I agree that this is completely ludicrous. I have been through extreme physical pain and I have been in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship. I would take the physical pain again any day over the emotional abuse. The physical pain healed and went away in a few months. The verbal and emotional abuse left scars that are still lingering and affecting my current relationships negatively years later.
On a side note, I find it absolutely appalling that a person can stand in front of another person and hurl all sorts of verbal and emotional abuse at the other person, but if the other person reacts physically to protect him or herself from this very real hurt, then that person is considered the “abuser” and may very well end up with a police record. It seems we are legally and socially expected to curb our physical reactions (and understandably so), but there are no laws in place to force us to be responsible for any verbal or emotional abuse we may cause when it has been proved again and again that emotional abuse is much more damaging than physical hurt alone.