Workplace bullying
Most people being bullied at work spend a long time trying to work out whether that is what is happening to them. That question can take up more room than the behaviour.
What workplace bullying can look like
In Australian work health and safety terms, work-related bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed at a worker or a group of workers that creates a risk to their health and safety. A one-off incident is not bullying under that definition, although it still matters, because it can happen again or get worse.
In practice it can look like belittling or abusive language. Criticism that is unfair, or that no amount of effort seems to satisfy. Being left out of the information or the meetings you need in order to do your job. Work set at a volume, or to deadlines, that cannot be met. Your hours, duties or reporting lines changed in ways that make your job harder.
It can come from a manager, from a colleague, or from several people at once — and a manager can be the person being targeted. Where more than one person is involved, leaving someone out or chipping away at them can spread through a team, so that behaviour one person might have dropped on their own keeps going instead. Some people know this as mobbing.
Whether it counts
Bullying is usually recognised as a pattern rather than a single event. Most individual instances can be explained away — a bad day, a misunderstanding, an oversight — and often are, by them and eventually by you. It is the build-up over time that does the damage, and a build-up is much harder to point to than one incident.
You do not need to have settled whether what happened meets a definition before bringing it, and its effects, to therapy.
What it tends to do
People describe some version of the same things.
- Replaying conversations afterwards, or reading the same email four times looking for what is really being said
- Dread with a timetable — Sunday evening, the drive in, a name appearing in a calendar invitation
- Paying close attention to people’s tone, to who was included and who was not, to what one particular person is doing
- Doubting your own memory of what was said, and losing confidence in work you used to be good at
- Shame, which people often don’t expect, and anger with nowhere to put it
- Pulling away from colleagues who have not done anything wrong, because it is easier
- Sleep going first, then appetite, then the things you used to do on weekends
None of that is a sign of weakness or of a fragile personality. When work feels unsafe or unpredictable for months at a time, people tend to become more and more alert to what others are saying and doing, and to what might be coming next. Staying that alert is exhausting, and it is very hard to explain to anyone who is not in it.
Bullying, conflict and reasonable management action
Two things are commonly confused with bullying. You will usually meet them in the form of someone telling you that what happened does not count.
Conflict. Differences of opinion and disagreement are generally not considered bullying. People can disagree, repeatedly and badly, without that amounting to unreasonable behaviour that puts someone’s health and safety at risk.
Reasonable management action. This one only comes up where a management decision or process is involved. It is not the alternative explanation for bullying in general. Australian guidance is that reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable way is not bullying — and both halves of that matter.
Allocating work, setting deadlines, rostering, restructuring, promotion decisions, performance feedback and disciplinary action are all legitimate things for an organisation to do. But each of the published examples comes with a condition attached: goals that are realistic and achievable, rostering that is fair, a transfer made for genuine operational reasons, a promotion decision reached through a fair and open process, disciplinary action where it is justified. And the same decision can be delivered honestly and constructively, or delivered in a way that humiliates or misleads the person receiving it.
So an action is not reasonable simply because of what it is called. Equally, a management decision that is unwelcome or upsetting is not bullying for that reason alone — the guidance says this is judged by looking at what was actually done, rather than at how it felt to the person on the receiving end.
That leaves a possibility people rarely allow themselves: that an organisation acted within its rights and you were still badly harmed. Whether it acted within its rights is decided elsewhere — by the organisation, a regulator or a tribunal. The harm is what therapy is for.
When it starts to look like trauma
People often reach for the word trauma, and it is worth being accurate about what is known.
Many people who say they have been bullied at work also describe the kinds of symptoms usually associated with post-traumatic stress — memories that push their way in, being constantly on guard, avoiding reminders, broken sleep. The largest review of that research found that on average about 57% of people who said they had been bullied scored high enough on symptom questionnaires to be of clinical concern. But every study in that review looked at people at a single moment in time, so none of them can show what led to what, and the reviewers concluded that whether bullying actually causes PTSD, as the diagnosis is formally defined, is still unresolved.
Workplace bullying is also linked to depression, anxiety and stress-related symptoms. Research following people over months and years found something more complicated than a straight line: people who were bullied tended to be in worse mental health later on, and people who already had mental health difficulties were also more likely to report being bullied later on. All of it comes from asking people about their own experience, which is a real limitation, and the researchers were careful not to claim that one causes the other. None of it means anyone brought bullying on themselves.
Not everyone who is bullied is traumatised. Some people are badly affected and then recover, particularly once it stops. Others are still carrying it years later.
Reporting, and what happens afterwards
Reporting workplace bullying can itself be stressful. Formal processes can take time, require you to describe difficult experiences more than once, and sometimes leave you feeling more exposed than before.
As a psychologist, I can assess the behaviour you describe, its pattern and psychological effects, including whether the reported pattern is consistent with workplace bullying.
Therapy can address both the workplace experiences and the psychological effects of what happens after you report them. If the behaviour has caused a psychological injury or you have lodged a claim, psychological injury and return to work covers that separately.
If you are still working in the workplace
Many people start therapy while they are still working in the workplace where the bullying is happening. Some cannot or do not want to leave their job.
The early work may be practical: making the working week more manageable, setting boundaries, handling difficult interactions, deciding what to document or respond to, and maintaining life outside work.
What we might work on
Therapy might focus on reducing day-to-day distress and improving sleep and concentration; making sense of and processing workplace experiences; rebuilding confidence in your judgement and professional competence; and working with anxiety, anger, shame or grief.
We might also work on the replaying, checking and constant guardedness that can develop over time, or think through decisions about staying, leaving, reporting or returning to work.
What we focus on depends on what is affecting you most. Sessions are online, Australia-wide, by secure video or phone.
Common questions
I am not sure it was actually bullying. Should I still come?
Yes. Working out what has been happening is part of the work, not something you need to do beforehand. Some people conclude it was something else — a badly managed team, an impossible role, or a conflict that escalated. Whatever conclusion you reach about the label, we can still work with how the experience has affected you.
Do I need to have made a complaint?
No. Most people I see have not made one, and many never will.
Can you give evidence or write a report supporting my complaint?
As your treating psychologist, I can document my clinical opinion about what you have described and its psychological effects, including whether the reported pattern is consistent with workplace bullying. Where reporting forms part of a funding arrangement, such as WorkCover or another insurer, I provide reports within the requirements of that arrangement.
Do you do workplace mediation, or speak with my employer?
No. I do not provide mediation, investigations or organisational workplace interventions. My work is with you.
The bullying is still happening at work. Is it too early for therapy?
No. Therapy can begin while the bullying is still happening, with the focus shaped around what you are dealing with now and what you need to manage.
Online appointments, Australia-wide · Read more on workplace psychological harm and psychological injury and return to work · About Suzanne Robertson · GPs and referrers: referral information