An Introduction to the Psychodynamics of Workplace Bullying

Sheila White

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781780491622
• eBook ISBN: 9780429910739
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book gives in-depth insights into the core issues of workplace bullying from the perspectives of the individuals involved, their interpersonal relationships, the group dynamics and organisational contexts. Workplace bullying is costly: increasingly petty conflicts are being registered as formal complaints and, in no time, legalities take over and costs spiral out of control. Preventive actions and interventions need to be based on a sound knowledge of the deeper issues which foster bullying scenarios. This book gets to the roots of why and how bullying occurs. Four main chapters are devoted to individuals, interpersonal relationships, group dynamics, and organisational contexts. The fifth chapter is a case study of the 'turn round' of a workplace in which bullying was rife. There are three recurring themes: recognition, loss, and space. New ways of conceptualising bullying are presented from drawing on the literature on the subject, as well as a range of psychodynamics theories. Bullying is described as a perverse and pernicious form of projective identification, occurring around organisational vacuums and structural fractures.

CHAPTER ONE
Individuals: bullies and victims

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to present in-depth insights into the motives and behaviours of bullies and victims. We begin with a review of research into bullying and then use psychoanalytical theories to explore the root causes of bullying from an intrapsychic perspective.

The first part of the chapter, the review of the research into bullying, starts with the derivation of the word “bully” and how its meaning has changed over time. Victims’ perceptions of bullying behaviour and how it impacts on them in the short and longer term are described. Then we look at the part played by victims. As there is no consensus on this topic amongst researchers, a range of views is presented, from the victim being a victim by chance to victims lacking resilience as a result of childhood experiences or alternatively being vulnerable because they differ, in some way, from the rest of the group. The behaviour of bullies is described in terms of three key characteristics: aggression, inconsistency, and envy. Key points are illustrated with case-study material.

The second part of the chapter explores some of the unconscious and subconscious processes which can help us to understand why and how bullying arises. There is an acceptance, in this intrapsychic perspective, that insights into early childhood development, in particular the mother-child relationship, can explain aspects of the adult psyche. (The term “mother” refers to the primary carer and is not necessarily the biological mother).

Various psychoanalytical theories explain the origins of the aggressive, inconsistent, and envious nature of bullies and why some individuals succumb to their attacks. Whilst describing the theories, an argument is developed for conceptualising bullying as a particularly perverse and pernicious form of projective identification.

Starting with the underlying dynamics of projection—the interplay between the life and death instincts and love and hate—we can begin to understand how bullying is so damaging. The rhythms of life and death go awry and “death” dominates in the form of psychic deadness. This concept helps us to appreciate an individual’s ability, and inability, to reflect on his/her actions and the impact of those actions on others. When trying to survive at work, to cope with feelings of psychic dead-ness and with anxieties about their relationships with others, bullies can be seen to use the primitive defence known as splitting. This creates a polarised view of the world. Mediators, and others who attempt to resolve conflicts, often notice that the bullies accuse victims of being “the bully”. The accusations of role reversal are explained through the concept of the paranoid-schizoid position. Another key dynamic underlying projective identification is the interplay of love and hate. In bullying this also goes awry. Hate creates a distance between bully and victim, a distance which bullies can exploit to their advantage.

Key concepts for understanding why some individuals lack resilience to being buffeted by the demands made by others are boundaries and containment. A description is given of how boundaries are first formed in the early years and how the nature of these boundaries influences future relationships. The concept “identification with the aggressor” shows how bullies may have been subject to aggression in childhood and how they continue, later in life, to act it out in the workplace. Having outlined the background theory to projective identification, this concept is explained along with its importance to understanding the intrapsychic processes of bullying. Finally, there is a description of the dynamics of envy, the main motive ascribed to bullies by victims.

The third section of the chapter brings together the theory on bullying and psychoanalytical theories to answer the following questions:

Why do bullies bully?

Why are some bullies more aggressive than others?

How do they bully?

Why do some bullies become victims and some victims become bullies?

Why are some victims badly damaged by their experiences, whereas others are relatively unscathed?

What can employees do to protect themselves against being bullied again?

How can HR managers help targets and bullies?

Research review

What is bullying?

The noun “bully” has its origins in the sixteenth century Middle Dutch word “boele” when it was used as a term of endearment and familiarity, applied to either gender. It implied that the bully was a sweetheart, darling, or lover (Websters, 1986). In England, following the late medieval era the word “boele” meant a fine fellow” and “blusterer”. By the mid-nineteenth century “bully” had taken on connotations of intimidation, threats, and an overbearing demeanour. “Bully” was used to mean a liar, pitiful wretch, unscrupulous individual, or someone to be feared. Today the noun “a bully” generally refers to “an aggressive person who intimidates or mistreats weaker people” (Oxford Concise Dictionary, 2004). However, remnants of the original and positive meaning of bully linger in the phrase “bully for you”, which expresses approval for a daring action, whilst the Dutch meaning of “boele” has also evolved and today has diverse colloquial meanings referring to, for example, a person who has committed adultery, to live outside marriage, a darling, to cheat, to mislead, an executioner, a hangman, and an untidy mess.

In the workplace and in schools the term “bullying” covers a wide range of behaviours, extending from teasing to violent assault. The behaviours are usually categorised as overt and covert. Overt behaviours include physical threats and verbal abuse such as ridiculing and constant criticism. Covert actions of bullies include lying, spreading malicious rumours, and undermining performance at work by denying individuals information and access to basic materials to carry out their tasks effectively. Employees’ workloads may be unmanageable, opinions and views ignored, and their tasks may have impossible targets and deadlines. Employees may be excessively monitored. Sudden changes to routines may be made which are unpredictable and appear illogical. Alternatively, procedures may be adhered to with such vehemence that the rigidity belies basic common sense especially when it is to the detriment of customers and colleagues. Individuals may also be excluded from the social group, sidelined by colleagues, scapegoated and isolated. Bullying effectively portrays targets as undesirables (Einarsen, 1999).

There is general consensus amongst researchers that bullying is not a one-off incident but occurs over a period of time. It is usually ongoing and escalatory.

Victims

The impact of bullying

Victims describe bullying behaviour as insulting, demeaning, patronising, humiliating, offensive, and aggressive (Keashley & Jatic, 2003).

Some victims express feelings of fear and dread. For example, a financial analyst in a multinational company said,

Bullying is a continuous fear of failure which tends to develop into a very high anxiety state. You are continually concerned, far more than normal, that what you are doing is right, so you tend to exist in a state of constant anxiety, and fear.

A temp in a UK sales office said,

Bullying is like being on a knife-edge of fear and dread. When you get up every morning and drive to work and you get that sinking feeling. When you get there and open the door—it swallows you up. The dread is almost worse than the experience. When you are away from the place you almost exaggerate it, whole weekends are spent dreading Monday—thinking about it all the time, imagining things.

Bullying destroys your life. You can’t relax, you can’t enjoy yourself, you can’t take pleasure in the things you used to enjoy because your whole life away from the place is spent thinking about the place and dreading going back.

A nurse in an NHS hospital described how a new colleague came into his ward and started changing things.

He appeared to take an instant dislike to me for some reason. I just felt he was victimising me for some reason I couldn’t understand. He made me feel quite on edge. I said good morning to him at first but he wouldn’t say good morning. He would mutter something then straight away pick up the phone. The ten minutes handing over to him were hell because he wasn’t listening. I felt that I shouldn’t have been there.

Victims often feel powerless to do anything to help themselves and gradually become worn down. They tend not to like themselves, to worry, to feel unsafe and sad, and believe that others would be better off without them (Berthold & Hoover, 2000).

A theatre technician in an NHS hospital who was being bullied by her line manager described bullying as intimidating and degrading.

It knocks your self-confidence and makes you feel worthless so you feel you can’t do anything. It makes you hate yourself. It gives you a very negative feeling about yourself.

A teacher described the powerlessness of her situation when she said,

You know you are mismanaging the situation; you are obviously not good enough. It’s this feeling there is no way out. There is nothing you can do, you are just not good enough.

In the long term, hostile actions threaten a person’s identity to the point where this is diminished (Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003). Employees targeted with workplace bullying liken themselves to vulnerable children, slaves, prisoners, and heartbroken lovers (Tracy, Lutgen-Sandvik, & Alberts, 2006). A victim described the long-term impact of bullying:

“I’ll never be the same again, never. It’s like everything’s been taken out of me, I mean esteem, I’ve got no self-esteem now like I used to. I think it is something you never get over”. (Kelly, 1999, p. 78)

An employee in a social services department said,

Bullying gets to the core of you. It’s soul destroying. It eats, takes all. It erodes your confidence to the extent you don’t know how to fight back.

Physical health often suffers too. Victims complain of headaches, feeling sick, disturbed sleep, palpitations, and loss of energy. Others experience stomach problems, aches and pains as well as panic attacks. Many become irritable, lack motivation, and have pent up feelings of anger. They may lose the ability to concentrate and become hypersensitive to situations. Some become emotionally exhausted (Agervold & Mikklesen, 2004).

A teacher, in her first teaching post, said,

The final showdown was when I was called in to the head’s office and given the sort of dressing down that might have been expected of an eleven-year-old kid who had done something really dreadful at home and whose parents were out to teach the child a lesson. The end result was that I was a complete quivering heap. She [the head teacher] completely and utterly demoralised me to the extent that I went home and a doctor had to be called. It was such a trauma that I have never stopped revisiting it. I don’t think I understood it at the time and I have never lost wanting to understand it.

The effects of bullying behaviour do not end with the exit from the workplace. It is very difficult for some victims to turn off the intrusive thoughts, which researchers describe as “thought terror” (Leymann & Gustafsson, 1996). The threat is repeated or relived in some way, such as in nightmares (Tracy, Lutgen-Sandvik, & Alberts, 2006). Outcomes may also include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and general anxiety disorder (GAD). PTSD was first identified in war veterans when it was found that fight and flight instincts were constantly active, long after the threat had been removed. Levels of PSTD were found to be even higher for victims of bullying than those for train drivers who had run over and killed suicidal individuals (Leymann & Gustafsson, 1996).

Some victims describe bullying in terms of death, as a fight in which the target is “killed”, “destroyed”, or “annihilated” (Tracy, Lutgen-Sandvik, & Alberts, 2006). Others complain of feelings of deadness; for example, a deputy head teacher said,

I feel so dead inside. It is as if part of me has died.

Long-term bullying is also linked to suicide and suicidal ideation (Leymann & Gustaffson, 1996; Mikkelsen & Einarsen, 2001). Children who had high levels of self-reported depressive symptoms at the age of eight were likely to be either bullies or victims at the age of sixteen (Souranda & Helsta, 2000). These researchers suggest that such depressive symptoms may reflect low self-esteem, immaturity, loneliness, and poor problem-solving skills.

The profile of the victim

A review of the research into the role of the personality of the victim shows a range of findings and viewpoints (Aquino & Thau, 2009). Some researchers suggest that any employee is vulnerable to becoming a victim (Einarsen, 1999; Thylefors, 1987). Little difference has been found between victims and other employees in terms of gender, age, and position within organisations (Hoel & Cooper, 2001). The destruction of the personality of the victims of workplace bullying is seen as a consequence of the bullying, rather than due to pre-existing personality factors (Leymann & Gustafsson, 1996).

Other researchers make clear links between experiences in early childhood and in school life. Bullying is the outcome of a complete pathway of influences that begins in the family and extends to bullying in the child’s peer group (Smith & Ananiadou, 2003). A longitudinal study of bullying and victimisation found that almost all the boys who were victims at the age of sixteen had also been victimised at the age of eight (Sourander & Helsta, 2000). Among the girls, from this study, about half of those who were victims at age sixteen had been victims at the age of eight. No explanation is given for the gender difference; however, as the researchers associate victimisation with internalising problems and as girls traditionally discuss their emotions more openly than boys, it could be surmised that the girls may have found the help they needed to change their roles.

Other researchers suggest a link between childhood and adult life. Victims may have had experiences in childhood, or afterwards, which predispose them to being bullied in the workplace (Adams, 1992; Randall, 1997). They fail to develop resilience (Bowes, Maughan, Caspi, Moffitt, & Arseneault, 2010; Waddell 2007). Resilience refers to a relative resistance to environmental risk experience or the overcoming of stress or adversity (Rutter, 2006). A significant correlation has been found between victimisation and styles of parenting; parents of victims tend to be intrusive and demanding to such an extent that the children are offered little opportunity to control, or influence, social situations (Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 1998). Children who are brought up with a passive social orientation, and a restricted sense of autonomy, have little opportunity to practise assertive interpersonal skills. In schools, once bullying has become established, low levels of maternal warmth and lack of sibling support fail to buffer children from the negative outcomes of bullying (Bowes, Maughan, Caspi, Moffitt, & Arseneault, 2010). There is evidence that some victims come from over-protective families who may not help a child to develop assertive social skills and coping strategies to deal with minor teasing and provocations, thus making them more likely to become targets for bullying (Smith & Myron-Wilson, 1998). When children are not given the opportunity to play positive roles in family power games, they lack tactical awareness and have a naivety which may continue well into adulthood. For example, a victim accused of various misdemeanours, even though he felt that he had followed the rules and done the “right” thing, said,

I didn’t realise people deliberately tell lies until I...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About The Author
• Preface
• CHAPTER ONE Individuals: bullies and victims
• CHAPTER TWO Interpersonal relationships
• CHAPTER THREE Groups
• CHAPTER FOUR Organisations
• CHAPTER FIVE A case study
• REFERENCES
• INDEX