This paper employs Lacanian theories of language and temporality in order to dissect the workings of emotional abuse. Because emotional abuse varies greatly and can be difficult to describe, this paper attempts to discern the internal mechanisms that allow abuse to function: specifically, how the abused partner is trapped by the linguistic and emotive techniques of the abuser. Lacanian psychoanalysis can help show how the internal dynamic of abuse works, and how it repeats itself through the continuous immobilization of the abused partner.