Much harder to detect. But I'm certain it does similar things to the brain.
A child psychologist once explained it to me like this: There are certain points in brain development in a child when the neurons have to 'make a choice' at how they are going to make connections. For instance, my issue was I trusted my ex-husband even while he was emotionally abusing me. The psychologist said, after hearing my childhood history - narcissistic parents, physically abusive father, mind games, lies, changing the rules, etc - that my parents were poor models for decision making. A 'normal' parent will act nice towards people they like, act hostile towards people who are threatening, show love towards their child no matter how angry, set firm rules that are followed but will be flexible if circumstances change, they will listen to their child's point of view, and so on.
However, my parents tended to be 2-faced. We'd visit 'friends' and on the way home all my parents would do is complain about how stupid/ugly/fat/annoying the visit was. They would constantly gossip about their friends. They would force me to 'act nice' towards threatening people (a neighbor who was convicted of sexually assaulting his secretary). They changed the rules according to their whims. Many times I was punished because I had to break one rule to obey another one - the first one was usually new and never conveyed but when I broke it, suddenly it was far more important than the established rule. Also, things like constant invalidation of every feeling. "I'm hungry." "No you aren't, you just ate." "I'm sad." "No you aren't. Don't be silly. there's nothing to be sad about." "I'm scared." "Only babies get scared, you're a big girl, you can't be scared." "I'm so excited for the party." "Why do you get so crazy for parties? God, calm down already. You're too loud. It's just a party." And so on. There wasn't a feeling I had that my mom couldn't invalidate at warp speed.
My parents also 'gaslighted' often. They would tell you one thing, then deny later that they ever said such a thing and you must either be dreaming or making it up. One incident stands out in my mind - I was 5 and my mom told me that our next door neighbor, K, might be pregnant and that I mustn't say a word because she hadn't seen the doctor yet. Being 5, it slipped out of my mouth when playing with the other next door neighbor, who was 4. She told her mom...and it ended in a confrontation with K (that I witnessed) where my mom denied ever saying anything to anyone. K gently asked her if my mom might have said something around me. My mom flatly denied it - while I was standing there - saying, "Why on earth would I tell a *5* year old? That's just silly." Then the second K left, my mom let me have it, blaming me for not being able to keep my mouth shut, that I would never have friends if I couldn't keep a secret, that now K probably didn't like me anymore, and so on. My 5 year old mind was so overwhelmed, I remember just being terrified and being very hard on myself for being such a horrible person. A few years later, I remember saying to my mom, "remember that time you told me K might be pregnant?" and she was ADAMANT that she had NEVER done ANY SUCH THING, and that this must be more of my overactive imagination or vivid dreams.
The psychologist said the compounding effect of moments like that, where there is no trusting a parents' word or reaction to a situation creates a dilemma in the brain - do I trust my parents who(M?) I depend on for my very survival, even though they've shown me they aren't trustworthy or dependable, or do I shut everyone out and only trust myself, because clearly no one else can be trusted. My brain chose to trust my parents, because I depended on them for survival. I turned into a people pleasing, overly trusting, naïve model child. Other children's brains choose the other route (and often become problem children).
The result of that was I was unable to see the numerous red flags that led to my marriage...to a sociopath. In retrospect, after reading many books, there were many red flags but my brain chose to ignore them, as it ignored my parents' manipulations and lies. Because my brain is simply wired that way.
Anyway, that got long, but yes, according to a child psychologist (one who came highly recommended by my daughter's school because while I divorcing the sociopath, she had some issues that I felt needed addressing) it changes the brain. I'm not sure how you legislate against it though. I agree with making hitting illegal because it's a pretty cut and dry type of thing. Either you hit someone or you didn't. But yeah, emotional abuse is hard to measure. There are some master manipulators out there, for sure.
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