Invisible harm and constrained response: a conceptual analysis of psychological domestic abuse against disabled...

Psychological domestic abuse against disabled people is under-recognised at the intersection of violence prevention, public mental health, and disability policy. Here, invisible harm does not mean wholly unseen harm; it denotes cumulative abuse that remains difficult for victims, social networks, and institutions to identify or translate into action. Constrained response denotes the linked restrictions on recognition and disclosure, evidentiary translation, and safe exit. This conceptual analysis synthesises Chinese law and policy, official statistics, reported judicial and legal-aid cases, and interdisciplinary scholarship. It includes disabled people with long-term physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychosocial impairments and is gender-inclusive, while acknowledging that the available cases and evidence are predominantly about women. We argue that the central problem is structural misalignment: formally universal protection assumes independent recognition, communication, evidence production, mobility, and post-separation care. Real-world cases show how communication barriers, event-centred proof, conflicted guardianship, and unavailable replacement care interrupt the pathway. Structural alignment would make each stage usable through accessible disclosure, pattern-based and assisted evidence, and care-enabled protection, linked by accountable multi-agency coordination. Alignment is necessary for equal access to protection but is not a complete solution to domestic abuse, which also requires prevention, perpetrator accountability, and change in gendered and disability-related power relations. The framework offers a mechanism-based tool for evaluating responses in China and in other settings where care and protection depend heavily on families.