Mainstreaming Verbal Abuse as Therapeutic Orality: A Tripartite Psychological Approach

APA Citation: Muleka, J. (2021). Mainstreaming Verbal Abuse as Therapeutic Orality: A Tripartite Psychological Approach. Ngano: The Journal of Eastern African Oral Literature, 2, 90-97.

Abstract

This paper attempts to evaluate verbal abuse/insults as artistic communication that may
yield therapeutic results for both the abuser and the abused. The paper which restricts
itself to verbal abuse – also synonymously referred to as verbal insults – views it as an
art that involves creativity. The paper argues that the very composition of the content
and lexis of verbal abuse, accompanied by the mechanics of articulating the abuse, all
call for an appreciable degree of creativity if the abuse will achieve the intended effect.
As a form of communication, verbal abuse has a structure which involves a speaker as
the encoder of the insult and a hearer as the recipient and decoder, capable of
converting the messages into painful intents. Pursuing Aristotle’s cathartic principle of
emotional arousal and release, this paper attempts to put forward verbal abuse as a
catharsis that yields therapeutic end results. Since verbal abuse involves formulation
and articulation of intentional messages, it is treated in this paper as a performance
that here draws on the theory of performance. The paper results from one-on-one
interviews with respondents who had engaged in verbal abuse, whether light or intense;
either as recipients of the abuse or as perpetrators. Soliciting for the reactions to the
act of verbal abuse from both sides of the action and analyzing the reactions using
Sigmund Freud’s tripartite psychological approach of the “Id, Ego and Superego”, this
paper concludes that verbal abuse is a performance that not only always leads to toxic
results, but may also elicit therapeutic feelings, resulting from cathartic arousal and
release of emotions, not only for the abuser, but the abused as well.