Thank you for your reply and for welcoming me to the forum, kaliope

I appreciate that you only have a screen full of text to go by. If I were reading more into the situation than is really there then I would have done so in many earlier situations in my life. Well before my current age of 63, I would have realized that there was something fundamentally wrong with my perception and would have taken steps to address exactly what that "something" was.

As you may know, there are usually well-established procedures to be followed in any dispute between work colleagues. I have been to an advice center and my next steps are:

1) An informal talk with my boss

2) A written letter to my boss should the outcome of 1) be unsatisfactory

3) A referral to an arbitration service should 2) be unsatisfactory

My personal inclination - for which I do not currently have funds - is to sidestep all of the above and take out a civil action against the co-worker, use recognized "independent experts" to establish the veracity of what I've stated in the original post, and then see who's left standing when the dust settles. I would also ensure as much local publicity as the law may allow.

The reason why I'm currently not using my real name is because I'm waiting to see how the situation at work develops.

I have a small psychology website consisting of three posts. They were all written in 2009 with the last basically stating that I wouldn't be writing anymore. In 2010 an ad agency called Total Marketing emailed me to say one of their clients was willing to pay 50c a day to have a small text link included on the three pages.

The reason for the offer was probably because one of the posts describes a woman in her twenties who was admitted to an institution and not expected to leave - a "human vegetable". As a private individual, I argued that the woman's condition wasn't a "mental illness" at all but the result of well over two decades of abuse. I then made a deal with her solicitor in which I agreed to bring her back to a point where the usual agencies could take over.

How do you reach someone who doesn't even know you're there? On our first meeting, I gave the woman a cigarette, lit it for her, and watched as she took a single puff and then forgot all about it. That single automatic response told me I had access to the "old brain" - my area of expertise.

The reason I have such a lowly position in Society is because I once made a commitment to a 4-year old boy that required research into an obscure area of psychology for which there is little recognition and no financial reward. A commitment, however, is a commitment.

I have a genuine interest in abuse techniques and have quite a collection to (eventually) upload to my psychology website. Any feedback from PsychCentral regarding the specific technique described in the OP would be very welcome. On another forum, for example, a woman from Maryland has said, "In my life I have had one man and three women try this on me" - that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Robert Bartels