Mobbing, violence in the workplace

Mobbing, or psychological harassment in the workplace, is a situation in which a person holds an extreme psychological violence on another person or persons in the workplace. It lies within the specialty of psychiatry and is considered a public health problem by the UN and currently is an offense in the Spanish Penal Code.

What is mobbing?

Mobbing is a form of violence in the workplace; even if it is a timely incident it is not considered harassment. This violence is exercised in a systematic and recurrent for a prolonged in order to destroy communication networks of the victim, destroying his professional reputation, alter the course of their work and make finally time, that person runs out leaving the place work.

Numerous studies show that bullying occurs more frequently in larger companies, universities and hospitals.

Profile: victim and harasser

There is a psychological profile of the victim of bullying, and anyone can be a victim of this situation at any given time. However, there are other people at risk of mobbing. These are people with a high sense of morality and a level of self demand very rigorous, with great respect for social norms, image-conscious, autonomous initiatives, with great professional ability and appreciated by his peers.

As for the stalker profile, it is usually a person with no sense of guilt, manipulative, cowardly, aggressive and sometimes even professionally mediocre.

How can you tell if someone is bullying?

Mainly due to the emergence of anxiety, the presence of an intense and continuous fear, feeling of constant threat in the workplace. other emotional disorders such as feeling of failure, helplessness and frustration, low self esteem or apathy, impaired concentration and attention, insomnia, somatization, irritability, sadness and melancholy can also occur. This can lead to the affected person develops behaviors to mitigate their anxiety that cause an addiction to alcohol or other drugs.

In the end, this situation also affects their social and family environment interfering in their daily lives and with very serious consequences, such as the suicide.

How to deal with a case of mobbing

First, it has to become aware of the existence of mobbing. Most victims take months to realize that they are suffering psychological harassment, so there is already a significant psychological impact. Once aware of it is taken, the victim must be placed in the hands of a professional expert in this pathology in order to regain their mental health.

Upon regaining stability, the specialist will advise and guide you on the different existing strategies to address bullying. It requires specialist research company and launches the appropriate complaint with the Labour Inspectorate as a prelude to the prosecution (social, criminal or civil) case step, which will be appropriate to order a psychiatric expert report.