News | Mobbing or Workplace Harassment

Have you ever suffered from Labor Mobbing or witnessed a similar episode? How has it affected your psyche? Did you have post-traumatic stress? Do you still have the aftermath of it?

In this note you will understand step by step what it is and how to heal from it.

The mobbing or Workplace Harassment is all systematic and constant attitude or behavior of a person or group towards another in the workplace, which violates their dignity and psychological, physical and emotional integrityin order to destroy it, degrading its work environment, and endangering its job.

Mobbing causes enormous suffering to the people who suffer from it, reduces the potential competitiveness of companies and reduces efficiency.

Therefore, it has three fundamental characteristics:

  • First of all, there may be one or more offenders.
  • Second, the harassment must be repetitive. It is a process that develops over time.
  • Third and last, there must be a victim of bullyingwhich suffers the harassment and its consequences.

Therefore, we deduce that the existence of harassment requires two opposing parties:

  • The “harassers/stalkers”with hostile, active, dominating behaviors and attitudes.
  • The “assaulted/victim”, whose behaviors and attitudes are passive or inhibitory.

There are different types of Moral harassment at workaccording to the hierarchical position:

Workplace harassment of the boss (vertical harassment)

The bossing work is one that is generated from a position higher in the business organization chart.

In other words, it is the corresponding boss or superior who perpetrates bullying at work, using their power in an abusive, disproportionate and perverse manner.

If it were the other way around, that is, if the attack was from an employee towards his boss, we would be facing upward mobbing.

Workplace harassment between colleagues (horizontal harassment)

Horizontal mobbing is a type of workplace harassment that occurs between equal or similar positions.

In other words, it is workplace harassment between co-workers or people on the same team, since they have the same hierarchical level in the organization.

How to recognize behaviors that may indicate that you are suffering from Workplace Harassment?

Some behaviors occur activesuch as shouting, insults, repression, humiliation in public or in private, false accusations, threats or coercion, etc.

Others, on the contrary, manifest themselves passivesometimes making it more difficult to recognize them as forms of harassment: prohibitions or obstacles in access to the information necessary for the job, elimination of the necessary support for the worker, reduction or elimination of the essential training for the employee, denial of communication, “doing the void”, not allowing the worker to express your opinion, fail to communicate meeting dates and places, fail to provide crucial information or provide wrong information, causing the worker to perform poorly, etc.

Consequences of workplace harassment: moral damages and psychological damage

This situation has repercussions in many ways for the worker:

On a physical level, cardiovascular disorders (hypertension, arrhythmias); muscle and joint pain; respiratory disorders (shortness of breath, hot flashes, hyperventilation) or gastrointestinal disorders (abdominal pain, dizziness, vomiting, ulcers). On a psychic level, anxiety, depression, apathy, sleep disturbances, changes in appetite, cognitive distortions, fears, suspicion, emotional instability, feelings of guilt, negative thoughts, fear of the future, memory problems. On a social level, isolation behaviors. At work level, professional undermining of the victim, decrease in employability, and even economic prostration.

What to do if you experience workplace bullying?

We cannot ignore that it supposes a violation of the rights of the worker recognized in the Constitution, specifically of the right to physical integrity and personal and professional dignity of the worker.

Many people wonder how to prevent it from happening. Due to the profile of the victim, and its slow and constant appearance, it is difficult to prevent. Normally we realize when we are already in that situation.

And that’s when you need help, a psychological accompaniment so you don’t get stuck in an anxiety or mood disorder. We can avoid it with a psychological treatment. Also recover your self-esteem.

Marcela Sicilian. Degree in Psychology. MN 36,920

Brief Psychotherapies. Request appointment via Whatsapp written to +54 9 1149394049

Face-to-face and online psychotherapy.

Instagram @lic_marcelasiciliano

Radio Program EL DESPERTAR by Radio Fm Milenium, Radio Fm Amadeus, Radio Am del Pueblo and Radio Continental de México via Internet.

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