por What is psychological harassment?
He psychological harassmentalso known as moral harassment, refers to a type of personal treatment that is vexatious and disqualifying, mentally damaging the person who suffers it.
In order to talk about psychological harassment, it is necessary that the person who carries it out does so in order to psychologically unbalance the other person.
This type of abuse is characterized by violating the dignity and moral integrity of the person, and entails psychological abuse and emotional abuse.
The main reason why this type of treatment is called psychological harassment is that it always means psychological abuse and emotional abuse towards the person.
Different types of psychological harassment have been established, such as workplace harassment, sexual harassment, school bullying, cyberbullying or family bullying. Each of them is characterized by being carried out in a different field and through specific terms.
Characteristics of psychological harassment
Psychological harassment has a set of circumstances that can occur in different types of contexts and that are characterized by:
– Execution of behaviors of extreme psychological violence: overwhelm, shout, insult, offend, humiliate, threaten.
– Exercising such behaviors systematically and continuously.
– Carrying out abusive behaviors on another person or on a specific group of people.
– Psychological bullying is always carried out by a specific person or group of people.
– Abusive and psychologically violent behaviors are carried out for a prolonged period of more than six months.
– The abusive behaviors are carried out in a certain environment (work, family, school, etc.).
– The person who performs it always looks at the negative aspects to humiliate.
– Those who psychologically harass do so from a position of power or strength: they believe they have the truth and the others are inferior.
Effects on the victim
Psychological harassment is characterized by encompassing a series of abusive attitudes and behaviors towards another person. These harassing behaviors are carried out with the aim of producing a direct effect on the victim.
Normally, the effects pursued fall on the wear and psychological submission of the person.
depression in the victim
Moral harassment plunges the victim into a depressive spiral that, in some cases, can end with self-lytic or suicidal behavior. According to psychiatrist Marie-France Hirigoyen, extreme cases of moral harassment can be interpreted as psychic murders.
Initially, bullying begins by destabilizing the victim until they progressively lose confidence in themselves and in others. In this way, the objective of psychological harassment is to create a situation of total defenselessness over the harassed.
anxiety and tension
Likewise, the process of psychological harassment is characterized by, at first, causing anxiety and tension in the victim, a fact that motivates the appearance of a defensive attitude.
Said attitude of the harassed person usually motivates new subtle aggressions, so the objective of the aggressor is not to destroy his victim immediately, but to subdue and control him over time.
Types of psychological harassment
Workplace Harassment
Workplace harassment, commonly known through the English term «mobbing», constitutes a series of actions carried out by a harasser or several harassers towards a victim or a group of victims.
The actions of the harassers are characterized by having the objective of producing fear, terror, contempt or discouragement to the other person within the workplace, thus affecting their performance and their professional situation.
The main behaviors that are carried out in workplace harassment are:
– Shouting, bullying or insulting the victim when she is alone or in front of other people.
– Assign objectives or projects with unattainable deadlines.
– Overload the victim selectively with a lot of work.
– Continuous threats.
– Take away key areas of responsibility.
– Treat you in a discriminatory manner.
– Ignore and exclude him systematically.
– Withhold crucial information for your work.
– Defame the victim by spreading comments throughout the company.
– Do not value at all the effort made by the victim.
sexual harassment
Sexual harassment refers to a range of intimidating or coercive attitudes and behaviors of a sexual nature, as well as the unwanted or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors.
This type of behavior is illegal in most legal contexts, and can affect people of both sexes.
However, statistically, most cases of sexual harassment are carried out on women. Likewise, the main harassers are men, who exercise this type of behavior in work, academic or even family environments.
Bullying, or bullying
Bullying refers to any form of psychological, verbal or physical abuse that occurs between schoolchildren. These abusive behaviors are carried out repeatedly over a certain period of time, both inside and outside of class.
In this case, the dominant type of violence is emotional and tends to originate mainly in the classroom and in the playground of schools.
The protagonists of this type of situation are usually boys and girls who are in the process of entering adolescence. Likewise, the victim profile tends to be much more prevalent among girls than among boys.
Cyber bullying
Cyberbullying, also known as virtual bullying or cyberbullying, refers to those types of abusive and restrictive behaviors that are carried out through the use of digital media.
The main characteristic of cyberbullying is that it allows abusive behaviors to be carried out on the victim practically at any time and in any situation, thus increasing its severity and the harmful effects on the victim.
Through the use of digital communication, the bully is able to «attack his victim» even when he is not physically in contact with her. The main behaviors related to cyberbullying are:
– False accusation: damaging the victim’s reputation on social media through manipulation.
– Posting false information about the victim on websites.
– Collection of information about the victim.
– Monitoring of the victim’s activities.
– Expression of insults and threats through websites.
– Grooming.
school cyberbullying
School cyberbullying is the most frequent type of cyberbullying and is characterized by the use of the media to harass a person within the school environment.
This practice is carried out to a greater extent by adolescents or pre-adolescents and is usually fed back with “non-cybernetic school bullying”.
real estate harassment
Real estate harassment consists of exercising harassment to cause self-deprivation of the enjoyment of a home or leased property.
The main actions of this type of harassment are characterized by creating a hostile environment in the home, whether in the material, personal or social aspect, with the ultimate purpose of forcing the person to make an unwanted decision about the right that shelter to occupy the house.
family bullying
Finally, family bullying refers to bullying behaviors and behaviors that take place within the family environment, between members of the same family.
Profile of the harassed
Women have much higher rates of harassment than men. Certain specific ages, such as adolescence and pre-adolescence, also seem to present higher rates of psychological bullying.
Regarding personality traits, a series of characteristics have been postulated that could be related to victims of bullying. The main ones are:
– They are capable of forming their own opinion without cloning it or appropriating that of others.
– They are capable of questioning opinions and judgments.
– They may present a certain social isolation.
– They may present a lack of social defense.
– They turn out to be autonomous, independent people with initiative.
– They can be excessively naive and/or trusting on certain occasions.
– They may present depressive traits.
stalker profile
Regarding the profile of the stalker, certain characteristics have currently been described. In general, the narcissistic and paranoid personality traits are the ones that are most strongly related to psychological bullies.
Likewise, the following psychological mechanisms are also usually observed in a large part of the cases:
– Bullies perceive victims as supporting the qualities they are trying to appropriate more than as people and, in some cases, they may have an inferiority complex for not having those qualities.
– The bully’s behavior tends to be due to an attempt to cover up or camouflage their own deficiencies.
– Bullies tend to be competitive, controlling, manipulative and seductive people.
– Bullies usually present a mental and behavioral scheme in terms of dominance-submission.
References
(2006). Moral harassment at work: prevention and action guide against mobbing. Lettera Publications, SL
Jose Bolton, Stan Graeve (2005). No Room for Bullies: From the Classroom to Cyberspace. Boys Town Press.
Rodriguez Lopez, Teresa (2006). Moral harassment, mobbing. Theory. Editorial CEP, SL