Mobbing and harassment

Mobbing and harassment are the two most frequent causes of "office psychosomatics"
The Internet is full of articles on the unpleasant psychological aspects of office life, including mobbing with elements of harassment and harassment spilling over into mobbing. The problem of bullying or sexual harassment is a psychological aspect that is difficult to prove. But these problems undermine the quality of life, undermine health, and often lead to mental disorders, pushing the victim of mobbing or harassment to illegal actions.

What is mobbing and how does it manifest itself?

Mobbing/ bullying/ ganging up are terms that, with slight differences, refer to the same thing: bullying. Both executives and employees can become victims. There can be many reasons for this, and bullying can involve both new employees who do not "fit in" with the team, and existing employees who unexpectedly become "unwanted" by a certain group of people in the company.

Bullying can be recognized by the following signs:

  • the victim is not given the necessary information, or they give it in such a way that it cannot be changed (in their conclusions, decisions and actions) or they give it too late or in a distorted form;
  • the documents on the victim's desk disappear periodically or are moved elsewhere, important pages are closed or files are deleted from the computer, contacts are confused or ridiculous newsletters are sent;
  • they do not converse with the victim on extraneous subjects (vacations, birthdays, a hit movie, a recently opened store) and they become quiet in the presence of the victim, making the victim feel isolated;
  • almost every situation of mobbing involves the spreading of rumours about the victim, including rumours of a sexual nature, which are often totally ridiculous and in which the victim's explanations are not accepted;
  • the victim is constantly being teased and not always "in a good way". For example, an important document that the victim was working with is spilled with coffee/hidden personal belongings of the victim/salt in the tea... Sometimes the next "joke" is discussed and prepared by the whole group;
  • creating a situation of indirect forms of sexual harassment around the victim: giving indecent signs (looking at the body for a long time, sending kisses, winking); commenting on the victim's appearance, clothing and body; paying erotic compliments, planting erotic photos or pictures.

What is harassment and how does it manifest itself?

Harassment is a term that most often refers to sexual harassment. It includes both overt sexual advances and covert, veiled innuendos, and even indirect harassment (when an employee is made worse by witnessing the sexual harassment of a colleague).

A harassment situation can be recognized by the following manifestations:

  • harassment can act in the form of mobbing, when various kinds of sexual provocations are orchestrated on purpose and aimed at driving the employee out of the team;
  • gender-based insults, who "what body organ" thinks and what "through what place" does, how and what is achieved (through bed);
  • indecent jokes, comments, compliments of a sexual nature;
  • direct or indirect calls for privacy in the smoking room/kitchen/toilet, for dinners that turn into breakfast;
  • offers to solve work issues through trips to the country house, trips to a restaurant;
  • promises of promotion or reassignment in exchange for sexual favors, both veiled and explicit;
  • forcing sex or encouraging changes in appearance (makeup, clothes, hair) to a more sexual appearance through the threat of demotion, transfer or dismissal;
  • unregulated touching, including cuddling in elevators, transport, stroking hands, shoulders.

The effects of mobbing/harassment on an employee's mental health

Commonly observed consequences of harassment include: cumulative stress, traumatic stress, burnout, depression, adjustment disorders, acute stress disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The links between harassment and mental health have been clearly traced in numerous studies [26; 38; 40; 36; 33; 21; 39; 32; 34; 18; 35].

Psychological harassment in the workplace can provoke latent mental health problems or cause exacerbation of existing experiences.

Cumulative stress

Cumulative stress is characterized by increasing emotional and physical tension with increasing signs of stress and symptoms developing in response to the ongoing damaging effects of harassment. Victims of psychological abuse remain in the organization despite a hostile environment, which further worsens their condition. Signs of cumulative stress: poor physical well-being as well as emotional, cognitive and behavioral problems.

Acute stress disorder

Its signs: detachment, shock, inability to reproduce the most important aspects of the traumatic experience.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Its signs:

  • Compulsive, traumatic memories of the event, dreams reflecting the traumatic event, flashbacks.
  • Constant avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma - thoughts, feelings, conversations, actions, places and people associated with the trauma, avoidance of social events, feeling cut off from others.
  • Excessive excitability and the expressed reaction of a fright. Outbursts of anger, irritability, periods of insomnia, complaints about poor well-being and difficulties of concentration are typical.
  • Diminished mood with suicidal tendencies is noted in victims, as is a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. The combination of the above-mentioned signs should be considered as an indicator of a serious threat of suicide.

About Some Mechanisms of Suicidal Behavior

Suicidal behavior as a response to mobbing/harassment is difficult to anticipate and prevent. In April 1999, in Ottawa, a former employee of the Ottawa Public Transit Company - Carleton opened fire, killing four employees and wounding another before killing himself. It later emerged that the killer was a victim of psychological harassment in the workplace and decided to take out the company's employees out of a sense of revenge.

The high frequency of suicidal behavior among those who were harassed by a group of employees has been emphasized by many authors, in particular Davenport, Schwartz and Elliot [10], with special attention paid to the "feeling dead" feeling experienced by many victims of harassment.

I hope that now the essence of the "OFFICE PSYCHOSOMATICS" problem and the importance of its constant monitoring become clearer!

For this article, I used my years of consulting experience and the following scientific sources:

  1. Adams, Andrea & Crawford, Neil (1992). Bullying at work. How to confront and overcome it. London: Virago Press.
  2. Agazade, Nazim & Martynova, Irina (2010). All Faces of Harassment. New York, Paper Press.
  3. Babiak, Paul (1995). When psychopaths go to work: A case study of an industrial psychopath. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 44(2). 171-188.
  4. Bray, Frank (1992). A local authority approach to harassment. Personnel Management 1992/Oct.
  5. Brodsky, Carroll M. (1976). The harassed worker. Lexington, MA: D.C. Health and Company.
  6. Caponecchia, C., & Wyatt, A. (2007). The problem with “workplace psychopaths.” Journal of Occupational Health and Safety Australia and New Zealand, 23(5), 403-406.
  7. Cassitto M.G. (2001). Mobbing in the workplace: New aspects of an old phenomenon. Med Lav. 2001 Jan-Feb; 92(1): pp. 12-24.
  8. Chappel, Duncan & Di Martino, Vittorio (1998). Violence at work. Geneva: International Labor Office.
  9. Cortina, L. M., Magley, V. J., Williams, J. H., & Langhout, R. D. (2001). Incivility at the workplace: Incidence and impact. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. vol. 6, no. 1, 64-80.
  10. Davenport N.Z., Schwartz R.D., & Elliott G.P. (2002). Mobbing-U.S.A. Emotional abuse in the American workplace. Civil Society Publishing. Ames, Iowa, 50010-1663.
  11. Denenberg, Richard V. & Braverman, Mark (1999). A new approach to dealing with hostile, threatening, and uncivil behavior. Cornell University Press.
  12. Einarsen, S. (2000). Harassment and bullying at work: A review of the Scandinavian approach. Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 5(4), 379-401.
  13. Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D., & Cooper, C.L. (2003). “The concept of bullying at work: The European tradition.” In Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D., & Cooper, C.L. (Eds). Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace: International perspectives in research and practice. London: Taylor & Francis, 3-30.
  14. Freudenberger, H.J., Richelson, G. (1980). Burnout: The high cost of high achievement. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press, Doubleday & Company, Inc.
  15. Freudenberger, H.J. & North, G. (1985). Women’s burnout. Garden City, New York. Doubleday & Company, Inc.
  16. Goleman, Daniel (1996). Emotional intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ. London: Bloomsbury.
  17. Goleman, Daniel (2007). Social intelligence: The new science of human relationships. New York, NY: Bantam Dell.
  18. Hansen Å., Hogh A., Persson R., Karlson B., Garde A., Ørbæk P. (2006). Bullying at work, health outcomes, and physiological stress response. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2006, vol. 60, Issue 1, pp. 63-72.
  19. Hoel, H., & Cooper, C.L. (2001). Origins of bullying. Theoretical frameworks for explaining workplace bullying. In: N. Tehrani (Ed.), Building a culture of respect. Managing bullying at work (pp. 3–19). London: Taylor & Francis.
  20. Keashly, Loraleigh (1998). Emotional abuse in the workplace: conceptual and empirical issues. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 1(1), 85-117.
  21. Kendler, K.S., Hettema, J.M., Butera, F., Gardner, C.O., & Prescott, C.A. (2003). Life events dimensions of loss, humiliation, entrapment and danger in the prediction of onsets of major depression and generalized anxiety. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60(8), 789-796.
  22. Kivimäki, M., Virtanen, M., Vartia, M., Elovainio, M., Vahtera, J., & Keltikangas-Järvinen, L. (2003). Workplace bullying and the risk of cardiovascular disease and depression. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 60(10), 779-783.
  23. Leymann, H. (1990). Mobbing and psychological terror at workplaces. Violence and Victims, 5(2).
  24. Leymann, H. (1996). The content and development of mobbing at work. In: Zapf & Leymann H. (Eds.): Mobbing and Victimization at Work. A Special Issue of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. 2.
  25. Leymann, H., & Gustafsson, A. (1996). How ill does one become of victimization at work? In: Zapf & Leymann (Eds.), Mobbing and victimization at work. A Special Issue of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. vol. 5, no 2.
  26. Leymann, H. & Gustafsson, A. (1996). Mobbing at work and the development of post-traumatic stress disorders. In: Zapf & Leymann (Eds.), Mobbing and victimization at work. A Special Issue of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. vol. 5, no 2.
  27. Linden, M. (2003). Posttraumatic embitterment disorder. Psychotherapy and psychosomatics 2003; 72(4):195-202.
  28. Linden M., Baumann K., Rotter M., Schippan B. (2007). The psychopathology of post-traumatic embitterment disorders. Psychopathology 2007; 40:159-165.
  29. Linden M., Rotter M., Baumann K., Lieberei B. (2007). Posttraumatic embitterment disorder: Definition, evidence, diagnosis, treatment. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Hogrefe and Huber.
  30. Maccoby, Michael (2000). Narcissistic Leaders: The incredible pros, the inevitable cons. Harvard Business Review. vol. 78, no. 1, 68-77.
  31. Maslach C., Leiter M.P. (1997). The truth about burnout: How organizations cause personal stress and what to do about it. San Francisco: Jossy-Bass.
  32. Matthiesen, Stig Berge & Einarsen, S. (2004). Psychiatric distress and symptoms of PTSD among victims of bullying at work. British Journal of Guidance and Counseling. vol. 32, no. 3, August 2004, pp. 335-356(22).
  33. Mikkelsen E.G. & Einarsen S. (2002). Basic assumptions and symptoms of post-traumatic stress among victims of bullying at work. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, vol. 11, Issue 1 March 2002, pp. 87-111.
  34. Niedhammer, I., David, S., & Degioanni, S. (2006). Association between workplace bullying and depressive symptoms in the French working population. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 61(2), 251-259.
  35. Nolfe, G., Petrella, C., Blasi F., Zontini, G., Nolfe G. (2008). Psychopathological Dimensions of Harassment in the Workplace (Mobbing). International Journal of Mental Health, vol. 36, no. 4, winter 2007–8, pp. 67-85.
  36. Paterniti, S., Niedhammer, I., Lang, T., & Consoli, S.M. (2002). Psychosocial factors at work, personality traits and depressive symptoms. Longitudinal results from the GAZEL Study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 181(2), 111–117.
  37. Pines, A., & Aronson, E. (1988). Career burnout: Causes and cures. New York: Free Press.
  38. Quine, L. (1999). Workplace bullying in NHS community Trust: Staff questionnaire survey. British Medical Journal, 318(7178), 228-232.
  39. Tehrani, Noreen (2004). Bullying: A source of chronic post traumatic stress? British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 2004. vol. 32, no. 3, August 2004, pp. 357-366(10).
  40. Zapf, D. (1999). Organizational, work group related and personal causes of mobbing/bullying at work. International Journal of Manpower, 20
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