Frequent development of workplace bullying: 3 phases

Workplace harassment, also called mobbing, is a subtle form of violence that is exercised in work environments. Many times, and sometimes for spurious reasons, companies or organizations, aggressors, and observers or witnesses use euphemisms to refer to this type of violence.

Thus, words such as "labor conflict", "power struggles", "fights between colleagues", "incompatible characters", etc. are used, such as if these problems were something isolated between workers or had more to do with the normal dynamics within the organizations.

But the truth is that workplace bullying goes beyond a mere conflictive relationship between colleagues. Let's delve more into the characteristics of this class of problems.

• Related article: "The 11 types of violence (and the different kinds of aggression)"

Characteristics of mobbing

At least three distinctive characteristics of workplace bullying can be identified.

1. Violence is exercised towards a victim who hardly resists

In addition, there are often witnesses to this violence who will look the other way, avoiding getting involved in the matter or, if they do, they will take the side of the aggressor.

2. It is systematic and repeated violence over time

However, they are usually episodes of medium or low intensity. Sometimes they are reduced to just phrases and comments that could be judged as inconsequential by an outside observer. High-intensity acts of violence are rare.

However, it is precisely this low intensity and repetition that makes the situation more dangerous in the medium term (by way of simile we could compare it with the torture of the "Chinese drop").

3. Violence is exercised intentionally and with a goal

The victim she may not be aware of or understand such hidden interests. It is also possible that the observers do not understand them either, either because they avoid paying their attention to the situation of injustice or because many times the acts of aggression are subtle and are only perceived by the victim.

To achieve this objective, the harasser follows a series of strategies that go through isolation, hostility, discredit and other forms of psychological violence.

• You may be interested in: "Mobbing: psychological harassment at work"

Development of workplace bullying

These acts of violence carried out continuously cause significant damage to health and other types of economic and social harm. Workplace bullying could be understood as a process extended over time in which the victim goes through a series of stages that leave different psychological consequences.

A possible course could be, for example, the following.

1. Stage of underestimating the damage

At the beginning of the workplace bullying, the worker she thinks that it is a temporary situation resulting from a problem or a misunderstanding that keep you from putting yourself on your guard and taking action to defend yourself against it.

2. blame yourself

Subsequently, once she perceives that she understands that the situation is not going to stop, she can ask herself "why me?" what erodes your self esteem because she attributes the bullying to certain characteristics of her personality, blaming herself for it.

In these initial stages it is not uncommon for the victim to wonder, too, if she is not being too touchy or exaggerated in the situation. The fact that the episodes have a low intensity that is often only perceived by the victim herself has to do with these thoughts. She begins to doubt her own perceptions of her which can lead to a phenomenon known as "derealization" (a perception of the outside world as strange or unreal).

3. Anxiety

The continuity of bullying over time causes anxiety processes and depressive symptoms, which, in turn, worsens the situation in part because facilitates the impunity of the aggressor that justifies their behaviors based on the problematic situation the victim is going through.

The "somatization" of the experience is also common, which, together with the stress it creates, can cause stomach pain, skin irritation, headaches, etc.

In short, workplace bullying has much more serious consequences for the victim than a simple "labor dispute".