We designed a platform that will support, educate, and uplift people who are experiencing emotional abuse.

Team:

Mackenzie Thomas - Copywriter

Madalyn Crews - Experience Designer

Meghan Callaghan - Art Director

Where:

Student work, VCU Brandcenter

Role:

UX/UI Design, Prototyping, Product Design

Background

Emotional abuse occurs when one person—intentionally or otherwise, consciously or unconsciously—engages in behavior that insults, threatens, rejects, neglects, blames, manipulates, isolates, degrades, punishes, humiliates, or exerts control over another.

Over 1 in 3 women, over 1 in 4 men, and over 1 in 2 trans or non-binary people will be in an abusive relationship.

Only 33% of teens who were in an abusive relationship ever told anyone about the abuse.

More than half (58%) of college students do not know how to help someone who is experiencing dating abuse, and nearly all (89%) are not confident in their ability to recognize the warning signs.

More than half of all college students report experiencing either abuse or controlling behaviors in a dating relationship while in college, with 70% reporting they were not aware they were in an abusive relationship at the time.

The Challenge

The Opportunity

The Solution

Create a brand or product that helps solve a problem many people are struggling with. Deliver a solution that offers a social good to the community.

Emotional abuse affects many relationships however most of the resources are under the label of physical abuse. For how many people struggle with emotional abuse, there should be more resources available to directly with emotional abuse.

Create a platform that aims to shed light on the issue of emotional abuse while empowering others to identify and avoid unhealthy relationships.

By giving people the tools and support system they need, LoveSpeaks can help start the conversation about emotional abuse.

LoveSpeaks homepage. Talking about love is easy. Talking about unhealthy love is vulnerable, tough and oftentimes very, very complicated. The LoveSpeaks project aims to shed light on the issue of emotional abuse while empowering others to identify and avoid unhealthy relationships. Because when we realize we're not alone, when we realize how to make change, we can truly let love speak. What does it look like?

We’ll drive awareness for our new platform with sponsored social media ads that highlight real, relatable conversations that can happen within unhealthy relationships, along with the excuses we often tell ourselves to not have to talk about or face the potential reality of emotional abuse.

We’ll focus on Facebook and Instagram, where links to “Learn More” lead straight to the LoveSpeaks platform. This is such an important feature because it allows users who may have abusers that monitor their phones to access our platform within the social app so that it doesn’t save to their internet search history.

Safety & Social

How to deal with Emotional abuse GIF on the LoveSpeaks App.

Warning Signs

Relationships are not perfect. Old news, right? But if you’re here, you might have experienced or know someone who has experienced unhealthy love. Starting this conversation is so tough because so many of us don’t even have a good grasp of what emotional abuse actually is. So whether you identify with one of these warning signs, all of them, or even see them in yourself, it’s important to recognize and work on changing these to healthy behaviors or make a plan to get out of a bad situation. Creating space for healthy love starts with you and with us, so let’s go through this together.

Next Steps

Abuse is a big and scary word. We know that oftentimes the hardest part in tackling emotional abuse is simply recognizing the warning signs. We know that sometimes the hardest person to be honest with is yourself. But in recognizing what you’re actually experiencing, you can take the first steps to taking back your life and your love. These steps are small, but they’re not always easy, so be sure to give yourself the same space and kindness you would to a close friend as you work through them.

How LoveSpeaks Works

Part 1

Most victims of emotional abuse may not even recognize abusive situations or know how to ask for help. When you first enter LoveSpeaks we want to approach and educate individuals on what some of the warnings signs might be and how to deal with these situations.

Image of man pointing and another man looking.

Illustration of a women standing over another women who is cross legged.

Image of a woman and man looking at each other.

Part 2

LoveSpeaks also wants to create a community where people feel comfortable seeking assistance and sharing their stories. We want to ensure that people dealing with emotional abuse have resources to help them get out of abusive situations and improve any relationships they may have in the future. LoveSpeaks offers three different resources that allow users to share their stories, track unhealthy behaviors, and find someone to speak too.