window, close it when you finish, and consider taking the test on a device only you use.
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